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The story
Amid a string of scandals at Japan’s life insurance companies, reports show that policy cancellation payouts have hit a record high of over ¥7 trillion. In January this year, it emerged that employees at Prudential Life had illegally handled roughly ¥3.1 billion in a fraud scheme, and in April, Sony Life disclosed improper sales practices involving about ¥120 million. On 5ch, alongside distrust stemming from these scandals, many posters argued that “single people don’t need life insurance,” citing the rising rate of never-married adults and Japan’s high-cost medical care cap system. Others pushed back firmly, stressing the need for insurance to cover long-term treatment for illnesses like cancer, leaving the thread divided over just how much coverage people actually need.
In January this year, it came to light that more than 100 current and former employees at Prudential Life had defrauded roughly 500 customers using fake investment schemes, illegally pocketing money in the process. The total comes to around ¥3.1 billion.
Then in April, Sony Life disclosed that it too had engaged in improper dealings worth about ¥120 million, including pushing bogus investment pitches and talking customers into canceling their policies. On social media, reactions included “I’ve completely lost trust” and “I’m considering canceling my policy.”
As these scandals pile up, life insurance cancellations have also been on the rise.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Probably because fewer people are getting married these days.
At the very least, you don't need life insurance.
It's basically linked to the never-married rate.
Even if you have a family, the survivor's basic pension and survivor's employee pension are enough.
That's plenty if you're single, right?
We live in a country with one of the world's best universal healthcare systems — I question whether it's worth paying extra for that level of coverage on top of it. The cost-performance is just too poor. That said, if you have almost no savings or assets and hospitalization would wreck you financially, that's a different story.
Not trying to troll here, but do you really need insurance to cover ¥5,000 a day? Your savings should be able to handle that.
They burned through the resources needed to keep the country sustainable just so they could live well — that's why young people are struggling now.
"As long as I'm fine now, I don't care what happens later" — they ate the seed grain that should've been planted for the future.
The Ice Age generation (hit hardest by Japan's 90s job-market freeze) and the Yutori generation (raised under relaxed education) did the exact same thing, and so did the generation that fought the war.
It clearly isn't enough — that's why 90% of married households have life insurance.
https://jili.or.jp/research/report/zenkokujittai.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
They sign up because they're clueless about money (info-weak). With survivor pension payments coming in every year, a big lump-sum payout just invites family disputes and gold-digging men.
Fire insurance is basically mandatory even if you rent, though.
Don't complain about that much, at least. Unless you're saying you'd rather pay full price for treatment and skip getting a pension, that is.
What do you do when you're living alone and get injured or sick but still have to keep on living?
Public health insurance and welfare. If you don't like relying on that, just build up your own savings.
At its core it's a gamble on you getting sick and dying or nearly dying, so if that scares you, save up instead.
Your company's social insurance and employment insurance should cover it. There are plenty of benefits available — a lot of people just don't know about them, never apply, and end up throwing their premiums away for nothing.
Re: #120
You two really think like unemployed people. You're not accounting for long-term, high-cost treatment at all — advanced medical care, cancer treatment, that kind of thing. That "I'll be back to normal in a month" attitude is straight-up childish thinking.
If you're operating on the invincible-hero belief that it'll never happen to you, sure, go ahead.
The moment you start slapping the "unemployed" label on people out of nowhere, you should realize how shaky your own argument is. Cheap term cancer insurance is fine if you want to sign up for it, sure, but nowadays cancer hospital stays are typically two months at most — and if it drags on longer, that usually means it's terminal anyway, so the high-cost medical care cap is enough. For the period you can't work, the health insurance sick-leave benefit pays out for up to 1.5 years, and if you get fired during that time, you can just claim unemployment insurance benefits. And frankly, don't count on "advanced medical treatment" that isn't even approved by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in the first place.
More and more people are living alone these days, so the "unemployed" comparison you're making is actually closer to the mark. If you get cancer and it's beyond what insurance can cover, you just have to accept it — and for most people in that situation, there's no family left behind to suffer for it.
By that logic, you shouldn't buy any product that turns a profit for the seller. That's way too extreme an argument.
For major insurers, most of their core profit comes from investment returns, right? They're basically institutional investors.
You're not posting this from an iPhone, are you?
Medical insurance, car insurance, and fire/earthquake/flood insurance — term (non-refundable) policies for all three is the way to go. Maybe phone insurance too.
My parents were happy about it, though.
The high-cost medical cap applies on a monthly basis, so if treatment stretches over three months, you're paying something like ¥60,000-80,000 every single month. And if you're hospitalized for three months, the room fee, meals, and pajama rental are all billed separately on top of that. With hospitalization insurance, you get all of that back — and a term policy only runs ¥20,000-30,000 a year.
Isn't that a bit short-sighted? It doesn't cover hospitalization or outpatient visits, and if you're left with a lasting disability and can't work anymore, you're done for.
If you have your My Number card linked, you're only ever billed up to the cap in the first place, you know?
Social insurance covers most of it anyway. Especially while you're young, there's not much need to go out of your way to buy optional insurance.
Background and Points of Debate
Japan’s high-cost medical care cap system limits a patient’s out-of-pocket medical expenses within a given month to an amount based on income, and it was repeatedly cited in the thread as grounds for “you don’t need insurance.” However, it doesn’t cover things like private-room fees, meals, or lost income from time off work — which is exactly where the disagreement over long hospital stays and advanced-treatment riders comes from. It’s also worth noting that the rise in cancellations and the string of insurer scandals were simply reported around the same time — no causal link between the two has actually been established. Many posts also don’t distinguish between life insurance (death benefits) and medical/cancer insurance; it’s worth keeping in mind that the argument that single people don’t need coverage is mainly aimed at the former.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread “Are young people increasingly turning away from insurance? Cancellation payouts hit a record ¥7 trillion+, with a string of scandals adding fuel.”
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