By Paul Reoch

STAFF AT the Perth headquarters of Norwich Union have been working long periods of overtime in the aftermath of the floods in England.

During the floods, calls into Norwich Union household claims centres doubled overall and increased 10-fold in the areas affected by the severe weather.

Norwich Union, which is owned by Aviva, paid out more than £175 million to home insurers after devastating weather hit the south of England and yesterday it was revealed that this had a large impact on staff at its Pitheavlis premises in Perth.

Figures provided by Norwich Union last night show that an average of 620 hours was worked per month to deal with the mass of work as a result of the floods.

“This is equal to around 144 hours a week,” a spokesperson said.

“They have been working earlier and later shift, for example, from 7am in the morning until 8pm at night and most weekends.

“Since the storms in January of this year, there has only been seven weekends when staff haven’t worked overtime.

“All overtime is voluntary but there has been a high proportion of staff wanting to do the extra shifts.

“We would obviously like to thank them for their hard work and commitment.”

He continued, “Norwich Union is dealing with around 30,000 property claims as a result of the floods.

“Perth has around 130 household claims staff, with the claims operation working is 24/7, 365 days a year.

“Our call centre in Manchester picks up the overnight calls.”

Employees at Pitheavlis have had to endure periods of uncertainty over possible job cuts at Norwich Union but Perth MSP Roseanna Cunningham said she hoped the amount of overtime worked demonstrated the importance of the staff.

She said, “Obviously events like the severe flooding experienced in parts of England this year create a huge amount of work for insurance companies, particularly in the claims and customer service departments.

“I am pleased that Norwich Union have recognised the hard work and commitment of their Perth-based staff over the past months.

“Hopefully that contribution will be borne in mind by senior management next time they are considering restructuring of the business or, better yet, the distribution of new jobs.”

The flooding in the UK led to profits at Aviva falling by 8% for the first half of the year.