Ageas UK’s Ant Middle explains thought process behind insurer’s job cuts following M&A

Ageas UK chief executive Ant Middle has said the personal lines focused insurer has been thinking about “what the future organisation needs to look like” after his firm announced job cuts following recent acquisitions.

The insurer completed its acquisition of Esure in September 2025 and launched its 20‑year affinity partnership with Saga later that year in December. The latter deal also included the acquisition of Saga’s underwriting business, Acromas Insurance Company (AICL).

Following these deals, Ageas UK reviewed its organisational structure and found it currently has around 3,800 people across Ageas UK and Esure, supported by 400 outsourced roles.

However, Ageas UK said in May 2026 that it expects this headcount will reduce to 2,000 by 2029, supported by 900 outsourced roles through strategic partners.

Middle told Insurance Times that after the Esure deal concluded, his firm spent around three months “to really do the detailed planning” around what bringing all its acquired businesses together should look like and “what our ambition for the future would be in terms of the operating model for the business, the capabilities we need and the size and shape of the business as well”.

He said: “We started running the integration process to bring the businesses together in January 2026 and in terms of specifically what we see the shape of the organisation being in terms of our people, we started having that conversation with our teams, our colleagues.

“When it comes to this sort of communication, it’s always important that we have that conversation first with our people – we made sure that we have done that.

“It’s really important that we do that transparently, we give as much information as we can as early as we can and just ally that with real care.”

Balancing act

The planned reduction in staff positions has been driven by a duplication of roles during integration work, rationale of the insurer’s office footprint, the introduction of greater digitisation and automation, as well as natural attrition.

Colleagues affected by the changes will have access to reskilling and career development opportunities, retraining and redeployment wherever possible, as well as outplacement support.

Middle said: “These are not easy messages to convey – that means you need to lead through that as well as you possibly can, [so] transparently, really considerately and always making sure we have these conversations first with our people.

“But you also need to balance that with a real clarity around the business we are creating for the future.

“We’ve got such an opportunity to create a really fantastic, competitive and sustainable business for the future. That clearly is the aim and that’s the opportunity we’ve got.”

The acquisitions Ageas UK made over the course of 2025 give the insurer additional firepower during this year’s challenging soft market conditions, which have particularly affected the personal lines market.

For example, according to Ernst and Young (EY) data published in March 2026, the UK home insurance market is expected to return to loss-making territory in 2026.

Middle continued: “It’s a combination of three businesses that we are now architecting to come together as one new business and it’s a new business in that we’ve got enhanced capabilities.

“We’ve got so much opportunity now to exploit the distribution that we have to be scaled in both our distribution routes to market.

“We’ve got scaled access to the whole of the personal lines market, all £25bn of it.

“And then we’re going to make sure we keep on building the right data capabilities, digitisation and overlay that with brilliant relationships, great human interaction – that’s what we are about as an organisation.

“But also, we need to make sure we’re efficient as a business and we need to make sure we’re organising ourselves for the future to make sure we are the successful business we intend to be.”