A QUESTION mark was hanging over up to 800 jobs in the region last night as one of the country's biggest insurers announced plans to transfer more than 1,100 jobs to India.

Royal and Sun Alliance (R&SA) said it will save more than £10m a year by switching call centre and customer service work to Bangalore.

Jobs will be lost at the insurer's bases throughout the UK, including its call centre in Doxford Park, Sunderland, which employs about 800 people.

An R&SA spokesman said: "Jobs will be going through natural wastage over the next two years so we can't say exactly how many will be going at Sunderland.

"We can't rule out redundancies, but we hope most of the jobs will go through not replacing people who leave."

R&SA is moving more than ten per cent of its 11,000 jobs in the UK overseas - a move that yesterday sparked fears of a crisis in the UK over offshoring.

The company, the second biggest general insurer in the country, already employs 100 workers in India so the figure will rise to 1,200 by 2006.

Union officials said the loss of jobs to overseas countries posed a very real threat to the UK economy.

R&SA chief executive Duncan Boyle said: "This move is part of R&SA's existing UK business transformation programme and is expected to deliver annual cost savings in excess of £10m.

"We are committed to providing our customers with value for money products and excellent service.

"We work in a very competitive environment and processing some of our work in India will not only help us control costs but will also give us greater operational flexibility."

As well as Doxford Park, R&SA also has centres across the UK, including Liverpool, Bristol, Halifax, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester and Horsham, in Sussex.

The company, which owns the More Than brand, has been running a pilot scheme in India since March.

Amicus and Unifi said more than 8,000 job losses had been announced in the past few weeks because of companies switching work to countries where labour costs are considerably cheaper.

David Fleming, national officer of Amicus, said: "This announcement clearly shows that offshoring presents an unprecedented threat to UK jobs and the economy."

The unions called on the Government to do more to encourage employers to invest in skills.