Liberty Insurance in for the long term on remote working

Liberty Insurance has told its more than 400 Irish employees that they can work remotely even after the Covid-19 crisis is over.

The insurer said all staff, including its senior leadership team, will continue to work from home once the pandemic has passed, with the option of spending up to two days per week in the office to carry out specific activities or hold face-to-face meetings.

Liberty's decision to go fully remote mirrors recent moves by other companies such as Salesforce and Spotify to allow employees to choose ways of working that best suits them.

The insurer, which announced a €100 million cloud-based technology investment in the business last year as it looks to become a fully digital organisation, said the remote working model would apply to almost 2,000 employees in Europe, with staff working in Spain and Portugal also impacted.

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All remote employees are to receive a €660 gross annual payment to cover additional expenses.

Staff will not be able to work outside their country of employment, and are expected to continue to work their contracted hours.

"This decision supports our core values as an organisation, as well as our employees' work-life balance. It is also a further step towards the cloud business model that we launched and started to build towards before the pandemic, and which will culminate in 2024," said Juan Miguel Estallo, chief executive of Liberty Europe.

Expectations

“Equally this is a response to what our employees are asking for. Through surveys to measure their experience, Liberty employees have told us that 93 per cent of the workforce does not want to return to the pre-pandemic in-office working model. Therefore we want to put people first, be more efficient and respond to the expectations of flexibility required.”

Headquartered in Boston, US, but with significant operations in Dublin, Cavan and Fermanagh, Liberty is the sixth largest global property and casualty insurer with revenues of $43.9 billion last year. It employs 45,000 people in 29 countries.

Liberty Insurance entered the Irish market in 2011 by taking over the main businesses of Quinn Insurance. It quit its commercial liability and commercial property lines locally last year, but still has a 10 per cent market share for motor policies.