Suicide in Japan: Part Two
- The Impact of the Suicide Rate on Life Insurance Policies

J. Sean Curtin (Fellow, GLOCOM) and Earl H. Kinmonth (Professor, Taisho University)

A full list of articles in this series can be found here.

Earl Kinmonth: Although historically Japan has been in the middle of the pack in terms of the reported suicide rates for advanced, industrialized societies, in the last few years the suicide rate for upper middle aged men has gone up significantly. This increase has even had a measurable impact on the overall life expectancy of males. Many such suicides are for the purpose of generating a life insurance payment that will cover the debts of the individual.

Sean Curtin: The media has given a fair amount of coverage to the measures life insurance companies have taken to discourage heavily indebted people from taking out policies and then committing suicide so their families receive large sums of money. Until a few years ago, the majority of life insurance firms had a one-year exemption period for benefit payments in cases where policyholders commit suicide. However, the massive growth in the number of financially-related suicides, forced most life insurers to extend the exemption period from one-year to two or three-years. Life insurance companies took this measure because they noticed a steep jump in suicide cases immediately after the former one-year suicide nonpayment period expired.

Earl Kinmonth: As you observe, because of the prevalence of suicides for the purpose of generating a life insurance payment, Japanese life insurance companies belatedly imposed a two-year minimum coverage period before they would pay out on death by suicide. However, this has now led to a notable spike in deaths in the 25th month of coverage.

Sean Curtin: The two to three-year period was believed to discourage indebted people who were contemplating suicide from taking out a life insurance policy. Most Japanese life insurance firms now have a minimum two-year non-payment exemption for suicide. If the recent reports of a spike in suicides just after the two-year suicide exemption period ends are true, then presumably a three-year non-payment threshold will become the norm.

Earl Kinmonth: Because policies typically pay more for death by accident or violence at the hands of a third party, some people have taken to advertising on the internet for someone who will turn what would otherwise be a suicide into a murder or "accident." A recent Nihon Keizai Shimbun article "Netto de satsujin irai" [Turning to the Internet for a Killer] (25 December 2003, p.17) that dealt with several documented cases of people advertising on the internet for someone who would kill the advertiser for a fee. I would, however, add as a caveat, that while businessmen committing suicide to pay off their debts is certainly a fact of contemporary Japanese life, the highest suicide rates in Japan are found in predominantly agricultural prefectures and despite the impression conveyed by the frequent disruptions of commuter service in Tokyo (but not Osaka) due to "jinshin jiko" (aka, suicides), farmers in Tohoku are much more likely to kill themselves than urban businessmen.

A full list of articles in this series can be found here.