MORE than 1,000 jobs are to be cut from collapsed insurer Independent Insurance.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), provisional liquidators for the firm, said the 1,044 jobs, more than half the group's total staff, go immediately.

The areas affected are mainly sales, marketing and the underwriting of new business.

The majority of the redundancies, 377, would be from the group's centre in Cheadle, Cheshire. In London, 157 employees were being made redundant, and 165 jobs would go at Edenbridge, Kent.

The remaining redundancies were spread across Independent's operations, PwC said.

Independent suspended its shares and closed its doors to new business two weeks ago after failing to raise about £200m to shore up its balance sheet.