Allianz to Cut Up to 1,800 Travel Insurance Jobs as AI Automation Expands

Allianz Partners, the travel and assistance division of German insurance giant Allianz, has told employees it will cut between 1,500 and 1,800 jobs over the next 12 to 18 months. CEO Tomas Kunzmann delivered the decision at an internal meeting, citing growing use of artificial intelligence as the main driver of the cuts.

What was announced

The cuts mainly target roles heavily dependent on manual, repetitive work, phone-based customer service and basic claims processing. Allianz Partners says advances in generative AI and automation now allow it to process claims faster, answer routine customer questions, and cut down on the manual administrative work that previously required large teams.

The company said the changes will be phased in over the next year and a half, mainly through severance packages, early retirement programs and other forms of voluntary departure. These programs are launching simultaneously in several European countries: Spain, France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux region.

Scale and context

Allianz Partners is the group's unit responsible for travel insurance and assistance services, employing roughly 22,600 people worldwide. Of that total, about 14,000 work directly in phone-based customer service and claims processing, precisely the areas the company identifies as most exposed to automation.

Management noted that decisions are not yet final in every country, and talks are ongoing with employee representatives and works councils in line with local rules governing consultation on large workforce reductions.

A wider industry trend

Allianz Partners' decision fits a pattern seen across the financial and insurance sectors in recent months, where companies increasingly point to AI deployment as a direct cause of job cuts rather than a side effect of digitization. Similar reasoning has already surfaced in banking, consulting and customer service in other industries, as automation moves from pilot projects to large-scale daily operations.

For customer service departments, this means a shift in the role of remaining employees: fewer calls about routine matters, and more cases requiring escalation that the AI system cannot resolve on its own.

What it means for Poland

Allianz operates both insurance sales and operational centers in Poland that serve customers from other European countries, though the specific countries covered by the first wave of voluntary departure programs do not currently include Poland. Even so, the decision signals the direction large international insurance and financial groups, which employ thousands of people in Poland through shared service centers and customer support, are heading.

Polish branches and service centers of major insurers could face similar decisions in coming quarters, especially where the work consists mainly of processing standard requests and answering repetitive customer questions, the tasks easiest to automate.

Sources: TechStartups (techstartups.com), Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)