Today my wife and I met with a life insurance agent. Life insurance isn’t available to people with tattoos! Is there anyone who has experienced the same thing as me who can offer me advice? Cheers!**
Offshore term life is the way to go. Most Japanese life insurance is insanely expensive with low benefits.
Wow, this was never even brought up when I signed up for my life insurance. Did they ask you specifically if you had tattoos or was that information voluntarily shared?
I have never heard someone with tattoos got rejected lol. Go apply for online one like SBI life insurance. You won’t have to deal with agents.
I can’t remember if you need to declare if you have tattoo or not though, but I don’t think they give damn as long as you’re paying.
So, it’s actually not unheard of. There is some evidence that suggests people with tattoos are at much higher risk of getting hepatitis C, and insurance companies can (arguably rightly) determine that signing up someone at higher risk isn’t appropriate. In Japan, insurance companies’ compliance departments will refuse any policy from ‘antisocial forces’ (yakuza). Tattoos of course are commonly associated with yakuza, so the only option for the insurance company would be to…discriminate based on race to allow foreigners to get policies. I’m sure no one would have a problem with raced-based discrimination.
Important to note that not all insurance companies have this no-tattoo policy, some web searches suggest that it is case-by-case, and it’s not nearly as simple as ‘overseas firm ok, JPN firm not ok’. Search around, you should find something.
4 comments
Offshore term life is the way to go. Most Japanese life insurance is insanely expensive with low benefits.
Wow, this was never even brought up when I signed up for my life insurance. Did they ask you specifically if you had tattoos or was that information voluntarily shared?
I have never heard someone with tattoos got rejected lol. Go apply for online one like SBI life insurance. You won’t have to deal with agents.
I can’t remember if you need to declare if you have tattoo or not though, but I don’t think they give damn as long as you’re paying.
So, it’s actually not unheard of. There is some evidence that suggests people with tattoos are at much higher risk of getting hepatitis C, and insurance companies can (arguably rightly) determine that signing up someone at higher risk isn’t appropriate. In Japan, insurance companies’ compliance departments will refuse any policy from ‘antisocial forces’ (yakuza). Tattoos of course are commonly associated with yakuza, so the only option for the insurance company would be to…discriminate based on race to allow foreigners to get policies. I’m sure no one would have a problem with raced-based discrimination.
Important to note that not all insurance companies have this no-tattoo policy, some web searches suggest that it is case-by-case, and it’s not nearly as simple as ‘overseas firm ok, JPN firm not ok’. Search around, you should find something.
Just remember to disclose your tattoo if asked!