For the past several years, the insurance industry has been battered on two fronts by bad publicity. On the one hand, the collapse of almost all the major life insurance companies has been blamed on poor investment choices and even poorer management, while on the other, the spate of recent murder-for-insurance cases points up how easy it is to manipulate the system for illegal purposes.

In a nation that prides itself on the highest savings rates in the world, insurance practically sells itself. In addition, life insurance has traditionally been pushed by housewives to friends and relatives. Under this system, a customer is as likely to buy a policy from Aunt Sachiko in Chiba just to get rid of her as she is to buy one because she feels she needs coverage. Consequently, most customers don't really know what they're buying and, conversely, most salesladies don't have to know what they're selling.

The average person signs up for insurance in a haze of confusion and ignorance as to what her policies offer and what they don't. When the media first started reporting the industry's financial problems several years ago, policyholders suddenly realized that, unlike the money they saved in banks, the money they had invested all those years in life insurance wasn't protected. Policyholders are more like shareholders, which means they would go down with the company if they were still on board. Panicked, people started jumping ship.