In the insurance industry's fifth failure in fiscal 2000, midtier insurer Tokyo Mutual Life Insurance Co. filed for court protection from its creditors Friday after it was denied capital assistance from its main bank, Daiwa Bank.
Tokyo Mutual collapsed under the weight of 980.2 billion yen in liabilities, invoking fast-track legislation aimed at dealing with troubled financial institutions two weeks before its expiry at the end of March. Tokyo Mutual is the third insurer to invoke the legislation and the seventh to fail since World War II.
"It was like a bolt out of the blue," said Kenichi Nakamura, former president of Tokyo Mutual, expressing his reaction to a phone call relaying Daiwa Bank's decision Thursday. Nakamura and the insurer's nine top executives tendered their resignations the following day.