Nippon Life Insurance Co. and Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co.'s life insurance unit started selling cancer insurance policies Thursday, the two firms said.
It is the first time that major Japanese insurers have been allowed to offer so-called "third-sector" insurance products such as cancer and nursing-care coverage, which are considered neither life nor nonlife insurance.
Third-sector products have been handled mainly by U.S. and other foreign insurers, but Japan and the United States agreed at bilateral trade talks in 1996 to open up the market to Japanese firms starting this month.
Japanese life insurers and life insurance units of nonlife insurance firms were allowed to first sell the products from January, and nonlife insurers themselves from July.
Japan's cancer insurance market has been dominated by American Family Life Assurance Co., a U.S. firm that has an 85 percent share of the market, according to industry officials.