Sony Assurance Announces Results of a Content Confirmation Surveys Covering the Appropriateness of Its Fire Insurance and Other Policies*
July 4, 2008
Sony Assurance Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Financial Holdings, today announced the results of its confirmation surveys of certain fire and earthquake insurance policies. The surveys covered all policies in which the company considered errors could have been made in determining the structural categories of buildings and discounts. Details and results of the surveys are indicated below.
On policies that this surveys determined to have miscalculated premiums the company is taking steps to correct the policy content and refund the premium amount to account for the difference between past premiums paid and the correct premium amounts.
At the same time, Sony Assurance announced the results of confirmation surveys covering all policies in force, including third-sector products. For automobile insurance, as all policies in force have a remaining duration of one year and are sold using a direct sales scheme, the confirmation survey was conducted from the standpoint of being able to confirm that no errors exist at the time that current policies are extended.
The company apologizes sincerely for any inconvenience or concerns it has caused to its customers and is mounting a companywide effort to strengthen its solicitation systems to prevent a recurrence.
*At present, the scope of Sony Assurance's fire insurance is only mortgage loan specific long-term fire insurance sold through a specified agency, and is not sold directly.
- Policies Subjected to Confirmation Surveys
On in-force and lapsed fire and earthquake insurance policies, the company surveyed the basis for premium calculations, then examined the appropriateness of premiums on all policies having a possibility of premium errors. This confirmation surveys covered 1,452 policies. In addition, all in-force policies for third-sector products (115,542 policies) were subjected to confirmation surveys. - Confirmation Surveys Method
For all policies that were subjected to confirmation surveys, a Policy Content Confirmation Sheet covering the basis for calculating insurance premiums was sent by post to policyholders. The company confirmed the content of these policies based on the documentation returned by policyholders, as well as via telephone. - Confirmation Surveys Results
The table below shows the results of Sony Assurance's confirmation surveys of in-force and lapsed fire and earthquake insurance policies and third-sector products. In cases where policy premiums were determined to be miscalculated, policy content was corrected, and procedures were implemented to refund to policyholders the difference between the premium amount paid and the amount collected.
(As of June 30, 2008)
| Type of Policy | Number of Policies Confirmed* | Policies on Which Premiums Refunded | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Policies | Amount Refunded (Millions of yen) | |||
| (Fire) | Before March 2007 | 1,173 | 26 | ¥3.99 |
| After April 2007 | 279 | 3 | 0.34 | |
| Total | 1,452 | 29 | 4.33 | |
| Third-sector products (medical and cancer insurance) | 113,781 | 0 | — | |
| Third-sector products (excluding medical and cancer insurance) | 1,761 | 0 | — | |
| Total | 116,994 | 29 | 4.33 | |
*Number of policies confirmed
This figure indicates the number of fire and earthquake insurance policies which confirmation surveys results considered to contain possible premium calculation errors. All the third sector products in force are included in the total.
Note: In addition to the items listed in the table above, since the issue of premium appropriateness for fire insurance policies arose in autumn 2006, three policies were found to be miscalculated premiums as a result of applications filed by customers to this effect. The resulting difference in premium amounts that refunded to policyholders came to ¥0.66 million.
Note: This is an English-language summary of a Japanese announcement made by Sony Assurance on July 4, 2008. The summary was prepared by Sony Financial Holdings Inc. solely for the convenience of non-Japanese readers.
