The Life Insurance Association of Japan (LIAJ) has appointed Toshiaki Sumino as its new chairperson, effective July 17, 2026. Sumino, who also serves as representative director and president of Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co., Ltd., leads an industry association facing a live conduct crisis, a tightening regulatory framework, competitive pressure from Japan Post Insurance, and a time-limited tax opportunity that has direct implications for product strategy.
The scale of the sector he oversees is significant. There were 195.30 million individual life insurance policies in force in Japan at the end of fiscal year 2024, a consecutive increase for 17 years, with annualized premiums on policies in force reaching ¥28.2 trillion. The LIAJ’s member companies pay out approximately ¥19 trillion per year in claims, benefits, annuities, and other payments, according to its policy statement.
Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) explicitly listed restoring trust in the insurance industry as a discrete supervisory priority in its strategic plan for the July 2025-June 2026 program year — naming it alongside financial stability and market fairness as one of three top-level pillars, according to the FSA’s published strategic priorities document.
The most visible illustration of what Sumino inherits is the ongoing situation at Prudential of Japan. In February 2026, Prudential of Japan and its parent, Prudential Financial, Inc., announced a voluntary 90-day suspension of new sales activity, effective Feb. 9, 2026, to implement comprehensive operational, organizational, and governance changes in response to previously disclosed employee misconduct. In April 2026, Prudential of Japan extended that suspension by a further 180 days, citing the broader and more complicated scope of reforms required.
The FSA carried out an on-site inspection of Prudential Life, examining whether a performance-driven culture, weak internal controls, and insufficient monitoring of sales practices contributed to the long-running misconduct. Hiromitsu Tokumaru, now president and CEO of Prudential of Japan, sits on the current LIAJ board as a director – placing the conduct issue directly within the association’s own governance structure.
The Prudential case is not the only driver. The revised Insurance Business Act, enacted in May 2025, requires the FSA to develop ordinances and revise supervisory guidelines to ensure appropriate sales by multi-agency brokers handling products from multiple insurance companies and to strengthen the obligations of large-scale multi-agency brokers to establish robust systems. Sumino’s statement acknowledged “recent cases that have undermined the trust of customers and society” and committed to reinforcing compliance risk management within direct salesperson and independent agency channels.
One passage in Sumino’s statement has received less attention than the compliance agenda but carries equally direct commercial implications. Under Japan’s fiscal 2025 tax reform, the deductible cap for life insurance premiums was raised from ¥40,000 to ¥60,000 for households with dependents under the age of 23 – initially as a measure limited to 2026. Japan’s government and ruling parties subsequently moved to extend the measure for 2027 as part of the fiscal 2026 tax system reform package.
For member companies, this is a two-year product-distribution window targeting child-rearing households – precisely the segment where protection-plus-savings products generate new business. The LIAJ said it would communicate the expanded deduction to help policyholders plan, but the more immediate question for insurers is whether distribution structures and agent training are positioned to convert the policy opening into new policies before the window closes.
Sumino’s statement also addressed Japan Post Insurance (Kampo), the life insurance arm of Japan Post Group. Japan Post Insurance paid ¥3.7 trillion in total insurance claims, annuity payments, and benefits in fiscal 2025 – described as the highest amount in the Japanese life insurance industry – and operates through approximately 20,000 post offices nationwide. With total assets of approximately ¥60 trillion, Kampo’s distribution reach and capital base are without parallel among private-sector competitors.
Japan Post Insurance’s medium-term management plan for fiscal years 2026 to 2028, published in May 2026, identifies expanding its product lineup – including medical care products – and promoting cross-selling across the Japan Post Group as core growth strategies. That direction is precisely what LIAJ member companies are monitoring. “It is essential to have fair competition conditions to ensure the improvement of consumer benefits in the mid- to long term,” Sumino’s statement said. The LIAJ indicated it would make its position public if market effects warranted. The concern reflects a structural asymmetry: Kampo operates under a regulatory framework that differs from the private-sector life insurers – both domestic mutuals and foreign-owned – that make up LIAJ membership.
The FSA introduced its Economic Value-Based Solvency Regulatory Framework at the end of March 2026, having published the relevant laws and regulations in July 2025. Proposed FSA supervisory amendments published in April 2026 would further strengthen board governance requirements, expand reporting obligations, enhance agent oversight, and increase FSA enforcement powers under the Insurance Business Act, with a final version targeted for the third quarter of 2026. For Sumino, the convergence of active enforcement, distribution reform legislation, an extended sales suspension at a fellow board member’s company, a closing tax window for child-rearing households, and Kampo’s stated expansion ambitions means the LIAJ’s agenda for the coming year is defined less by aspiration than by the pressure of specific, simultaneous demands.
