Japanese non-life recovery

Asia

A report by insurance rating agency Fitch Ratings suggests that the Japanese non-life market will post strong underwriting results for the fiscal year ending March 2006. This will come as a relief to the market which saw a drop in earnings during the previous financial year as a result of natural disasters. Also the big Japanese companies’ capital positions improved significantly on the back of the recovery in the Japanese equity markets. This is despite the fact that insurers’ profits from bond sales are falling. According to Fitch, the net premium income of the five big Japanese non-life insurers increased in all of the major business lines.