As the government continues to push for an increase in the consumption tax, a question related to last year's disaster is still being debated: How much of the burden for rebuilding should be shouldered by taxpayers? We live in a resolutely capitalist country that stresses personal responsibility, and in the last few months the media have finally gotten around to studying earthquake insurance.

So far, ¥1.2 trillion has been paid out for quake insurance claims related to the March 11 temblor. Sixty-five percent of the money went to policy holders in the three stricken prefectures covering 750,000 claims. This is 15 times the amount paid out on claims for the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995, a discrepancy that has less to do with the respective scales of the quakes than with the higher profile of quake insurance brought about by the Hanshin disaster. In 1994, only 9 percent of homes in Japan had earthquake coverage, but by the end of 2009 that portion had increased to 23 percent. Since last March, the number of policy holders has tripled.

A big quake boosts sales, but since so few people had insurance before the Hanshin quake, it wasn't until last year's disaster that enough claims were filed to give an idea of just what sort of coverage they provide. A recent article in Aera looked at the experience of a certain Ms. A who owns a 30-year-old apartment in the Tokyo Metropolitan area. Her unit was not seriously damaged by the quake: The apartment shook, some books fell off the shelf, the furniture moved a few centimeters. However, when an acquaintance asked her if she had quake insurance and she said yes, the person urged her to file a claim. "You'll definitely get something," he said.