Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co. has filed a complaint with police over a case of insurance fraud in which a Japanese woman has allegedly sought compensation for the death of her husband, whom the insurer says is still alive, industry sources said Thursday.
The 48-year-old woman, whose identity was withheld and whereabouts are unknown, signed contracts in Tokyo with Dai-ichi Mutual and Nippon Life Insurance Co. in September 1994 and December 1996 to insure her 34-year-old Pakistani husband, the sources said.
In June 1997, she filed with the insurers to claim death benefits, saying that her husband had been killed in a traffic accident in Pakistan, the sources said.
Nippon Life, the nation's largest life insurance provider, paid the woman 30 million yen after confirming the accident and verifying documents.
But Dai-ichi Mutual, which was asked to pay 60 million yen in coverage, conducted research in Pakistan and discovered that the documents submitted by the woman were forged and that her husband was alive and had been elected to a local assembly office in May 1998.
Dai-ichi subsequently rejected the claim.
Nippon Life filed suit in February with the Tokyo District Court to retrieve the payment. The court recently ordered the woman to repay the amount in full by default after she failed to appear at the trial.