EUR 850.00 For Business Accounts Only

Morningstar | Initiating Coverage of Dai-Ichi Life Holdings

Following its demutualization and IPO in 2010, Dai-Ichi Life Holdings has transformed from one of Japan’s big four traditional life insurers to a multinational holding company with a multi-brand, multi-channel strategy. In Japan, Dai-Ichi Life is still the largest entity, accounting for around two thirds of total assets, premiums, and profits. Its main sales channel is a large work force of more than 40,000 mainly female tied agents who are long-term employees of the company and give customized consultations to potential customers at their workplaces or homes, with various products tailored to different age groups and their savings and protection needs. The second-largest domestic entity is Dai-Ichi Frontier Life, established in 2006 when Japan was deregulating bancassurance and having steadily grown since then. It provides in-depth on-site training to bank tellers who mainly sell savings products, particularly foreign-currency-linked annuities. The third and smallest domestic entity is Neo First Life, which focuses on selling via the Internet by providing products that are relatively easy to understand and easy for the insurer to process. Neo is still small but is growing rapidly with a skew toward younger customers.Overseas, Dai-Ichi’s investments can be divided into developed markets--the U.S. and Australia--where it acquired large players that contribute relatively stable profits, and emerging markets whose contributions are small at present but offer significant long-term secular growth potential. In the U.S., Dai-Ichi purchased Alabama-based Protective Life in 2015. Protective has a long history of deploying capital generated from its in-force retail insurance and annuities business to acquire blocks of business from other underwriters. In Australia, TAL, purchased in 2011, is the largest of several foreign-owned life insurers that have come to dominate the local market as Australian banks have sold their insurance businesses owing to regulatory concerns. In emerging markets, Dai-Ichi Life has full control of units in Vietnam and Cambodia and noncontrolling stakes in ventures in India, Indonesia, and Thailand.