Premium revenues at six of Japan's nine major life insurers dropped in the business year to March, according to earnings results released Friday.
An industrywide failure to properly pay out benefits to policyholders forced them to concentrate their resources on reviewing existing client policies, pushing down their sales and profits from new contracts.
The combined premium revenue of the nine major life insurers fell 1.2 percent to ¥16.8 trillion. The long-term trend of a falling birthrate and a rapidly aging society was also partly blamed for the drop.