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June 05, 2025
 

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INSURANCE

Tokyo-listed Dai-ichi Life has been aggressively expanding beyond traditional life insurance in Japan and focusing on asset management as one of its growth areas.
BUSINESS
May 30, 2025
Dai-ichi Life to buy $1.1 billion M&G stake in partnership
Tokyo-listed Dai-ichi Life has been aggressively expanding beyond traditional life insurance in Japan and focusing on asset management as one of its growth areas.
Japan’s biggest life insurers collectively lowered bullish yen wagers tied to their foreign investment holdings, a move that suggests they see a lower likelihood of the yen showing the kind of strength it did in the past.
BUSINESS / Markets
May 30, 2025
Japanese life insurers cut bullish yen hedges to 14-year low
Nine of Japan’s biggest life insurers collectively lowered bullish yen wagers tied to their foreign investment holdings to 44.4% at the end of March from 45.2% six months earlier.
New buyers are entering the market for Japanese government bonds and amplifying volatility, said Dai-ichi Life CEO Tetsuya Kikuta in an interview.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 27, 2025
Dai-Ichi Life sees falling volatility in JGB market
New buyers are entering the market for Japanese government bonds and amplifying volatility, Chief Executive Officer Tetsuya Kikuta said in an interview.
The Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance headquarters in Tokyo. Paper losses on Japanese bonds held by the company expanded to about ¥1.386 trillion ($9.7 billion) in the year ended March, compared with ¥161.4 billion a year earlier.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 26, 2025
Japan's biggest life insurers post $60 billion in unrealized bond losses
The paper losses on their domestic bond holdings in the last fiscal year underscore the risks they face as interest rates climb.
Yoshinobu Tsutsui (left), who is expected to become the new Keidanren chairman, speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on March 25, as the current chairman, Masakazu Tokura, looks on.
BUSINESS / FOCUS
May 23, 2025
Keidanren to install first leader from financial sector
The post of Keidanren chairman has traditionally been held by leaders from the manufacturing sector.
Tokio Marine Holdings, MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings and Sompo Holdings posted record consolidated net profits for the second straight year in fiscal 2024, which ended in March, driven by gains from the sale of cross-held shares, according to their earnings reports.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 21, 2025
All three major Japanese nonlife insurers log record net profits
Net profit went up some 1.5 times to ¥1,055.2 billion at Tokio Marine Holding.
Nippon Life Insurance will stop the practice of temporarily sending employees to work in sales departments of other companies, such as banks, judging that the arrangements may distort fair competition.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 16, 2025
Nippon Life to stop sending staff to sales departments at banks
Critics have said the practice has led to misconduct, in addition to reducing competition.
Nippon Life Insurance is diversifying its investments to enhance yields, although it’s a tricky time to invest with U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war fueling global market volatility.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 14, 2025
Japan’s biggest insurer weighs riskier overseas CLO investments
Japan’s biggest life insurer is considering taking on a little more risk with its investments in collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), as it looks for ways to eke out better returns abroad.
MUFG Bank, a unit of the nation’s biggest banking group, is among firms that recently scrapped a clerical job category that consisted almost exclusively of women, a sign that the financial sector is finally getting more serious about reducing gender inequalities.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 23, 2025
Top Japanese firms scrap employment system that held women back
Abandoning the clerical job category may increase opportunities for women to advance to more senior positions.
MS&AD forecasts that net profit for its North American operations will reach ¥166 billion in the fiscal year ended in March, a 3.5fold increase from the previous fiscal year.
BUSINESS
Apr 22, 2025
Insurer MS&AD plans to invest $5 billion to double U.S. profits
The Tokyo-based casualty insurer has the highest market share in Asia among global firms, but it’s No. 3 among Japanese peers in North America.
As the global trade war intensifies, the debt, the main investment for Japan’s life insurers, has seen wild swings along with its U.S. counterparts.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 18, 2025
Major Japan life insurer to pile into domestic superlong bonds
Investment decisions by Japan’s life insurers can move global markets, and Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance will be the first among its major peers to report such plans.
A former Prudential Life Insurance employee was arrested in June last year on suspicion of fraud.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 11, 2025
Prudential Life ordered to report preventative measures after three arrests
Between June last year and February this year, three former employees were arrested over acts of misconduct that included defrauding customers.
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance (above) and Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance plan to merge in April 2027.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 28, 2025
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance to merge with Aioi Nissay Dowa
The merger will create the biggest nonlife insurer in Japan, overtaking current industry leader Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance.
Upper House Budget Committee chief Yosuke Tsuruho (right) and his Lower House counterpart, Jun Azumi, meet in Tokyo on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 12, 2025
Medical cap fumble paves way for unprecedented second revision of fiscal budget
While there have been cases of bills returning to the Lower House after amendments in the Upper House, it has never happened with the budget.
"It is an expanding field. We need more people,” said Kaoru Onishi, head of the global product division at Nissay Asset Management.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 6, 2025
Nissay Asset ramps up hiring as alternative investment booms
Japanese asset managers are trying to boost returns at a time when policymakers are encouraging households to shift their savings to investments.
In recent years, Japanese life insurers have increasingly entered contracts in which assets underwritten by reinsurance companies are invested to obtain higher returns.
BUSINESS
Mar 3, 2025
Japan’s FSA said to examine life insurers’ reinsurance risks
The Financial Services Agency is asking life insurers about the scale of the practice and the type of contracts they have in place.
The government will raise the out-of-pocket expense cap for expensive medical treatments this August as planned, but will reconsider plans for further increases, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told parliament on Friday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 2, 2025
Japan to reconsider medical expense cap hike plan: Ishiba
The expense ceiling hike is slated to be conducted in three stages from this year to 2027.
Tokio Marine Holdings and other large non-life insurers are facing pressure to sell cross-held shares to improve their governance.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 17, 2025
Japan insurers sell $11 billion cross-held shares ahead of plans
The insurers are facing pressure to improve their governance after regulators fined them for coordinating adjustments in insurance fees in advance for companies.
Leaders of patients' groups submit signatures opposing the move by the government to raise the medical copayment ceiling on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health / EXPLAINER
Feb 14, 2025
Japan to rethink medical copayment hike amid patient outcry
Many patients, especially those undergoing costly but effective cancer therapy, say a hike might force them to abandon their treatments.
Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance will acquire Banner Life Insurance in the United States as it seeks to expand its business overseas amid sluggish domestic market.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 9, 2025
Meiji Yasuda to acquire U.S. peer Banner Life
Japanese life insurance companies are expanding overseas for growth as the domestic market shrinks.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic
After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
Toyota Industries receives $33 billion buyout offer from group companies
Toyota group companies could establish a new holding company to privatize Toyota Industries.
Japan’s fertility rate hits record low despite government push
The total number of births dropped to about 686,000, marking the first time the figure has fallen below 700,000, according to a health ministry release on Wednesday.
South Korea’s Lee pledges to heal deep wounds as ‘president for everyone’
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung waves with his his wife, Kim Hye-gyeong, following his inauguration ceremony at the National Assembly in Seoul on Wednesday.
Hakuho’s departure highlights worrying sumo trend
Former <i>yokozuna</i> Hakuho performs a ring-entering ceremony at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in February 2020.
Hakuho’s departure highlights worrying sumo trend
Former <i>yokozuna</i> Hakuho performs a ring-entering ceremony at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in February 2020.
Japanese baseball legend Shigeo Nagashima dies at 89
Shigeo Nagashima (left), then the manager of the Tokyo Giants, waves to fans with players and coaches during a victory parade in central Tokyo in 2000. Nagashima died at the age of 89 on Tuesday.
‘A garden is a grand teacher’: The Kamakura Gardener nurtures via YouTube
American Robert Jefferson runs a YouTube channel called The Kamakura Gardener that invites viewers to enjoy the pleasures of gardening, cooking and slow living.
Waves of umami: Awaji Island's culinary trove
Silversea Cruises' culinary program takes guests on a rich gourmet experience at wellness retreat Zenbo Seinei, where the local produce is presented in an eight-course meal.
Hegseth to prioritize China and more allied spending in Asia — but questions remain
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives for a trilateral meeting between Japan, the U.S. and Australia at the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore on Saturday.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic
By Alex K.T. Martin

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