Sony Life Insurance says its months-long review of sales-staff conduct has confirmed further cases of client fraud, pushing the cumulative tally of confirmed insurance-related theft to ¥56.4mn from 21 customers, alongside a separate pool of improper money transfers now totaling ¥124.2mn from 17 customers. The insurer, a unit of Sony Financial Group (TSE: 8729), disclosed the update on September 11, 2026, covering its "customer verification" exercise as of the end of August.
The review, launched in April 2026, targets roughly 2.8 million policyholders. About 90,000 were handled by Sony Life's exclusive agency network and that check is largely complete; the remaining 2.71 million, handled directly by sales employees, are still being worked through.
| Category | Employees involved | Customers affected | Amount taken |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insurance-related fraud (newly confirmed) | 2 | 6 | ¥21.9mn |
| Insurance-related fraud (cumulative) | 4 | 21 | ¥56.4mn |
| Other improper money transfers (newly confirmed) | 2 | 3 | ¥5.5mn |
| Other improper money transfers (cumulative) | 6 | 17 | ¥124.2mn |
Two former sales employees were newly confirmed to have taken about ¥21.9mn from six customers, though the two cases used different pretexts. At a Chiba branch, one employee collected money during insurance-contract meetings between mid-2021 and late 2023 under the pretext of outside investment or asset management he never intended to place, spending it instead for personal use. At a Himeji branch, another employee told customers between 2023 and 2024 he would switch them to a different product, prompted them to cancel policies, and kept part of the resulting cancellation refunds. Two former employees, one of whom is also among those named in the insurance-fraud cases above, were newly confirmed to have taken about ¥5.5mn from three customers through unrelated investment pitches or personal loans, a category with no connection to actual insurance business. Sony Life says it disciplined the employees under internal rules for conduct that occurred during their employment, and it is weighing each case individually with input from outside experts, including lawyers, as it responds to affected customers.
On the agency side, Sony Life found no money-related misconduct among the roughly 90,000 customers served by its exclusive Premier Agency network, but seven of those agencies had referred clients to outside investment products without the prior notice the insurer requires. Sony Life confirmed in April that it will scrap the exclusive-agency system entirely.
To reach policyholders, Sony Life sent about 2.86 million emails between May and July, roughly 1.66 million mailed notices between April and August, and called about 300,000 customers between May and August, alongside a dedicated alert page on its website since June 3. It expects to finish contacting all affected customers by the end of November and plans its next progress report for mid-December.
Sony Life is also rebuilding direct contact between head office and policyholders to counter what it calls "closed-room" dependence on individual agents, a risk the insurer said in May could be significant to customer protection and fraud prevention, even as its cause analysis of the confirmed cases continues. Since November 2024, sales staff have been required to state upfront which products they may and may not offer; the insurer now plans to show each agent's authorized scope digitally and have head office confirm every new application by phone.
Sony Life disclosed separately that it has received notice from the Financial Services Agency of an on-site inspection under Article 129, Paragraph 1 of the Insurance Business Act, a step beyond the internal review it has run since April. Sony Financial Group said the effect on its consolidated results remains undetermined pending further findings.