Staff at a Colchester insurance company were yesterday told its parent company was shedding 2,000 jobs in the next two years.

Guardian Direct staff in the town will be cut by 60 over the next two years as the Colchester operation becomes part of a "virtual call centre".

The losses are all expected to be filled through natural wastage. Its name will also change to Axa Direct.

Nationwide, French-owned Axa is to cut 2,000 jobs and close several UK sites over the next two years following a business review.

No-one from the Colchester Business Park-based operation was available to comment on how it would be affected. A message was played telling customers calls could not be taken because staff were being told of a major announcement.

Axa said 1,500 of the job losses would be compulsory and the rest would go through natural wastage.

Over the two years, 11 sites will be closed at Kendal, Bournemouth, East Grinstead, Exeter, Folkestone, Hitchin, Lancaster, Liverpool, Nottingham, Southgate and Wolverhampton.

The move follows the multi-billion pound takeover earlier this year of Guardian Royal Exchange, which led to fears that streamlining of the two operations would lead to redundancies.

Meanwhile the overhaul at the general insurance business will see its personal insurance operation concentrated at four centres in Colchester, Ipswich, Cardiff and Morecambe.

The sites will form a "virtual call centre" and will all be linked to a single switchboard for customers' inquiries.

Claims will also be handled at the four sites plus two other offices in Bolton and Glasgow.

The restructuring will cost the company £91 million to implement but will result in annual savings of £65 million.

Mark Wood, group chief executive of Sun Life, said: "The decisions ... remove many of the long-term uncertainties, particularly for staff, which are often associated with mergers and acquisitions."

A review of the life and asset management business has been launched and conclusions will be unveiled in the summer.

On the question of whether further jobs cuts would be made at the life and asset management business, Mr Wood said: "We are looking at the complete spectrum of possibilities."

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