Suncorp, Youi cut staff amid cost drive

Queensland insurers Suncorp and Youi are cutting staff numbers amid growing challenges for the insurance sector including increasing natural disasters.

Queensland insurers Suncorp and Youi are trimming staff amid growing cost challenges for the sector that is also facing increasing climate risks.

Suncorp is reportedly cutting 25 management roles in insurance as it restructures ahead of the pending $4.9bn sale of its banking operation to ANZ. Sunshine Coast-based Youi, meanwhile, is cutting 40 non-customer-facing roles.

In a note to staff sent last week and seen by The Australian, Suncorp chief executive Steve Johnston said working on new management structures was “an important step to further embed the insurance operating model … and will ensure our new teams are well positioned to achieve what we’ve set out in our [three-year] business plan”.

That note followed an anonymous email from some staff sent to Mr Johnston that warned looming job cuts were affecting morale. Staff working on the insurance side of the business claimed they had been working in “limbo” since the ANZ deal was rejected by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission this year and a structural reorganisation was unveiled.

Suncorp is hoping an appeal to the Australian Competition Tribunal will see the deal get over the line. The tribunal gave the green light this month for the Queensland government to intervene in a legal challenge to the ACCC’s rejection decision.

Youi said that in an environment where “affordability and availability of insurance is a major issue for Australians, it was looking at ways to minimise insurance premium increases while maintaining its high customer service standards”.

Youi said it had invested heavily in frontline customer services roles, with its headcount increasing by more than 200 people in the year to October to about 2000.

It said it expected employee numbers to continue to increase. However, it said it recognised it needed to be more efficient in its back office.

While minimising redundancies through natural attrition and internal redeployments, about 40 non-customer-facing roles had been made redundant, the company said.

The Climate Council said that since the Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20, there had been 11 declared insurance catastrophes.

Since January 2020, insurers have received almost 788,000 weather-related claims that have been declared catastrophes or significant events.

Originally published as Suncorp, Youi cut staff amid cost drive