(Excerpt)
(Friday, July ３, 2026, 10:09 am to 10:22 am)
- Q.
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I would like to ask about insurance agents in the automobile industry that also engage in other businesses. Regarding automobile insurance, at the front line, what is described as quality improvement is being used as a pretext to exclude such agents. I would like to ask for your assessment of the fact that insurance companies are using the pretext of guidance from the Financial Services Agency. Also, can such exclusion be considered consistent with customer-oriented business conduct? Please explain once again the objective of non-life insurance administration. One more related point: there is a complete mismatch in the understanding of the current situation among insurance companies, insurance agents that also engage in other businesses, and the FSA. The actual state of insurance agents was also an issue in the BIGMOTOR case. As an administrative authority, is it not necessary to go a step further, collect data, and ascertain the actual state of insurance agents? Those are my three questions.
- A.
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With regard to the BIGMOTOR issue, in fact, I was the first person in Nagatacho to take it up in my capacity as Chairperson for the Research Commission on the Finance and Banking Systems. This issue concerned fields such as automobile maintenance and auto body repairs, where even the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism had not yet made sufficient progress in ascertaining the actual situation. In that respect, I believe the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism responded very carefully and effectively. At that time, we also squarely addressed the fact that this field, including the so-called rate issue, is one of the occupational fields in which wages have been most difficult to raise. Both the FSA at the time and the current FSA have been working properly to improve the situation from that perspective. I understand that what you are mainly referring to is small and medium-sized automobile dealers and automobile maintenance service providers that also operate as insurance agents. I believe there are generally around 70,000 to 80,000 such operators. It is certainly not the case that problems like those seen in the BIGMOTOR issue are occurring uniformly among them. The issue of superior bargaining position concerns some major operators, such as those with insurance-related revenue of 1 billion, 2 billion, or 3 billion yen. They are not at all the same as the many shops that, while carrying the signboard of a single insurance company, mainly provide ordinary automobile maintenance services. These two are not the same at all. The amended Insurance Business Act, which has been in force since June this year, is based on the idea that, while taking such differences into account, businesses should strengthen their frameworks according to their scale so that compliance can be properly ensured. I myself have stated this point quite clearly. Nevertheless, I find it very regrettable that various concerns are still being raised. For this reason, we have decided to conduct a survey of the actual situation. Or rather, I believe we have already begun to do so. We should also take those voices seriously. The FSA certainly does not intend to require excessive development of frameworks, and it would not be desirable for situations to arise in which unilateral termination of contracts is raised. We need to ensure that such situations do not occur. At the same time, it is also true that compliance-related incidents actually occurred. Even if they occurred at an extremely large-scale business operator, the facts remain facts. Therefore, it is necessary for compliance to be properly ensured. Ensuring compliance ultimately also leads to customer-oriented business conduct. We would like to strike a balance between avoiding excessive development of frameworks or unilateral contract termination and ensuring compliance. In that sense, in the name of quality improvement, we would like to call on non-life insurance companies to improve the quality of their operations. Therefore, as for the survey of the actual situation, we are about to begin it, or rather, we have begun it. As we are in the process of starting, we would like to call on the industry to take initiatives toward genuine improvement in the quality of operations. That is our stance.
