Unisys takes over Abbey Life staff

Around 1000 employees of life assurance provider Abbey Life are being transferred to Unisys as part of a £220m 10-year outsourcing deal.

Part of LloydsTSB, Abbey Life is handing over all but 400 of its staff to a new Unisys subsidiary called Unisys Insurance Services Limited (UISL).

Abbey Life currently administers 1.5 million life insurance policies using 17 different IT systems and, as part of the contract, Unisys will migrate these into a single system in a four-year project.

The company's business is being wound down, following LloydsTSB's acquisition of Scottish Widows in March last year. All of Abbey Life's sales force were transferred to Allied Dunbar, and it is no longer taking on new clients.

"It's difficult to retain skilled people if you're running the business down. We didn't want to just take cost out and get rid of staff. We recognised their value and wanted to find a good solution for them," said Chris Evans, managing director at Abbey Life.

Staff had not been informed about the company's plans while potential outsourcing bidders were evaluated, but once Unisys was selected last August, Abbey Life chose a novel way to break the news.

"The staff arrived at work in the morning, and we told them to get on a coach. We took them to Bournemouth Winter Gardens where Unisys was waiting, and we talked to them about our decision. Staff in our Croydon office were taken to the Fairfield Halls where we had put in a satellite link," said Evans.

UISL will use the influx of staff to target other insurance providers. Unisys' UK managing director Brian Hadfield expects to announce new customers later this year.

First published in Computing