BRIEF HISTORY

Establishment

In 1929, on the occasion of the celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the foundation of The Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co., Ltd., Mr. Kenkichi Kagami, the then-chairman of the company, proposed a plan to found an institute for non-life insurance in commemoration of that anniversary. The plan was implemented in 1933, when the Non-Life Insurance Institute of Japan was established with a fund of one million yen donated by The Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co., Ltd.

After World War II

The institute was compelled to suspend its activities when all of its properties were lost in the flames of war in Tokyo in May 1945. Efforts were made to restore the institute and rebuild its library during the difficult post-war period, and in 1947 all the member companies of The Marine & Fire Insurance Association of Japan (now the General Insurance Association of Japan) agreed to provide financial support for the activities of the institute. The management of the institute was accordingly transferred to the Association and since that time the institute has been successfully developing its activities on behalf of, and with the co-operation of, every member company.

Expansion

With the changing business environment, the need for research into common market issues from a medium to long-term perspective grew rapidly in the non-life insurance industry of the late 1980s. In order to meet the industry’s expectations, the institute enlarged both its organisation and scope of activities in 1990 and has since then been actively performing these additional functions.

In April 2011, responding to the enactment of the ‘Act on Authorisation of Public Interest Incorporated Associations and Public Interest Incorporated Foundation’, the institute changed its organisational classification to become a Public Interest Incorporated Foundation after passing the stringent Standards for Public Interest Corporation Authorisation. In light of the transition to a newly classified foundation, the institute intends to further commit itself to the objective of contributing to the sound development of non-life insurance and to the national economy. The relationship with the General Insurance Association of Japan and the insurance industry as a whole remains unchanged.