There are all kinds of risks in our daily lives. Losing our houses in a fire, causing a car accident, being hospitalized for an illness, dying and leaving our families behind—while it is difficult to prevent these from happening, we can try and mitigate the financial impact. This is where the insurance system comes in.

Private insurance companies develop insurance products for various risks, allowing us to choose and buy the insurance we need. However, unlike home appliances, cosmetics, and other consumer goods, we cannot try insurance before we buy. In exchange for paying insurance premiums, we can receive insurance benefits, but that is only when something happens. Despite this, many people buy insurance because it offers them peace of mind. To maintain such trust, we need laws such as the Insurance Act.

There must never be people who receive insurance benefits unfairly

I specialize in laws related to insurance systems. In particular, I focus on the balance between soundness and efficiency of insurance systems.

Soundness is the correctness of ensuring that insurance benefits are paid when they should and never when they should not. For example, if insurance benefits are easily paid for insurance fraud, such as murder for the purpose of insurance benefits or unfair claims, insurance systems will lose trust. At the same time, paying too much attention to soundness incurs cost, making insurance systems harder to use. Efficiency is therefore also important.

To balance these two aspects, the Insurance Act includes stipulations such as the duty of disclosure—specifying the information that should be conveyed to the insurance company by the policyholder when signing a policy—and rules regarding beneficiaries. I study whether laws are functioning adequately for our current insurance systems and, if not, how they should be changed. I also reference overseas examples in my research.

Legal systems necessary for insurance products dealing with new risks

I am also interested in legal restraints on insurance products dealing with new risks. There are increasingly more cybercrime and online problems, and the development of AI could expose us to even greater risks. We are also experiencing more major disasters due to changes in the global environment, and the risks associated with living longer are manifesting with a super-aging population.

New insurance products are being developed to deal with these risks, and part of my research is to study these products for legal problems, loopholes, and the need for new systems if current laws are inadequate.

Greater confidence in insurance also helps enrich society as a whole. For example, if there is a 0.1% chance of something that causes a loss of 100,000 dollars, a person will need to save a large part of their income to set aside this amount. There will be more families that forgo purchases, vacations, and such, stagnating the economy.

However, with an insurance system, if 1,000 people fork out 100 dollars each in this case, 100,000 dollars can be made available to the person who unfortunately suffers this loss. Preparing for risks with minimal funds allows money to be used for other things with peace of mind. Put bluntly, insurance is just a promise, but this promise must never be betrayed. I hope to continue pursuing the laws that should be in place to protect this trust.

The book I recommend

“Hokenho”(Insurance Act)
by Tomonobu Yamashita, Osamu Takehama, Hiroshi Suzaki, and Tetsuo Yamamoto, Yuhikaku Publishing

I obtained the first edition of this book as a graduate student, thoroughly read it to learn about the Insurance Act, and searched for research themes. Seemingly for beginners, this book is quite profound, and I still carefully read it every time a new edition is published. It is one of the books that I have read the most in my life.

Interviewed: June 2025