Natural catastrophes take their toll on underwriting results

The industry was served a double whammy of low premium growth and high catastrophe losses during the fiscal 2006 year

Despite the recovery in Japan’s economic growth, the general insurance account of the General Insurance Association of Japan (GIAJ) has shown only a modest increase (0.7%) in gross premiums during fiscal 2006 (ending in March 2007), compared with the previous year’s advance of 1%.