Collaboration with Development Bank of Japan (DBJ)

Sompo Japan Nipponkoa works with the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) to support the disaster risk reduction measures of corporate clients.
This comprehensive financial service draws upon both the DBJ’s accurate rating capabilities and our non-life insurance and risk management expertise. Sompo Japan Nipponkoa offers an insurance service that covers loss of earnings and expenses in the event of operational suspension due to a natural disaster. Companies evaluated by the DBJ as having a high Business Continuity Management (BCM) rating, so called DBJ BCM rating, can receive maximum discount rate of 20% on their premium. Sompo Risk Management & Health Care provides assistance service to DBJ clients who wish to bolster disaster risk countermeasures in their business continuity planning (BCP). We will continue to provide total financial solution services by exploring further opportunities for high-synergy collaboration projects with external partners.

Volcanic Eruption Derivative and Related Estimating Method

Sompo Japan Nipponkoa and Sompo Risk Management & Health Care have developed the industry’s first kind of weather derivative, “Mt. Fuji Eruption Derivative,” along with a method for estimating the probability of a future eruption. The derivative indexes eruption-related information such as eruption warnings issued by the Japan Meteorological Agency, enabling business people to prepare for potential losses and costs in the event of an eruption.
Since the derivative promptly pays out a predetermined amount, it can be used by companies as working capital, and is also effective as a business continuity planning (BCP) strategy. The eruption probability estimation method developed by Sompo Risk Management & Health Care takes the time lapse after an eruption into account and calculates probability based on related global research into the probabilistic forecasting of volcanic eruptions. Sompo Japan Nipponkoa is also involved in the development of “Mt. Bandai Eruption Derivative” as well as “Mt. Zaou Eruption Derivative”, and plans to extend the eruption derivative to target other volcanoes in the future.

Risk Assessment and Consulting Services for Natural Disasters

With large-scale natural hazards such as earthquakes, blizzards, and localized rainstorms growing more destructive in recent years, the need for disaster preparedness and resilience strategies is greater than ever. In Japan, spurred by the devastating March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, a law for national resilience was enacted in December 2013 that requires the national government, local governments, and businesses to cooperate on the development of a national infrastructural and socioeconomic system designed to improve the country’s strength and resilience to natural disasters.
Sompo Risk Management & Health Care, drawing on its time-tested expertise in risk quantification and disaster preparedness consulting, provides customers with case-specific evaluation of potential damages from such events as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and storms, along with specific strategies for dealing with them.
These services cover both hard and soft strategies: Proprietary model-based risk quantification; evaluation of seismic resistance and soil liquefaction potential for buildings and facilities; support for minimizing the impacts of operational downtime through business continuity planning (BCP); and assistance with constructing a business continuity management system (ISO 22301).
In August 2015, the company also began offering a service that provides customers with easy access to risk-related information in map and list formats. The new service centrally manages and continually updates information from various sources, including hazard maps and the large quantity of damage prediction data released by national and local governments. The company is also actively supporting local government efforts to improve their disaster resilience.

Support for Corporate and Municipal BCP and Disaster Preparedness

Six years have passed since 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and companies are starting to review their Business Continuity Plans (BCP) or implementing disaster drills.
To meet those customers’ needs, Sompo Risk Management & Health Care has been continuously providing the support programs to further improve their Business Continuity Management Systems (BCMS), especially focused on raising awareness of top management, training employees responsible for risk management and building integrated network of departments and offices.
Furthermore, we provide comprehensive consultations for establishing and improving the BCMS, as well as the support for ISO 22301 certification.
Local governments are undertaking various measures including strengthening disaster risk reduction and crisis management in order to prepare for outbreak of infection disease such as a new strain of influenza, storm and flood damage, huge and inland earthquake and tsunami such as the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. They also promote measures for effective management of evacuation centers, support for vulnerable citizens, medical and rescue services at a disaster.
Sompo Risk Management & Health Care supports local governments to build resilient communities in various ways: Helping renewals of the Local Disaster Management Plans and establishment of BCPs; developing measurements for stranded survivors and related training; making documents on disaster response and lessons learned, and planning and researching for the Urban Renaissance Safety Security Plans in which local governments, corporations and citizens’ organizations work together.

Risk Management for Global Business Operations

There are increasing number of Japanese companies who start to consider the business expansion in other countries given the severe price battle and shrink of the Japanese market due to the falling birth rate. It is expected that Japanese companies will further expand their businesses to not only Europe, emerging countries in Asia including China and ASEAN countries, but also Latin America and Africa.
Sompo Risk Management & Health Care has started to provide risk consulting service for business in other countries from November 2013. That includes research on local security, risk and compliance training for local staff, and support service for development of risk management system that includes assessment of local offices’ risks to support the risk management activities of the Japanese companies that expand their businesses to the world. Sompo Risk Management & Health Care strives to meet customer needs by providing comprehensive service menus for risk management for global business operations that cover the accidents as well as daily risk management.

Cyber Insurance

There has been an increase in insurance-related needs to deal with the risk of cyberattacks, along with a changing social environment, such as the launch of Japan’s national identification number system for individuals, amendments to the Act on Protection of Personal Information, and increased sophistication of cyberattacks.
Businesses play a key role in the economy, and in order to support their cybersecurity measures, Sompo Japan Nipponkoa offers Cyber Insurance with expanded coverage for the cost of investigating the causes of leaks as well as lost profits, caused by digital data corruption, information leaks, and disconnection of network. In the event of an information leak or other incident, it is crucial to minimize losses, so urgent responses are increasingly important: Rapid investigation of the source and causes, and efforts to control the extent of losses. We have tied up with specialized businesses that provide this kind of support, and offer services to support smooth business recovery for all Cyber Insurance policy holders.

Support functions during emergencies

Cyberattacks Drills/Training Services

In recent years, a series of new and more sophisticated cyberattacks has occurred, resulting in frequent information security incidents with various organizations, including corporations and public institutions. This situation has led to a growing interest in information security risk, and efforts made to strengthen defenses against cyberattacks: the Basic Act on Cybersecurity was enacted in November 2014, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan (METI) enacted the Cybersecurity Management Guidelines with the Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA) in December 2015. Some corporations have created a Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT), and are also starting to hold trainings and develop manuals against cyberattacks.
Through a tie-up with LAC Co., a firm highly regarded for its information security solution services, Sompo Risk Management & Health Care offers services such as drills aimed at countering cyberattacks and trainings to support capacity building, to help strengthen corporate information security systems. The role of responses to cyberattacks in a corporation or organization varies with the person’s position and with the organization. These services involve drills and training services appropriate for each role, and we have received positive feedback from our customers.

Key components of our service: drills / training against cyberattacks

Sora One 2.0: Risk Management via a Web-based System

Since launching Sora One in November 2014, Sompo Risk Management & Health Care has received a wider variety of requests: Requests to receive information on risks other than natural disasters such as terrorism and infectious diseases for employees working in other countries; emergency alert service when a typhoon is approaching, earthquake occurs, or an act of terrorism or riots occur; and tools to promote corporate risk management activities. Based on these requests, we launched in October 2016 a new version, Sora One 2.0, which includes additional and enhanced features.
Sora One 2.0 provides support to customers by systematizing their operations from the day-to-day gathering of information to recording and managing information on long-term business activities. The web-based system enables multiple companies to use it as a tool to jointly promote the management of risks such as supply chain risk management.

Image taken from Sora One 2.0 pamphlet

Bosai JAPAN-DA Project to Raise Disaster Awareness

Insurance being one of our core businesses, we at Sompo Japan Nipponkoa believe in the importance of raising public awareness of disasters. In the Bosai JAPAN-DA Project, we host puppet shows and experience-based workshops to teach children — society’s future leaders — and their parents how to protect themselves and others in emergency situations.
The puppet show, performed by the Yumemi Trunk Puppet Theater Troupe, is an original adaptation of The Three Little Pigs. It tells the story of how the three pigs help each other to overcome various calamities (wind, rain, lightning, fire, etc.) caused by the big bad wolf. In the experience-based workshop, provided in partnership with the NPO Plus Arts, participants get to move their bodies in fun ways while gaining useful knowledge and skills for responding to crises.
As of March 2017 these events have been held 73 times across Japan attracting more than 9,000 people.

Insurance Package as Online 'Flaming' Countermeasures

There has been an increase in online flaming incidents in recent years and the handling of such incidents has become a major issue for corporations and organizations, with more and more companies developing and enhancing online monitoring systems. If a company is unable to take an appropriate emergency response to a large-scale incident, despite detecting negative posts, the damage will continue to spread, ultimately affecting stock prices. In such cases it is extremely difficult to estimate the extent to which damage will spread, and the cost of recovery in the long-term could be exorbitant.
Given this situation, Sompo Japan Nipponkoa launched an online flaming insurance in March 2017. The insurance package includes an emergency response service that automatically starts when a flaming incident occurs (online flaming response service support and emergency media response support), and the expenses required for these responses are covered by the insurance package. Online flaming response support is provided by Eltes Co., Ltd., a company specializing in online risks, while emergency media response support is provided by Sompo Risk Management & Health Care.
Enrollment in this insurance assumes that web monitoring is already conducted by a specialist company. Sompo Risk Management & Health Care provides an online flaming insurance package that includes a feature offered by Sompo Japan Nipponkoa that compensates for expenses incurred by Eltes to respond in emergencies when a major flaming incident occurs and a long period of time will be required to recover from the incident.
Through this product we will support corporate online flaming countermeasures.

Examples of Costs Resulting from Online Flaming(in Japanese)

Sompo Guide Tokyo: Travel Guide for Touring Japan with Confidence

The Japanese government plans to increase the number of visitors from abroad to 40 million by 2020, and the number of inbound tourists is expected to increase. Meanwhile, tourists have a number of concerns, including inadequate communications infrastructure and services, anxieties about Japanese culture and communication with Japanese people, and a lack of information on how to resolve problems encountered with traveling around the country.
Sompo Holdings has released Sompo Guide Tokyo, a travel guide for international visitors to Japan designed to highlight the attractive aspects of Japan to a global audience while providing peace of mind to tourists that visit Japan. Through the travel guide we aim to provide a greater sense of safety, beyond insurance, to tourists.

For Resilient Risk Management ― Anshin Hosho Package to Companies that Grant Privacy Marks

Incidences of damage from cyberattacks have been steadily increasing. The damage resulting from companies leaking information is also expanding as information databases get bigger and bigger due to technological innovation and the sophisticated telecommunications. January 2016 launch of Japan’s national identification number system for individuals and the increasing popularity of IoT products are expected to further raise the risk of information leaks at companies.
Against this background, the revised version of the Personal Information Protection Act, which came into full force on May 30, 2017, changed the definition of entities handling personal information, resulting in virtually all businesses being subject to the law, and making risk management even more crucial to businesses.
Sompo Japan Nipponkoa launched a cyber insurance product in October 2015 as a non-life insurance policy that covers such risks. With the aim of contributing to further improving the level of information security at companies in Japan by promoting the spread of the privacy mark system, Sompo Japan Nipponkoa signed the industry's first comprehensive agreement with Japan Information Processing Development Center (JIPDEC), and on March 18, 2017 started offering a special cyber insurance product, Anshin Hosho Package, to organizations that grant privacy marks.

Japan's First Insurance Policy that Covers the Cost of Responding to Online Flaming

With the spread of the internet and smartphones it has become much easier to transmit information to an unspecified number of people, and so-called “flaming” incidents, in which a deluge of negative comments are made on social media and the like, have been increasing year-on-year. Countermeasures to such flaming are now an issue for companies. Flaming is caused by any number of reasons and preventing flaming in advance is thought to be extremely difficult as social media becomes more and more popular.
Against this backdrop, Sompo Japan Nipponkoa has launched an insurance policy that covers the cost of responding to online flaming, the first of its kind in Japan to cover expenses necessary to quickly and properly respond to minimize the damage caused by flaming incidents.

Results of Survey on Disaster Preparedness

In March 2017, six years after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Sompo Japan Nipponkoa published the results of a survey on disaster preparedness.

<Outline of Survey>
Survey period: February 8 – February 11, 2017
Method: Internet (PC/ mobile sites)
Target area: Japan
Target: Men/women aged 20-69
No. of valid responses: 1,112 (men: 555, women: 557)

Points to note from survey
1. Almost 80% of respondents answered that “Awareness of disaster prevention has increased after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.”

There are concerns about a Tokyo metropolitan area earthquake and a massive earthquake in the Nankai Trough, and mobile phones and PC email are expected to be out of action for a while should either occur. There is thus a need to secure multiple means of contacting family. In anticipation of it not being possible to meet at the family home due to tsunami or the risk of the building collapsing, there is also a need to choose a place to meet family other than the family home.
Based on these results of such surveys, we will continue to make efforts for a safer society in which people can live with peace of mind through the products and services that contribute to disaster risk reduction.

Initiatives to Prevent Maritime Ship Accidents

Sompo Japan Nipponkoa is promoting initiatives to prevent ship maritime accidents, in addition to responding to ship insurance accidents, our core business. Ship accidents are linked to serious marine pollution from oil spills to accidents involving the lives of multinational crew members. In collaboration with shipping companies and ship management companies, we hold loss prevention seminars in Singapore, Manila and Thailand to raise awareness among ship managers and crew members from other countries.
In 2016 in collaboration with specialized institutions from around the world we started issuing “SOMPO Alarm Whistle (SAW)” and “Marine Engine Newsletter” which are circulars concerning accident prevention based on our accident response know-how, and we offer warnings to sailors around the world as our unique “risk information that reaches the oceans.”