Asahi Mutual Life Insurance Co. will suspend dividend payments on group insurance policies for corporate clients due to declines in capital from large unrealized losses on stockholdings, company officials said Friday.
It will also skip dividend payments to individual policyholders for the second consecutive year and cancel interest payments to providers of the company's foundation fund -- similar to a stock company's capital -- for fiscal 2002, officials said.
If realized, Asahi Mutual will become the first firm to cancel interest payments under the Insurance Business Law, which allows insurance companies to pay no interest on such funds if it has insufficient surplus reserves.