NU Online News Service, Sept. 21, 2004, 5:44 p.m. EDT
Japan’s life insurers still have serious investment problems, but they have made a good effort to cut sales costs.[@@]
Donovan North and Shiyo Imai, analysts from the Hong Kong and Tokyo offices of Moody’s Investors Service, have come to that conclusion in an update on the Japanese life industry.
Japanese insurers face more competition from foreign insurers, but their biggest problem is the mismatch between the high rates of return they promised on products in the 1980s and early 1990s and the low rates of return they are earning on their own investments, the analysts write.