The decision to shift nearly 600 jobs at insurance group Hibernian in Ireland to India has been met with outrage, but this could be the way things are heading.

In late June, Hibernian announced that it was moving 580 jobs across Dublin, Galway and Cork to India in a cost-cutting offshoring move. Unite, the financial sector’s trade union, said it was unhappy with the decision and would be asking the Labour Court to look into the matter.

Nigel Roxburgh, research director at the National Outsourcing Association (NOA), says Hibernian’s move could be just the beginning of a stream of similar exits.

“Ireland has enjoyed a decade of inward investment as it was viewed as a low-cost area in Europe,” he says. “But it is now a high-cost centre and as insurers and life and pensions firms look to save money, it’s likely many will offshore more roles going forward.”

Roxburgh predicts that roles shifting overseas will be in contact centres, customer administration and claims management.

Not everyone sees offshoring as a bad thing, however. Declan Kavanagh of Insight Test Services, an Irish financial software firm, says shifting low value jobs overseas should offer Ireland an opportunity to focus on higher value financial services functions.

The only problem with this theory is that overseas centres are showing signs of muscling in on high value work too. While Ireland struggles with a shortage of actuaries, for example, Roxburgh says India is beginning to offer actuarial offshoring.

Aviva, the parent company of Hibernian, also plans to cut 1,800 jobs in the UK by 2010. And Swiss insurer Zurich Financial Services plans to axe between ’700 and 900 jobs’ in the UK.