An insurance company that specializes in policies for teachers is moving into larger Triangle offices and adding 70 local employees as a result of a company-wide reorganization of its claims department.

About 50 of the claims department employees are expected to be new hires, with the rest relocating from offices elsewhere, said Dennis Bianchi, senior vice president of claims and regulatory affairs at Horace Mann Educators Corp. of Springfield, Ill. The publicly traded company currently has more than 40 workers in its Triangle claims department.

Company executives declined to disclose salary ranges for claims department employees.

The expanded Triangle office will handle auto-insurance claims for the eastern half of the country, Bianchi said. Previously, such claims were processed in six regional offices, but that number is being pared down to two.

The consolidation “allows us to be more efficient,” Bianchi said. The total number of claims department workers isn’t being reduced, he said.

To accommodate the expansion, the company expects to move in mid-December from its offices on Falls of the Neuse Road in Raleigh to Morrisville. It has leased 41,000 square feet in Perimeter One, a building in the Perimeter Park business center, said Jeff Sheehan, senior vice president at Duke Realty, the owner of the building.

Bianchi said the company did a “comprehensive survey” of its existing claim department sites, plus other locations. Raleigh made the cut because it scored well based on the company’s criteria, which included the supply of able workers, quality of life and business climate.

Staff writer Jack Hagel contributed to this report.

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