Global business insurer QBE has inaugurated its new office in Leeds, fortifying its commitment to the Yorkshire market.
The new office at West Village, Wellington Street, is the company’s largest European location outside of London.
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It entails a £3.6m investment and highlights QBE’s regional broker strategy.
Located in an area often dubbed Leeds’ insurance centre, West Village has a premium wellness studio space for businesses and the public.
The office hub is designed around a central courtyard, including two private roof terraces for QBE’s use, a business lounge and communal spaces.
It also features event spaces, a multi-faith room and a cycle storage facility, as well as local food and drink pop-ups.
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By GlobalDataThe Leeds office is staffed by more than 450 people, a 40% increase in the Yorkshire workforce since 2022.
The team primarily supports QBE’s technology, claims and finance functions, with recent centres of excellence opened in these areas.
More than 20 underwriters at the new Leeds site will cover a range of insurance services including property, commercial combined and fleet, with the capacity to manage local policies ranging from £1,000 casualty excess of loss to multi-million-pound cross-class programmes.
Having been a part of the Leeds business community for more than two decades since acquiring Iron Trades in 2000, QBE is said to have seen consistent growth in the region.
The Leeds underwriters have increased gross written premium (GWP) to £100m, surpassing targets annually since 2008.
The West Village facility accommodates more than 300 claims handlers and an 80-person finance team, and hosts a robotics centre.
The centre is at the forefront of QBE’s innovation and automation efforts, utilising robotic process automation, digital readers, application programme interfaces and intelligent workflow solutions.
These technologies perform 120,000 automated tasks and save 8,000 hours each month, automating more than 30,000 customer claims tasks weekly.
QBE International CEO Jason Harris said: “The next chapter in our Leeds story includes expanding our underwriting capability, working with more local brokers to support even more businesses in the region.
“Leeds is one of the UK’s fastest-growing cities with a diverse economy and an exceptional talent base. Over the last five years, we have set up centres of excellence here for robotics, claims and finance while building out our operations and people teams here.”
