JAPANESE LIFE INSURERS PREMIUMS FALL

PREMIUMS written by Japan’s life insurers in the nine months to December 2008 were down 2.6% year-on-year, according to official figures. Today’s Nikkei quotes Life Insurance Association of Japan figures as indicating nine-month premiums for its 44 members at Yen19.51trn. Still the figures showed a year-on-year increase in premium revenue for December – the first such increase in three months. Revenues were up 1.5% in the month at Yen2.32trn. Over the nine-month period sales of variable annuities were down 16.9% at Yen2.36trn.