INSURANCE COMPANY Chill has announced the creation of 50 new jobs at its headquarters in Blackrock, Co Dublin.

The insurer said this lunchtime it was creating the jobs in addition to the 100 jobs it had announced in February 2011, which were to be rolled out over three years.

This morning the insurer said it had already delivered two-thirds of those 100 jobs, but was continuing with its expansion to bring it ahead of its original target for growth and employment. The company currently employs over 120 people.

The new positions will be across fields including finance, market, IT, sales and administration, with recruitment for some of this positions beginning immediately.

Chill Insurance managing director Padraig Lynch said his company was at the “cutting edge of the online insurance market” and that customer demand had allowed it “to create new and exciting job opportunities for the Irish market”.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, who was present at the company headquarters to announce the jobs, said it was “heartening to see a home-grown Irish company not just weathering these difficult times, but positively thriving”.

“What is good news for an Irish business like Chill, is good news for jobseekers, for the local economy, and for the national economy,” he said.

Chill – which has been in brokerage for forty years, as Power Lynch & Associates – was founded in 2007, and does the bulk of its trade via its Chill.ie website. It claims to be Ireland’s largest ‘online insurance supermarket’.