Aviva is to press ahead with its plans to cut 1,200 jobs over the next two years, though there will be no job losses before March, employees were informed this morning.

The company said there will be no job losses before agreement is reached on the restructuring of the company. The job losses will be in the General Insurance and Life and Insurance divisions, but not in Aviva’s health insurance business which the company is planning to expand.

At a meeting at Aviva headquarters in Dublin today, staff were told that no notice of redundancy will be served until the final outline of the proposed company restructuring is clear.

Last week, Aviva announced that the chief executive of its Irish operations Dermot Brown is to be replaced by Seán Egan at the end of the year.

Mr Browne has been chief executive since February this year. Mr Egan will be the fourth executive in the role in the space of just over two years.

Last week it emerged that Aviva was planning to close its entire network of 26 branches by next summer, as part of its strategy to reduce its operations in Ireland. The proposals were contained in an internal discussion document that was to be presented to the board.