Prudential Life Insurance's president told about 4,000 sales staff that rule-breaking could now threaten the company's survival, after the financial regulator ordered a roughly three-month business suspension that runs to the end of January.
Hiromitsu Tokumaru spoke at an emergency online meeting on October 9, the day the Financial Services Agency issued the order. Screens at branch offices carried his remarks, and the mild tone he usually uses was gone.
“From now on we will not tolerate any act that goes against the rules or our instructions. Never act on your own judgment.”Hiromitsu Tokumaru, president, Prudential Life Insurance
He also told the staff that the meaning of the self-restraint they had observed until then was now completely different.
The suspension is the first issued to an insurer since Japan Post Insurance in 2019, which was halted for three months. The FSA acted over a financial scandal in which Prudential life planners — the company's sales employees — defrauded 676 customers of a total of 4.34 billion yen.
Prudential had already stopped writing new business voluntarily from February. A suspension order is a measure under the law, and violating it could put even the company's insurance license in question.
Appointments canceled, contact banned
At the meeting, life planners were told to cancel client appointments and to make no contact at all with other customers. They were also required to sign documents pledging compliance.
One employee described the effect as being like a restraining order, the Asahi Shimbun reported. Calendars already ordered could not be sent out.
Tokumaru framed the stakes in terms of the company's continued existence. "This time, if there is fraud or a breach of the rules, the company's survival is at stake," he said.
The suspension leaves Prudential's roughly 4,000 life planners unable to sell until the end of January. The company says it will use the period for a sweeping review of how it operates.