On 30 July 2026, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) notified the Japan Pension Service that foreign missions in Japan will be brought within the scope of the Health Insurance Act and the Employees' Pension Insurance Act in respect of their locally engaged staff, with effect from 1 April 2028. The notice replaces a 1955 circular under which coverage had been treated as voluntary, and it was issued after consultation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For diplomatic missions in Japan, it is one more point at which the mission's operations meet the receiving state's institutions.
Social insurance is not non-life insurance, but the notice carries a message for anyone running administration or finance at an embassy or consulate. Facilities located in Japan, staff hired in Japan and events held in Japan all place the mission inside Japanese rules on responsibility, and some of the mission's insurance may not have been looked at since the last change of administrative officer. MOFA's list of foreign missions in Japan runs to 188 states and organisations (counted by us on 28 October 2026). Most of them share the same set of exposures: chancery, residence, official vehicles, staff, visitors and events.
This guide sets out the seven lines of non-life insurance that diplomatic missions in Japan commonly carry, the four features that make a mission different from an ordinary corporate policyholder (the Vienna Convention, the Insurance Business Act, earthquake exposure, and Japanese labour law for local staff), and a five-step method for reviewing the programme as a whole. Motor insurance for official and diplomatic vehicles, which is tied to MOFA registration and has enough detail of its own, is covered in a separate article. The short version: start the review at three points, overlap between the home-government programme and Japanese policies, the split of cover between owned and leased premises, and the gap in cover for locally engaged staff who are injured at work.
This article is a general explanation. It does not describe any particular insurer, product, policy or endorsement. Questions on the application of treaties, statutes or social-insurance rules should be put to MOFA, MHLW or a qualified adviser. Whether a given claim is paid is decided by the insurer under the policy wording and the facts of the case.
SummaryKey points
- The inviolability of mission premises, tax exemption and immunity from jurisdiction under the Vienna Convention do not extinguish a mission's liability for harm it causes to others, nor an employer's obligations toward staff hired in Japan. Insurance is what funds compensation to third parties and the mission's own losses.
- Article 186 of the Insurance Business Act prohibits, in principle, a foreign insurer with no branch in Japan from insuring property located in Japan. A home-government programme is something to check for overlap and gaps, not a substitute for Japanese policies.
- Missions commonly carry seven lines: property insurance on chancery, residence and contents; premises liability; event liability, participant accident and cancellation cover; accident cover for locally engaged staff; movable property including artworks and cash; cyber and data-breach cover for visa-applicant information; and motor insurance.
- Review in five steps: build a policy register, check overlap and gaps against the home programme, reconcile owned and leased premises with the lease, close the gaps around staff injury and events, then align renewal dates and document the procurement.
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Four features that make a diplomatic mission a different kind of policyholder
A mission cannot simply buy the same insurance an ordinary Japanese company buys and expect it to fit. Four features set the frame before any product is discussed.
Privileges and immunities do not remove liability
Article 22(1) of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations makes the premises of the mission inviolable; Article 22(2) places the receiving state under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises against intrusion or damage; Article 22(3) exempts the premises, their furnishings and other property, and the mission's means of transport from search, requisition, attachment or execution. Article 23(1) exempts the sending state and the head of mission from all national, regional or municipal dues and taxes in respect of the premises, whether owned or leased, other than charges for specific services rendered.
Note what these provisions do not say. They do not say that the receiving state will compensate the mission for damage to its premises. Japan's duty is one of protective measures; there is no mechanism by which the Japanese government indemnifies a mission for fire or earthquake loss. In the opposite direction, when a visitor is injured at the chancery or a mission event causes damage to a third party, the diplomatic agent is immune from civil jurisdiction under Article 31, but the third party's loss remains. Article 41(1) makes it the duty of all persons enjoying privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving state. Insurance is the practical instrument by which a mission actually compensates the people it harms.
Insuring assets in Japan through a home-country insurer is legally restricted
Article 186(1) of Japan's Insurance Business Act prohibits, in principle, a foreign insurer that has not established a branch in Japan from concluding insurance contracts on property located in Japan. Under Article 186(2), a prospective policyholder must obtain the Prime Minister's permission before applying for such a contract. The chancery building, its contents and the official cars in Tokyo are all property located in Japan. Placing them on a programme the home government holds with a home-country insurer is, under Japanese law, an exception that requires permission rather than a default.
This does not make the home programme irrelevant. Cover arranged at home may fill gaps the Japanese policy leaves (repatriation, benefits owed to staff under home regulations). The workable structure is to treat policies with insurers licensed in Japan as the foundation and lay the home programme alongside them to find overlap and gaps. Where the legal position is uncertain, consult the Financial Services Agency or a legal adviser.
Japan's earthquake exposure is not covered by standard fire insurance
The Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion puts the 30-year probability of a magnitude-7-class earthquake along the Sagami Trough, which underlies Tokyo and the southern Kanto region, at around 70% (long-term evaluation calculated as of 1 January 2026). Under Japanese commercial fire insurance, earthquake damage is excluded as standard and is added as a separate cover with its own limits and deductibles. The General Insurance Association of Japan's 2025 survey of small and medium-sized enterprises found 58.6% carrying fire insurance but only 30.9% carrying earthquake cover (source: GIAJ, "Survey on Risk Awareness and Countermeasures among SMEs 2025", December 2025, n=1,050). If colleagues at home assume that "fire insurance" in Japan includes earthquake, that assumption is the first thing to check.
Staff hired in Japan bring Japanese labour law and social insurance with them
Article 33(1) of the Convention exempts a diplomatic agent from the receiving state's social security provisions in respect of services rendered for the sending state. Article 33(3), however, requires a diplomatic agent who employs persons to whom that exemption does not apply to observe the obligations the receiving state's social security provisions impose on employers. Locally engaged staff hired in Japan are, as a rule, persons to whom the exemption does not apply.
In practice, an April 2025 report by RENGO (the Japanese Trade Union Confederation), citing figures from the Japan Federation of Telecommunications, Electronic Information and Allied Workers, put the share of foreign missions in Japan enrolled in social insurance at under 30%, and of consulates at under 10%, and noted that many missions were also outside employment insurance and workers' accident compensation insurance (rosai). The MHLW notice quoted at the top of this article changes the health-insurance and pension part from April 2028. Where a mission is outside workers' accident compensation insurance, the cost of treating and compensating a staff member injured at work falls on the mission itself, and that is the space where personal-accident insurance for staff comes in. Enrolment procedures for labour insurance are handled by the Labour Standards Inspection Office and Hello Work; social insurance by the pension office.
Seven lines of non-life insurance that missions in Japan commonly carry
Sorting a mission's exposures into three axes, harm to others (liability), damage to the mission's own property, and injury to people, produces seven commonly held lines. Generic names are used below. In practice several covers may be bundled in one policy or split across several.
| Exposure | Generic insurance line | Questions specific to a mission |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Chancery, residence, contents | Commercial fire (property) insurance, with earthquake and flood cover added | Owned or leased? If leased, the building is usually insured by the landlord and the mission insures contents and its tenant's liability. Earthquake is excluded as standard. |
| 2. Visitors and neighbours | Premises liability insurance | Visa-section visitors, guests at the residence, falling signage or facade elements, water leaks into neighbouring premises. Covers liability arising from ownership, use or management of premises. |
| 3. National Day receptions and cultural events | Event liability insurance, participant accident insurance, event cancellation cover | Venue insurance requirements, weather for outdoor events, injury to guests, division of responsibility with performers and contractors. |
| 4. Locally engaged staff | Personal accident insurance, employer's top-up to statutory workers' compensation | Whether the mission is enrolled in workers' accident compensation insurance; if not, work injuries are an uncovered gap. Commuting, travel and event duty. |
| 5. Artworks, exhibits, cash | Movable property insurance (fine art cover), cash and securities theft cover | State-owned artworks at the residence, touring exhibitions, transit, cash received as visa and consular fees. |
| 6. Visa applicants and nationals' data | Cyber insurance, data-breach liability insurance | Application forms, passport copies, residence registrations. Breaches at outsourced application centres or IT vendors. Mission IT is often managed from home, so the covered scope must be defined. |
| 7. Official and diplomatic vehicles | Motor insurance | Third-party liability insurance is a condition of MOFA registration. Unlimited limits, settlement negotiation, fleet rating. See the separate article. |
For scale, the GIAJ survey cited above gives Japanese SME take-up rates of 58.6% for fire insurance, 30.9% for personal accident, 22.6% for employer's top-up workers' compensation, 17.0% for premises liability, 12.4% for movable property and 8.8% for cyber insurance. A mission receives visitors and hosts events as a matter of routine, so premises liability and event cover deserve a higher priority than those figures suggest for an average SME.
What to check in each of the seven lines
1. Property insurance on chancery, residence and contents
Start with ownership. If the sending state owns the building, the mission insures both building and contents. If the building is leased, the landlord usually insures the structure, and the mission insures its own contents, fittings and improvements, together with its liability as tenant for damage to the leased building. Lease agreements frequently specify insurance requirements (tenant's liability limits, certificates to be provided to the landlord), so compare the lease clause with the current certificate.
Then earthquake. As noted, Japanese commercial fire insurance excludes earthquake damage as standard; it is added as a separate cover, and even then the sum insured is often capped at a fraction of the property value and carries its own deductible. Artworks and specialised equipment at the residence may be within the fire policy but at values that no longer match reality. Items to confirm: sums insured against current values, declared construction and occupancy, treatment during renovation works, and treatment while the building is unoccupied.
2. Premises liability toward visitors and neighbours
Missions admit members of the public to visa and consular counters and receive guests at the residence. A visitor falling on a staircase, a sign or facade element striking a passer-by, a pipe leak damaging the shop downstairs: these are liabilities arising from the ownership, use or management of premises, and premises liability insurance generally covers the legal liability that results. Check the premises in scope (chancery, residence, staff housing, storage), the treatment of incidents caused by contracted security or cleaning staff, whether the insurer negotiates with claimants, and how payments beyond legal liability are treated. Goodwill payments and condolence money are generally outside a policy that covers legal liability.
3. National Day receptions and cultural events
A mission's events carry three separate exposures: liability for injury or damage to guests and the venue, injury to guests and working staff, and non-refundable costs if the event is cancelled or postponed because of weather or other contingencies. These are generally insured separately, and venues (hotels, halls, outdoor sites) often make liability cover a condition of hire. The venue's terms are therefore the starting point.
For outdoor or large events, cancellation costs (venue, staging, catering cancellation fees) can be substantial. Event cancellation cover defines the triggering causes and exclusions very precisely and differently from product to product, so decide what you are actually worried about before asking. A general explanation is available on our event cancellation insurance page (Japanese).
4. Injury to locally engaged staff
In Japan the first-line scheme for work and commuting injuries is statutory workers' accident compensation insurance. Missions enrolled in it typically add personal accident or employer's top-up cover for what the statutory scheme does not pay (income replacement during absence, lump sums for permanent disability or death). Missions that are not enrolled have a gap in the statutory layer itself. That gap is a disadvantage to the employee and a cost to the mission, which ends up paying treatment and compensation from its own budget.
Items to confirm: enrolment status in workers' accident compensation and employment insurance (whether filings have been made with the Labour Standards Inspection Office and Hello Work), who is insured under personal accident cover (local staff only, or also staff posted from home), the hours covered (working hours only or 24 hours), and the position of staff and volunteers working at mission events. Since health insurance and pension coverage begins in April 2028, it is efficient to work through staff contributions and benefits against home regulations at the same table.
5. Artworks, exhibits and cash
Artworks from the sending state displayed at the residence or chancery, exhibits shipped in for cultural events, and cash received as visa and consular fees may be outside the fire policy, or inside it at the wrong values and locations. Fine-art cover differs depending on whether it includes storage only or also transit, display and conservation. Cash cover generally depends on safe storage, limits per location and theft in transit. Where the home government already insures state-owned artworks, consider, with Article 186 in mind, which policy should respond to storage and display in Japan.
6. Visa applicants' and nationals' personal data
A mission holds personal data on many residents of Japan: visa applications and passport copies, residence registrations of its own nationals, and personnel records. Where application intake is outsourced to a visa centre, or translation and appointment systems are provided by vendors, a breach at the vendor can bring complaints and claims from applicants to the mission. Cyber and data-breach insurance generally covers investigation, notification, call-centre and legal costs following a breach, and liability to affected individuals. Because mission IT is often managed from the capital, the scope of a Japanese policy (limited to data and systems managed by the mission in Japan, for instance) needs to be defined first. The basics are explained in our Japanese-language guide What is cyber insurance?.
7. Official and diplomatic vehicles
Vehicles registered with MOFA must carry insurance covering third-party liability as a condition of registration. In June 2026 GIROJ filed an average 14.4% increase in advisory pure premium rates for voluntary motor insurance, so premiums are entering a rising phase. Keeping unlimited liability and settlement negotiation while reviewing fleet rating, own-damage cover and renewal alignment is covered in detail in Diplomatic vehicle insurance in Japan.
Reviewing the programme: five steps
Mission insurance tends to be arranged piece by piece, at each change of officer, each change of home policy, each move of premises, each new event, until nobody has seen the whole. The following order keeps rework to a minimum.
- Build the policy register. For every Japanese policy and every home-programme element, record the items in Table 2 on one sheet. This step surfaces the policies whose originals sit in the capital with no copy in Tokyo, and the renewals that reach only one person's inbox.
- Mark overlap and gaps against the home programme. For each building, each group of staff and each event, mark what both the Japanese policy and the home programme cover (overlap) and what neither covers (gap). Keeping an overlap can be a reasonable decision; paying twice without knowing it is not. This is also where to check whether the home programme is directly insuring property located in Japan, with Article 186 in mind.
- Reconcile owned and leased premises with the lease. For the chancery, residence, staff housing and storage, confirm the lease's insurance clause, what the landlord's policy covers and what the mission owes as tenant, and align the fire and premises-liability policies with it.
- Close the gaps around staff injury and events. Confirm labour-insurance enrolment, the insured persons and hours under personal accident cover, and venue requirements for upcoming events, then prioritise the gaps. The incidents a mission most often faces are not fires or earthquakes but injured visitors, injured staff and problems at events.
- Align renewal dates and document the procurement. Bring renewal dates together where possible and route renewal notices to a shared departmental mailbox. Keep the quotation request, the comparison criteria and the reasons for the decision on file; one document then serves both the home ministry's audit and the handover to your successor. Japanese local governments evaluate insurers on more than price when they procure: Iwate Prefecture's FY2026 official-vehicle insurance terms allocate 50 points to premium, 15 to financial strength, 15 to credibility in settlement negotiation and 20 to claims response capacity. Deciding your criteria first, in the same spirit, makes the comparison far easier.
| Item | What to record |
|---|---|
| Contract basics | Line of insurance, insurer and agent, policy number, policyholder name (the state or the mission), policy period and expiry, premium and payment method, where renewal notices are sent |
| Subject matter | Premises, vehicles, items and people covered (named insured and additional insureds), locations, owned or leased |
| Cover | Sums insured (values), deductibles, added covers such as earthquake and flood, principal exclusions |
| Relation to the home programme | Whether the home programme covers the same subject matter, whether home regulations require the cover, where certificates are held |
| Procedures | Claims contact and hours, availability and scope of non-Japanese language handling, bank account for claim payments, change procedure when the head of mission changes |
Contract practicalities particular to missions
The register usually brings a handful of mission-specific issues to the surface.
- Policyholder and insured names. A mission is not a Japanese company but an organ of a foreign state. Whether the policyholder is the state or the mission, and which account receives claim payments, are the first points to settle with the insurer. Follow home regulations where they exist.
- Change of head of mission. Ambassadors and consuls-general rotate every few years. Check at each arrival and departure that signatories and contact details on policy documents are not those of a predecessor.
- Currency and fiscal year. Japanese premiums are in yen and usually paid in a lump sum. If renewal dates sit awkwardly against the home fiscal year, payment approval slows. When aligning renewals, ask whether an inception date that fits the home fiscal year is available.
- Consumption tax and exemption certificates. Article 23 of the Convention and MOFA's consumption-tax exemption procedures for foreign missions concern purchases of goods and services. Under Japan's Consumption Tax Act, insurance premiums are a non-taxable transaction (National Tax Agency, Tax Answer No. 6201), so no exemption certificate is generally needed for premiums.
- Language of policy documents. Japanese policies and wordings are in Japanese. If an English certificate of insurance is needed for reporting to the capital, confirm availability and format before contracting.
- Article 186. Insuring property located in Japan directly with a home-country insurer is an exception that requires permission. If the home programme includes assets in Japan, examine how it is structured.
How Nayuta Insurance Technologies' Government & Public Sector Practice can help with a mission's insurance programme
Everything above is general. The actual answer depends on whether the chancery is owned or leased, what the home programme covers and how far, the labour-insurance status of local staff, the scale and venues of your events, and the value of artworks at the residence. Nayuta Insurance Technologies operates a Government & Public Sector Practice, a dedicated team providing risk management and insurance solutions to foreign missions in Japan, government-related institutions and the public sector, staffed by licensed non-life insurance agents who understand how public institutions procure and account for their decisions.
For a mission's non-life programme, we start from the Japanese policy documents, the home-programme documentation, the leases, staff employment arrangements and the year's event calendar, build the register in Table 2, and set out overlap and gaps, the owned-versus-leased split, uncovered staff-injury exposure and venue requirements event by event. We then separate the policies where premium can be reduced from those where cover should be strengthened, with figures and reasons, and shape the result into a specification the mission can use when requesting quotes. We do not guarantee that premiums will fall. What the mission keeps is a document it can explain to the capital and a register that survives the next handover.
For transparency: in non-life insurance, Nayuta Insurance Technologies acts as an agent for a specific insurer and does not operate a model of comparing and recommending products across multiple insurers (see our policy on comparative recommendation, Japanese). Where a mission seeks quotes from several insurers or agents, we take part as one of them. Missions typically come to us without a complete set of certificates and without clarity on what the home programme covers; that is the normal starting point, not a barrier.
Contact
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Frequently asked questions
We lease our chancery. Who insures the building?
The landlord usually insures the structure. The mission insures its own contents, fittings and improvements, and carries tenant's liability for damage to the leased building. Leases often specify insurance requirements, so compare the lease clause with the current certificate. The landlord's policy covers the landlord's loss; it does not cover the mission's contents or the mission's liability.
Can our government's global property programme cover the embassy building and artworks in Japan?
Article 186 of the Insurance Business Act prohibits, in principle, a foreign insurer with no branch in Japan from insuring property located in Japan, and requires the prospective policyholder to obtain the Prime Minister's permission before applying. The chancery and the artworks at the residence are property located in Japan. A policy with an insurer licensed in Japan is the proper foundation; the home programme is then checked for overlap and gaps. Where the legal position is unclear, consult the Financial Services Agency or a legal adviser.
If a visitor is injured inside the embassy, does diplomatic immunity remove our liability?
Immunity from jurisdiction under the Vienna Convention limits the injured party's ability to sue in Japanese courts; it does not extinguish the loss the mission has caused. Article 41(1) places persons enjoying privileges and immunities under a duty to respect the laws of the receiving state. For incidents arising from the ownership, use or management of premises, the usual arrangement is premises liability insurance that covers the legal-liability element and provides for the insurer to negotiate with the claimant. Waiver of immunity must be express and made by the sending state (Article 32); an insurer negotiating a settlement is not a waiver. For any specific incident, consult MOFA or a legal adviser.
We are not enrolled in Japanese workers' accident compensation insurance. Can personal accident insurance replace it?
No. Workers' accident compensation insurance is a statutory scheme administered through the Labour Standards Inspection Office. Personal accident and employer's top-up covers are used either to add to statutory benefits or to fund, at the mission's expense, a gap where statutory benefits are unavailable. Confirm labour-insurance enrolment first, then design the top-up. Separately, the MHLW notice of 30 July 2026 brings foreign missions within health insurance and employees' pension insurance from 1 April 2028.
The venue for our National Day reception is asking for proof of insurance. What do we need?
Venues most often ask for evidence of the organiser's liability insurance. Check the venue's terms or contract for the required line, limits and deadline for the certificate. If the mission holds annual premises liability insurance, ask the insurer whether it extends to events held off the premises or whether a separate event policy is needed. Guest injury and cancellation costs are generally insured separately, so assess those needs apart from the venue's requirement.
Primary sources
- Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, notice on the application of the Health Insurance Act and the Employees' Pension Insurance Act to staff of foreign missions employed in Japan (Hohatsu 0730 No. 5 / Nenhatsu 0730 No. 1), 30 July 2026 (Japanese)
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, treaty text (Articles 22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 41; Japanese and English)
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, list of foreign missions in Japan (Japanese)
- Insurance Business Act (Act No. 105 of 1995), Article 186, e-Gov statute database (Japanese)
- General Insurance Association of Japan, "Survey on Risk Awareness and Countermeasures among SMEs 2025", December 2025, Q16 take-up of commercial insurance, pp. 36-37 (Japanese)
- RENGO (Japanese Trade Union Confederation), RENGO ONLINE feature on working conditions of foreign-mission staff, 20 April 2025 (Japanese)
- Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion, summary of long-term evaluations (probabilities calculated as of 1 January 2026) (Japanese)
- National Tax Agency, Tax Answer No. 6201, non-taxable transactions under the Consumption Tax Act (Japanese)
- Iwate Prefecture, implementation terms for FY2026 official-vehicle voluntary insurance, July 2026 (Japanese)
- Japanese version of this article: 駐日外国公館の損害保険
- Diplomatic vehicle insurance in Japan (Nayuta Insurance Technologies)
- Business Insurance in Japan: A Guide for Foreign Companies (Nayuta Insurance Technologies)
- Non-Admitted Insurance in Japan: Can a Foreign Policy Cover Japanese Risks? (Nayuta Insurance Technologies; Article 186 in detail)
This article is a general explanation of non-life insurance for the administrators of diplomatic missions in Japan. It does not describe or promote any particular insurer, product, policy or endorsement. Statements that something is "generally" the case, "covered" or "excluded" describe common practice; whether a claim is paid is determined by the insurer under the specific policy wording, contract conditions and facts. For questions on treaties, statutes, labour insurance or social insurance, consult the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the competent authority or a qualified adviser.