Four of Japan’s biggest life insurers reported that unrealized losses on their domestic bond holdings in the last fiscal year reached about $60 billion in total, underscoring the risks they face as interest rates climb.
Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance said paper losses on its domestic bond holdings increased more than eightfold to about ¥1.386 trillion ($9.7 billion) at the end of March, compared with ¥161.4 billion a year earlier. Sumitomo Life Insurance suffered similarly in the debt market, with unrealized bond losses more than tripling to ¥1.518 trillion over the same period.
Combined with similar figures announced earlier from Nippon Life Insurance, the biggest firm in the Japanese sector, and Dai-ichi Life Holdings, the paper losses amount to about ¥8.5 trillion, around four times the total a year earlier.
