Aviva Plc, the fifth largest insurer globally, will hire about 3,300 more people in India and Sri Lanka by 2007, as part of its strategy to outsource some of its life and non-life services.

Aviva, which has a life insurance joint venture with Dabur in India, on Wednesday announced plans to hire 760 more people in India and another 190 in the island nation to take the headcount to 4,460 by 2005.

"We will create substantial number of jobs in India and Sri Lanka. We expect to increase the number to 7,000 by 2007," Aviva Offshore Service chief operating officer Sean Egan said on phone from London.

Aviva had already employed 3,700 people in India and 25 in Sri Lanka to outsource some of its services.

The British insurer is going to save substantial amount on staff cost but Egan declined to give any number.

Aviva expects about 150 'compulsory redundancies' in 2005 as a result of the offshoring of jobs.

Egan said the group chose India for offshoring services as it already has life insurance operations here. India also offered capable financial executives, Egan said.

"In the UK, Aviva operates in a very competitive markets where customers continually seek better value for money and quality service. The experience of our existing offshore operations shows that the service levels in India continue to match those that we achieve in our UK operations," he said.

The Indian offshoring arm would mainly provide back-office administration for the group's UK business.

"Expanding our offshoring plans will give us increased capacity," Egan said.

"We operate in very competitive markets where customers continually seek better value for money and quality of service. The experience of our existing offshore operations shows that the service levels in India continue to match those that we achieve in our UK Operations," Gary Withers, Norwich Union Life's chief executive said.

"Expanding our offshore operations will give us the increased capacity we need. We expect to conclude our off-shoring plans by the end of 2007 by which time we anticipate that we will have up to 7,000 roles offshore servicing our existing UK businesses," he added.