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First lot of 2,600 job cuts in the Armed Forces of the total 11,000 announced(01-Sep-2011)

As per the Government announcements today, over 1,600 Navy personnel and over 1,000 soldiers are being made redundant in the first wave of redundancies in the UK Armed Forces. This is over and above the RAF job cuts of over 1,000 staff that was announced earlier.

All these cuts are part of the Strategic Defence and Security Review and the £5 Billion cuts the government wants to achieve from the Armed Forces. Over the period of next 4 years, the Armed Forces will have to further make 17,000 job cuts in order to meet their cost cutting targets. It is expected that 6,000 of the job cuts will come through natural redundancies i.e. people retiring with no replacements. Hence, the number of total net redundancies will be about 17,000. While the Army will bear the maximum brunt with loss of 7,000 jobs, both the Navy and RAF have been asked to reduce their forces by 5,000 each.  

These cuts will no doubt leave UK with total Armed Forces of less than 100,000. This will be one of the lowest figures in the last several decades and some argue that it’s lowest since Nelson’s time. As part of the cuts, 44 strong fleet, of Harrier jump jets will be scrapped, one of the two aircraft carriers will not be built, Navy’s anti-piracy and narcotics wing will have to massively trim down its operations and there will be an inevitable delay in replacement of the Trident missiles.

While loss of fighting or defending capability is in everyone’s minds and there are strong views in both ends of the spectrum, what cannot be under estimated is the loss of livelihoods of people who were prepared to lay down their lives for the country. Unlike other civil professions, insurers do not offer income protection insurance to people working in the Armed Forces and most of them have to make good with the normal redundancy package and the job seekers allowance until they find new jobs.

While it can be argued as to why do the insurers do not provide income protection insurance to the soldiers and armed forces and as to why the Defence Secretariat don’t have their own schemes for income protection insurance that will protect the income of soldiers beyond the statutory redundancy package, it is understandable that the redundancies are rather unprecedented. Many insurers excluded Armed Forces from income protection insurance were due to the fact that the demand was too low to warrant such policies. Also it was a normally accepted paradigm that a job with Armed Forces was for life and the question of having income protection insurance just did not arise. Hence, it can be argued that not having decent income protection insurance for the Armed Forces is a result of its own making rather than any deliberate intent to exclude Armed Forces from buying income protection insurance.

It’s once again going to be the multi-disciplinary skills and the good will of serving the country in the Armed Forces will help the soldiers find suitable jobs in the civilian sectors and return back to normalcy. Kesh Thukaram, Director Best Insurance said that this is easier said than done and organisations must be urged to do all they can to support these brave men and women who have so selflessly protected our country.

Best Insurance retails a variety of income protection insurance and whether the customers have a mortgage, loan or rent or not, the specialist advisors select the appropriate income protection insurance from its wide panel of income protection insurance providers. Income protection insurance is slowly catching up in terms of volumes with other protection products. Income Protection Insurance is commonly termed as one of the most effective short term protection insurance products. Apart from providing support in selecting income protection insurance, Best Insurance also have other non-income protection products like landlords insurance and home insurance.