Hastings Direct appoints new site director for Leicester customer service centre opening 5th May

Hastings Direct will be officially welcoming its new site director, Andrea Gray and 30 new colleagues on the 5th May to its temporary home, Equinox, opposite the city centre bus station. This will be the company's Leicester base until it moves into its permanent city centre home, details of which are being finalised and will be communicated in the coming weeks. Hastings is initially creating 40 roles rising to c.200 by the end of 2015.

Hastings Direct provides personal lines insurance products and services (car, home, bike and van) via the web and from its existing UK customer service centres at Bexhill-on-Sea and Newmarket, where it will continue to recruit new colleagues to help service more customers. The multi award winning company — which has over 1.7m customers and has just announced a strong set of results for 2014 — has ambitious expansion plans and is on track to insure one in ten of all UK car drivers by 2020, raising its customer numbers to three million. Gary Hoffman, chief executive officer (CEO), said: "Welcoming our first colleagues to our new site on the 5th May is an exciting step for us. It puts us firmly on Leicester's map and supports the next step in our growth and expansion plans.

"Given Andrea's vast experience as a people leader we expect the Leicester team to grow quickly. The team will fast become part of our Hastings family, working alongside colleagues in Bexhill and Newmarket to help us maintain our refreshingly straightforward customer service.

"One of Hastings' objectives is to support the communities we serve and to be a good neighbour. Now we've officially moved in, we're starting to do that not just by providing employment but also by looking at ways we can work with local charities, community groups, and schools and colleges to provide professional, practical and financial support."

Andrea Gray has significant experience in setting up and running large scale operational centres including most recently Nuffield Health and outsourcer FTS. Andrea also has considerable knowledge of financial services having previously worked at Equity Insurance and American Express for five and eight years respectively. Andrea said: "I'm delighted to be at the beginning of the Hastings Direct story in Leicester. Our team is fully committed to making it one of the best places to work in the Midlands. To deliver our ambitious growth plans we need to attract the best talent for today and tomorrow and recruitment continues apace. To support this we're working closely with the universities, job centres, and local schools and colleges."

Hastings Direct is looking to recruit a mix of team leadership and customer facing positions. For more information about how to apply please email: recruitmentteam@hastingsdirect.com or visit Hastings Careers.

If you're a local community group, organisation or charity that may benefit from the Hastings Direct community programme, please contact community@hastingsdirect.com