The Financial Services Agency on Monday ordered Taisho Life Insurance Co. to suspend its operations following the arrest earlier in the day of the head of the insurer's largest shareholder, in connection with the insurer's capital-building methods.
The FSA decision effectively means Taisho Life, a small insurer based in Tokyo, has become the fourth Japanese life insurance company to collapse in the last three years.
The agency made the decision because Taisho Life's asset management was "very inadequate," and would have hurt policyholders' interests if operations were allowed to continue, FSA Commissioner Masaharu Hino told a hastily called news conference.