Meiji, Yasuda Advance Merger Date, Plan Tie-Up with Nipponkoa

Meiji Life Ins. Co, Japan’s third largest life insurer, and Yasuda Mutual Life Ins. Co, the sixth largest, announced that they will advance the April 2004 date for their planned merger to January 2004.

According to a report from Japan’s Kyodo News Agency, as reported by Dow Jones Newswire, the two companies are also planning to make a cooperative arrangement with general insurer Nipponkoa to market non-life products through their facilities. Nipponkoa was established last year following the merger of Nippon Fire & Marine and Koa Fire & Marine.

The creation of Meiji Yasuda life Ins. Co. following the merger, one of a series of consolidations in the Japanese insurance markets, will create the country’s third largest life insurer in terms of assets.

The country’s ongoing economic crisis has led to the failure of a number of smaller life and p/c insurance companies, and has precipitated a scramble to merge into larger and more financially healthy organizations.