Booming Numbers of Chinese Insurance Sales Staff Reshape Award Ceremonies and Office Composition
“If you are hospitalized for gastroenteritis, you don’t need to stay in the hospital, but if you are hospitalized for even one day while visiting China, you can receive a hospitalization lump-sum benefit of 300,000 yen.”
“Japanese life insurance is really a good deal.”
Such Chinese-language posts are circulating on China’s social media platform Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book). When people in China are told about this and search for hospitalization lump-sum benefits, images of pamphlets from major Japanese life insurance companies appear. It seems to show cases where Chinese sales employees working at major insurers are misusing hospitalization lump-sum benefits.
At present, the number of Chinese working at leading Japanese life insurance companies is increasing. When the author interviewed several Chinese sales employees, surprising realities emerged.
According to Employee A working at a branch in eastern Japan, the branch has over 400 employees, of which about 100 are Chinese. The sales department within the branch has just over 30 people, and a few, including A, are Chinese.
At another life insurance company, Employee B’s branch has about 600 employees, of which over 100 are Chinese. In the sales office where B works, as of summer 2025, as many as 70% of employees are Chinese.
In addition, the author heard many similar comments, such as: “One-third to one-quarter of the sales offices are Chinese,” and “When I went to a lavish party attended only by top-performing employees nationwide, it was full of Chinese staff.”
Much better than part-time work
A says: “At this rate, sales roles in life insurance may become dominated by non-Japanese. It is even possible that top performers nationwide will be overwhelmingly Chinese.”
According to A, over the past decade, more Japanese people have avoided life insurance sales, leading to labor shortages. In some offices, mergers and downsizing have become necessary. The perception that life insurance sales have strict quotas has also contributed, and the number of so-called life insurance ladies has declined.
Meanwhile, more Chinese people are entering the profession. Why?
The answer is simple. First, there are no strict requirements for education or experience, and the entry barrier is very low. As long as one can speak Japanese to a certain degree, it is acceptable.
Second, there is a guaranteed base salary. Although it varies by company, income is guaranteed for the first one to two years after joining. Many are attracted by the fact that they are paid even during training. They think, “It’s much better than working part-time,” and “I can learn about life insurance while getting paid.”
Another appeal is flexible working style, where employees can decide their own working hours. As long as they complete certain tasks, commuting directly to and from client visits is acceptable. There is no need to sit in an office, which, according to Employee B, suits Chinese people who do not like being restricted.
There are even cases of people earning 20 million yen a year
The greatest appeal is that income is commission-based. Unlike internal office staff at headquarters, life insurance sales positions have income that varies depending on the number of contracts and other performance metrics. According to one Japanese internal employee, top performers in a sales office can earn around 20 million yen a year, and those among the top nationwide can earn between 100 million and 200 million yen.
Attracted by these factors, many of them join life insurance companies. This trend has particularly increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. As inbound-related businesses declined and Chinese companies operating in Japan faced worsening performance, it became known that life insurance—despite being a major Japanese corporation—is relatively easy for foreigners to enter, and this information spread through word of mouth among Chinese residents in Japan.
According to Employees A and B, over 80% of their customers are Chinese residents in Japan. Among them are people who are not fluent in Japanese, or even if they can speak it, find it difficult to understand life insurance products, and therefore cannot enroll even if they want to. As a result, Chinese sales staff explain the products in Chinese.
While relationships among Japanese people have become more distant, and more people feel that being approached by relatives or friends is troublesome, within the Chinese community in Japan there are still close-knit interpersonal networks, creating a latent demand for life insurance products.
Chinese life insurance sales staff use social media such as WeChat to sell insurance products and achieve strong performance. In other words, both sellers and buyers are Chinese.
In Part 2, the article introduces the advantages and disadvantages of the rapidly increasing number of Chinese sales employees.
Reporting and writing： Megumi Nakajima (Journalist) PHOTO： AFRO