London, Sep 14 (IANS) Insurance major Aviva Thursday announced plans to cut 4,000 jobs in Britain and move nearly 1,000 of them to India by 2008 as part of its efforts to trim costs and streamline operations.

A company release said that another 500 IT posts would be outsourced. The move was part of earlier-announced plans to move 7,800 jobs overseas by the end of next year.

Aviva said it would look to "minimise the number of compulsory redundancies".

Aviva, which owns Norwich Union, hopes to reduce duplication and improve efficiency to deliver annual cost savings of 250 million pounds by 2008.

The company said: "Aviva's headcount in Britain of 36,000 will reduce by 4,000 by 2008 with up to 1,000 roles being offshored to India (in line with previous announcements that 7,800 roles will be located offshore by the end of 2007) and a further 500 roles being outsourced to third party IT suppliers.

"The company will seek to minimise the number of compulsory redundancies through natural staff turnover and voluntary measures. The savings primarily arise from cost efficiencies and reducing duplication in marketing, human resources, finance, and information technology, as well as applying a single approach to procurement and supplier management."

Patrick Snowball, Norwich Union executive chairman, said: "We have to ensure that Norwich Union remains a highly efficient and effective company in what is an increasingly competitive and dynamic environment.

"Customers' buying habits are changing rapidly as technology becomes more accessible. Already half our new direct motor insurance policies are purchased over the Internet. Consumers and brokers are increasingly operating in a self-service world.

"Norwich Union, with its strong and trusted British market brand will continue to lead the industry by adapting to these shifting dynamics. We will do this by leveraging the scale of our life and general insurance businesses and we have a proven record of delivering change.

"The integration and efficiency measures we are announcing today are part of a programme which will result in an increase in customer focus across our businesses along with better and more efficient use of technology."

Aviva is the world's fifth-largest insurance group and Britain's largest insurance services provider (based on gross worldwide premiums on December 31, 2005), and is one of the leading providers of life and pension products to Europe, with substantial positions in other markets around the world.