LINE Insurance launched in October
In its entirety, the Japanese insurance markets is the second largest globally, with a fair distance to the United States, and just ahead of the United Kingdom. The Japanese market is dominated by life insurance premiums, which make up about 75% of the premium income. It is also a market that is dominated by three major insurance groups, namely MS&AD Holdings, Tokio Marine Holdings, and Sompo Holdings, which together account for roughly 90% of the market. It is a market that lacks innovation, is still driven by distribution through agents (direct business has been hovering around 10% for a while), and the preferred business tool of said agents, in particular in rural areas, remains the fax machine — signifying all that is wrong with the paper-based service sector in Japan.
Among these groups, Sompo appears to be the most aggressive when importing innovation from abroad. Much of the evidence leads back to the appointment of Koichi Narasaki as the Group Digital Officer during the management restructuring in February 2017. Narasaki-san is a fast thinker, fast talker, and fast decision maker, all qualities that are quite scarce at the domestic insurance groups. Under his leadership, Sompo announced a co-operation with LINE in April 2018, and a business partnership with Zhong An in September 2018.
Moving at high speed, the LINE Insurance service went live on October 16, 2018, offering 59 different theme-based insurance policies, such as travel, sports, events, golfing, etc. While most of the policies are short-term, and provide daily coverage for unique situations, including seasonal outdoor events, bad weather, volunteer work, and outdoor concerts, others, such as bicycle insurance and legal expenses insurance, provide annual coverage. The application process is limited to five very lean screens, and has been designed to be completed within 60 seconds or less. Settlement of premiums is done through LINE Pay (either through LINE Pay balances or a credit card connected with the LINE Pay account), with LINE certainly seeing this as another means to promote cashless payments in Japan.
It is a great start for innovation in the Japanese insurance sector. Watch this space!
Please see also the following LINE articles….
LINE vs Yahoo! payment battles commence
How LINE dominates social networks in Japan
….as well as our coverage of InsurTech startup justInCase:
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