Zurich Financial loses data on 51,000 UK customers

LONDON (Reuters) - Swiss insurer Zurich Financial Services said it had called in auditors KPMG to investigate after details of 51,000 British customers were lost at a data storage centre in South Africa.

There is no sign so far the information has been misused by fraudsters, Zurich's British subsidiary said on Thursday.

KPMG is to investigate the incident and will also advise on strengthening Zurich's data security procedures, the company said, adding it had informed the Financial Services Authority, Britain's financial regulator.

"We apologise to any customers affected by this unfortunate matter," said Annette Court, Zurich's CEO for general insurance in Europe. "We are putting a great deal of investment into strengthening our internal processes to ensure that incidents of this nature do not happen again in future."

British customers affected hold general insurance policies underwritten by Zurich. Details of an unspecified number of customers in South Africa and Botswana were also lost, the company said.

(Reporting by Myles Neligan; Editing by Dan Lalor)