Life insurers are now worried that the slightest whiff of trouble will lead to floods of cancellations, as it did at ChiyodaLife and Kyoei Life before they collapsed last year.
Foremost are the so-called Shibuya three (their head offices are in the Shibuya district): Chiyoda, Japan's eighth-biggest life company, and Toho and Nippon Dantai, two middling-sized firms.