Dai-ichi Life Holdings Inc. has confirmed more than 1,100 cases of unauthorized data transfers involving employees seconded to sales agencies in Japan, in a series of disclosures that has drawn attention to information controls at major life insurers.
The group said it identified 1,155 cases in which 64 employees, loaned from affiliated insurers to 28 sales agents including banks, transferred internal information without authorization. The information included customer personal data, according to the holding company, as reported by The Japan Times. The cases were uncovered through a groupwide survey of Dai-ichi Life Holdings’ entities, including Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co. and Dai-ichi Frontier Life Insurance Co., covering the period from April 2021 to October 2025. The review followed similar misconduct related to data transfers that was uncovered at Nippon Life Insurance Co. last year. Dai-ichi Life Holdings said it had already become aware in 2024 of some internal information being transferred outside prescribed channels. At that time, the company did not disclose the issue publicly or brief sales agents, stating that “no violation of laws or regulations has been found.” After widening the investigation, the group said, “we have confirmed that we did not systematically order” the conduct.
In response to the findings, Dai-ichi Life Holdings has introduced measures affecting its senior leadership. Senior managing executive officer Mamoru Akashi received a reprimand, the company said. Chairman Seiji Inagaki and president and group CEO Tetsuya Kikuta will voluntarily return 30% of their monthly executive compensation for one month. A further 12 former and current group executives, including presidents of subsidiaries, will also return part of their pay for the same period.
As an operational change, the group plans to end the practice of seconding employees to agents for the purpose of insurance sales by the end of March. The move will alter Dai-ichi Life’s use of embedded staff in bancassurance and other intermediary channels, a common distribution approach for life insurers in Asia. Other major Japanese life insurers have reported comparable issues. Nippon Life has disclosed 1,543 cases of unauthorized transfers of internal information, while Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. has reported 780 cases and Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. has reported 39 cases.
Sumitomo Life said that employees seconded to agencies took or photographed documents without permission at eight agencies, involving 780 documents in total. The materials related to agency sales performance and product information from other life insurers. According to the company, cited by The Japan News, the information was shared within Sumitomo Life, primarily among personnel at the head office. Between April 2022 and May 2025, 13 employees took documents stored at their assigned locations or photographed them with smartphones and then sent the images or data to colleagues at headquarters, the insurer said. In one instance, the information was distributed to as many as 50 executives and staff members.
Sumitomo Life stated that it is considering disciplinary action against some of the individuals involved. The company said it has found no indication that the information was passed to third parties outside the group, and no evidence that systematic instructions were issued to obtain and distribute the documents. The insurer added that the conduct did not fall under “infringement of trade secrets” as defined in Japan’s Unfair Competition Prevention Law. Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance separately reported 39 cases of internal information being taken by employees seconded to sales agencies. In those cases, employees removed documents such as sales results for competing insurance products and provided them to headquarters staff who were in contact with the secondees. The company said it is considering disciplinary measures.
In 2025, Japan’s insurance sector came under regulatory scrutiny over data governance after Sompo Japan Insurance admitted that hackers accessed its systems between April 17 and 21, resulting in unauthorized access to internal data and potential exposure of up to 17.5 million customer records, and prompting a business improvement order from the Financial Services Agency. At the same time, a regulatory review of sales practices at major life insurers found extensive unauthorized handling of policyholder data: Dai‑ichi Life Holdings (including Dai‑ichi Life Insurance and Dai‑ichi Frontier Life Insurance), Nippon Life Insurance, Sumitomo Life Insurance, and Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance all reported cases in which employees transferred customer information to affiliated sales agents without proper authorization, with incidents confirmed to have continued through at least October 2025 and contributing to tighter expectations on how insurers share and store personal data.
For insurance professionals across Asia, the Japanese cases point to ongoing questions around information governance in multi-channel distribution, particularly where insurers second staff to banks and other agencies. The disclosures by Dai-ichi Life, Sumitomo Life, Nippon Life, and Meiji Yasuda have been accompanied by reviews of how personal data, commercial information, and competitor-related materials are accessed, shared, and overseen between head offices and external sales partners.
