Aspect Insurance

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Nathan Hucker and Kane Transport scoop the award and Biglorryblog has the story.

Suffolk's St Edmundsbury Borough Council has created a joint committee with neighbouring Forest Heath District Council to work on route optimisation for its refuse and cleansing trucks.

Target of £100m cost savings to be reached by 2011

Insurance and pensions group Standard Life is to cut 600 jobs over the next 15 months as part of a major overhaul of the business. The Edinburgh-based insurer's new chief executive David Nish, who took over from Sir Sandy Crombie in January, is wielding the axe to streamline operations and shift the group's focus to long-term savings products such as individual and company pensions, rather than life insurance and investment bonds.

Standard Life said 480 jobs would go in Edinburgh and 95 at its regional offices across Britain, with another 25 lost in its overseas operations. Of the jobs being cut, about 100 are held by contractors, another 100 of the reductions are expected to be achieved through natural attrition, and 24 are vacancies that will not be filled.

Scottish secretary Michael Moore said: "The news of jobs losses at Standard Life is a real cause for concern." He urged the firm to "do all it can to minimise the numbers of staff affected" and said he would be meeting Nish shortly to discuss his concerns with him.

Moore added: "Financial services will continue to play a key role in Scotland's economy and I will continue to do all I can at British government level to support and grow the number of jobs the sector brings to Scotland."

At the same time, Standard Life is creating 100 new jobs elsewhere in the business as part of a £200m investment drive in core areas, flagged earlier this year. The company, which employs about 7,500 of its 10,000 staff in the UK, including 6,000 in Scotland, said the job reductions would be across the board, affecting IT, finance, risk, marketing and communications – "from director level right down to the most junior members of staff".

It is the second phase of a major shake-up, which saw 11 directors leave at the end of June, while 12 new roles were created, including the appointment of Mark Dixon as chief technology officer. The insurer also merged its sales, marketing and distribution units in Britain, Europe, Canada and Asia. "As we transform Standard Life to deliver its growth ambitions, there is a need to both invest for future growth and actively manage our costs to be competitive," said Nish. "The decision is part of the journey towards being a more adaptable and flexible organisation. Our people will be provided with the support they need while the group goes through this necessary change."

The changes are beginning to pay off, with the company enjoying a 10% rise in first-half operating profit to £182m last month and raising its interim dividend by 4.8%. It now manages pension scheme assets of £18bn after winning 90 new company retirement schemes.

Nish is focusing on selling individual self-invested personal pensions as well as running corporate schemes, ahead of the introduction of compulsory workplace pensions from 2012. He sees Britain as crucial to Standard Life's business strategy, although he has also pointed to India and China as regions with lucrative growth opportunities. By contrast, rival Aviva is chasing business in continental Europe and in Britain, while Prudential remains focused on Asia, even though its attempt to buy AIA failed.

The job cuts will help Standard Life achieve its cost savings target of £100m by the end of 2011. A spokeswoman added: "Standard Life is going through a transformation. We are flattening a lot of hierarchies and making sure there is no duplication of roles. We need to manage the cost base and ensure the right skills are in the right position to take the business forward."

The company stressed it was trying to keep compulsory redundancies to a minimum. It is now entering a 90-day consultation with its staff association.

In March, Standard Life set out its new strategy, focused on its core businesses of corporate, retail, investment management and Asian joint ventures.

• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway group rumoured to be interested in buying Direct Line
• RBS must sell insurance subsidiary, valued at up to £6bn, and is looking for investment bankers to handle the deal

Royal Bank of Scotland has begun vetting potential advisers over the sale of its Direct Line subsidiary, prompting speculation that Warren Buffett might add the insurance business to his investment empire.

The billionaire investor's Berkshire Hathaway group has reportedly expressed interest in Direct Line after RBS last week launched a beauty parade of investment bankers to handle any deal. RBS favours a flotation of the business but it is thought that heavy losses caused by car accident claims have increased the chances of a sale.

RBS is 83% owned by the UK government and must sell its insurance arm – which includes the Churchill and Green Flag brands – following a ruling by the European Commission in the wake of its £54bn taxpayer-funded rescue.

A spokesman for the Edinburgh-based bank said a disposal deadline of December 2013 meant there is no pressure for a rapid IPO or sale. "We have until the end of December 2013 so it is far too early to speculate," he said.

Stephen Hester, RBS chief executive, has said that a listing is "still the preferred option". Berkshire Hathaway did not return calls seeking a comment.

RBS has warned that 2,600 jobs will go from its insurance and retail businesses following the Brussels ruling, which included an order to sell 318 RBS branches which were bought by Spain's Santander earlier this month. Hester had put the insurance arm at the centre of the bank's recovery plans but has been forced to axe 2,000 jobs from the business to ready it for an IPO or disposal. The bank's insurance division has been valued at up to £6bn and was the subject of a £4.5bn bid from private equity firm CVC two years ago.

According to reports today, the chances of a successful IPO have been dented by a rise in injury claims from road traffic accidents at Direct Line, spurred by the growth in no-win, no-fee legal firms. This prompted a 36% rise in payouts by Direct Line between January and June this year, to £2.1bn, pushing the business into a loss of £231m compared with a profit of £217m for the same period last year.

The insurance industry has buzzed with takeover activity this year. Prudential's ill-judged foray into the Asian market has been followed by RSA's £5bn bid for Aviva's UK, Irish and Canadian general insurance operations. Aviva rejected the approach, but there is speculation that French rival Axa could step in with an offer.

Paternoster, a pensions firm run by a former Prudential executive, has been put up for sale as industry insiders admitted that too many players are chasing too small a profit pool. That is the view of Resolution, which was set up two years ago by Clive Cowdery, an insurance entrepreneur, with the aim of consolidating the life insurance industry. So far Resolution has bought Friends Provident and Axa's UK arm.

Phoenix, the recently listed 'zombie' fund manager, says its embedded value rose 7% to almost £2bn in first half

Phoenix Group, the life insurer formerly known as Pearl, is preparing to go on a buying spree next year after announcing strong maiden results today.

Britain's largest "zombie" insurance fund manager, which buys up funds that have been closed to new business, listed on the London Stock Exchange last month and expects to enter the FTSE 250 index in September, raising its profile and boosting its share price.

Jonathan Moss, the chief executive, said the next priority for the company, which was previously owned by private equity investors, was to renegotiate the repayment schedule for its £2.7bn debt, much of which matures between 2014 and 2016. It wants to persuade its banks, which include Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland, to spread the repayments "so we pay down the debt over the life of the business. The profit we will make will emerge over 20 to 25 years". He hopes to have revised terms in place by the first quarter of next year.

Set up by pizza and pub entrepreneur Hugh Osmond, the company took over rival insurer Resolution in 2007 and then missed payments on the debt issued by Resolution. It had to seek a capital injection from Liberty Acquisition Holdings last year, and finally reached a £200m agreement to simplify its capital structure in June. "This has been a pivotal period for us, completing many key corporate objectives including the premium listing on the London Stock Exchange and a significantly simplified capital structure," said Moss

Once its has its revised borrowing terms in place, the life insurer, which appointed Northern Rock chairman Ron Sandler as its own chairman to raise its credibility with investors, plans to go on an acquisition spree. Merging funds will cut the cost of managing the insurance policies. While there are still dozens of closed life funds left in the UK, Phoenix is only interested in the 10-20 that are worth £500m plus. Any purchases will be funded from cashflow. "We're not going to go and raise capital now," said Moss. "We have no intention of building a warchest."

Cash inflows are expected to be at the top of its target range of £625m-£725m this year. Embedded value – a key measure, which estimates the value of assets and the income stream from life policies already in force – rose 7% to nearly £2bn in the six months to 30 June. Phoenix proposed an interim dividend of 21p a share.

City analysts welcomed the results. "Management has accomplished quite a lot during the first half, and we expect another milestone soon with the FTSE 250 entry in September," said analysts at JP Morgan Cazenove.

"The group continues to demonstrate that it can extract significant cash from its back book, and there is, in our view, further to come here, as funds merge and management optimises the capital structure."

The financial services sector has been fleecing retirement funds for years but should not be allowed to use this product to continue the practice nor employers to cover up lack of cash

Pension funds have found a new way to fritter away the cash saved by workers. It is called liability insurance.

Every pension conference is dominated by the subject. Employers with final salary-scheme guarantees, and large deficits to match, will grab at almost any product that promises to make the problem disappear.

It involves buying derivatives, swaps and hedging investments at vast expense to offset any shocks from poor investment returns or future increases in life expectancy, inflation and interest rates. All the big investment banks and their advisers are queuing up to persuade pension funds to buy these insurance products. Conference delegates, under orders from their finance directors, listen intently during sessions on "how to de-risk your fund". Outsourcing all or part of the fund to an insurance company, often at vast expense, is another option.

Earlier this week the government's lifeboat fund, which rescues bust company schemes, said it preferred a slightly different strategy. The Pension Protection Fund, which is expected to double the amount of assets it manages to £10bn, once the current crop of bust companies are admitted to its scheme, will keep a buffer fund, or separate savings pot, to cover risk, rather than pay for expensive insurance – like someone who buys new kitchen appliances and refuses to pay for extended warranties. That's not across the board. It will hedge some risks, but refuses to go down the route of calculating all risks and insuring against them.

The financial services industry has fleeced retirement funds of their cash for years with exorbitant broking and transaction fees and extortionate management charges. It cannot be allowed to repeat the trick with insurance.

Stanford wants insurers to stump up millions for fraud case

The financier Allen Stanford is trying to force a reluctant group of Lloyd's of London underwriters to foot legal bills for his defence against $7bn (£4.5bn) fraud charges laid by the US government, in a battle over an insurance policy indemnifying executives of his defunct business empire against litigation.

The former cricket impresario and several senior colleagues from his Stanford International banking group began a courtroom showdown with the Lloyd's insurers in front of a Texas judge this week, seeking an injunction forcing the group, led by Brit Insurance, to stump up millions of pounds for an increasingly complex and long-running criminal case.

Stanford, 60, was once a billionaire but claims to have become destitute since his arrest last year on charges of defrauding US investors with savings certificates that were allegedly a front for a pyramid scheme. The Lloyd's insurers have already paid out $6m to cover lawyers for Stanford alone. But they balked at any further expenditure in November, arguing that Stanford and his co-defendants, who include accounting executives Mark Kuhrt and Gilbert Lopez, had breached a clause that voids the policy in the event of money laundering.

Stanford, say the insurers, was "participating and furthering a ponzi scheme that resulted in the misappropriation of millions of dollars in investor funds". They continue: "Therefore, underwriters are not liable for any damages or losses, including costs …"

Stanford, who claims it is near impossible for him to prepare for a complex fraud trial from behind bars, has fired his way through several sets of lawyers.

He argues about the charges that if there was any wrongdoing, he was unaware of it because he was not closely involved in the day-to-day operation of the private bank. "The evidence will show there wasn't any ponzi scheme," Robert Bennett, a lawyer for Stanford, told judge Nancy Atlas.