Royal & Sun Alliance, Britain's second-largest insurance company, is planning to shift over 1,100 jobs to India as a part of its cost-cutting exercise.

The company hopes to save as much as £10 million (Rs 82.20 crore) annually by sending its call centre and customer service jobs to Bangalore.

The insurance major has a staff of about 100 people in India already, which the company will increase to 1,200 by the year 2006.

Royal & Sun Alliance said that some British employees could lose their jobs, but most of the job-cuts in the United Kingdom will be the result of 'natural turnover.'

Duncan Boyle, Royal & Sun's chief executive officer, was quoted by agencies as having said: "We work in a very competitive environment and processing some of our work in India will not only help us control costs but will also give us greater operational flexibility,"

Meanwhile, Britain's two biggest employee unions --

Amicus and Unifi -- said over 8,000 job losses had been announced in the past few months even as British companies eye low wage nations, like India, as top destinations to create jobs in and thereby save costs for themselves.

Aviva, Britain's biggest insurance firm, also announced that it would create 950 offshore jobs in India and Sri Lanka next year, and 7,000 jobs by 2007.

Many big British firms have in the past year announced big job cuts in the United Kingdom, shifting jobs overseas, particularly India.