Helvetia: 500 jobs affected by cost-cutting measures
Keystone-SDA
Some 500 jobs, including 200 to 250 in Switzerland, are affected by the new operational efficiency measures recently announced by Swiss insurer Helvetia.
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Some of these jobs will be relocated abroad, the St Gallen-based group said on Friday.
Restructuring measures will extend over a period of three years, enabling job cuts to be “significantly limited” through natural fluctuation, internal mobility and requalification measures, a Helvetia spokesperson told AWP on Friday, confirming a report by the Inside Paradeplatz portal.
As for online insurance provider Smile, the group has halted its expansion in Spain, wanting first to focus on synergies between its Iberian subsidiaries Helvetia Seguros and Caser. “The relevant teams and customer relations in Spain will be integrated into Helvetia,” the spokesperson added in an e-mail.
These decisions have no impact on Smile’s strategy in Switzerland and Austria. No financial repercussions are expected.
In mid-December, the Group had indicated that it wanted to increase its operating efficiency by more than CHF200 million and improve the combined ratio, which stood at 95.4% in the first half of the year, by around 2 percentage points by the end of the first three-year cycle at the end of 2027.
To achieve this goal, the insurer intends to merge its Spanish units Helvetia Seguros and Caser.
However, the insurer declined to comment on Inside Paradeplatz‘s reports on a possible withdrawal from the German market by mid-2025.
Translated from French by DeepL/mga
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