Big Motor’s Non-Life Insurance Agency Registration Ends at the End of November

On November 30, the Kanto Local Finance Bureau issued an administrative sanction under Article 307, Paragraph 1, Item 3 of the Insurance Business Law, revoking the registration of BM Group (Big Motor Co., Ltd., BM Holdings Co., Ltd., BM Hanaten Co., Ltd.) as non-life insurance agents.

 

Until now, each of Big Motor’s stores had been a non-life insurance agent for Tokio Marine & Nichido, Sompo Japan, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, and other non-life insurance companies. This allowed Big Motor, which is not a non-life insurance company, to handle procedures for voluntary insurance and liability insurance contracts. However, as a result of this administrative action, Big Motor will no longer be able to register as a non-life insurance agent under the same legal entity for at least three years from now.

Prior to the administrative action, the Kanto Local Finance Bureau released details of the action on November 24. The details included such surprising explanations as “Kaneshige and his son were overly motivated to increase profits and manage the company according to their own wishes, and neglected to establish a legal compliance system and a management control system that a large company should naturally have in place,” and “the board of directors meeting was held only once in about seven years,” The report also details a number of “cases of impropriety” revealed by the on-site inspection. The following are some of the major examples.

The inspection found that in 122 cases, the solicitors did not provide comprehensive explanations of important matters.

1. In the insurance recruitment system, we extracted and confirmed 148 contracts in which it was recorded that contract conclusion procedures were completed in an extremely short period of time, and in 122 cases, the solicitor did not provide a comprehensive explanation of important matters. It was recognized that this was not the case.
2. The solicitors offered special benefits prohibited by Article 300, Paragraph 1, Item 5 of the Insurance Business Law, such as discounts on vehicle prices on the condition of purchasing insurance.
3. When 88 insurance policies of solicitors were extracted and confirmed, 14 policies were found to have been improperly solicited, such as being pressured by the store manager, etc., to join.
4. In 121 of the 149 insurance policies of subcontractors, it was determined that insurance was purchased under pressure, and other inappropriate solicitation activities were also performed on the subcontractors.

 

In other words, it was revealed that Big Motor had been pressuring its subcontractors to sign up for insurance policies in the absence of a guidance system for proper insurance solicitation. Note that these figures are only a sampling and not the full results of the investigation.