Fire and Earthquake Insurance on a Japanese Property You Own from Abroad

Insurance is the part of owning Japanese property that overseas owners are least likely to have checked, and the part where the assumptions they bring from home are most likely to be wrong.

Two of those assumptions cause most of the trouble. The first is that a fire policy covers natural disasters generally — in Japan it does not cover earthquakes. The second is that a policy taken out when the house was occupied still applies now that it sits empty — often, it does not apply in the way the owner thinks.

This guide sets out what the two policies actually do, what changes when nobody lives in the building, and what a claim looks like from eight thousand kilometres away.

At a glance

Question	Short answer
Does fire insurance cover earthquakes?	No. Earthquake damage, and fire caused by an earthquake, need 地震保険.
Can I buy earthquake insurance on its own?	No. It is attached to a fire policy, so the fire policy comes first.
How much can I insure against earthquake?	30–50% of the fire insurance sum, capped at ¥50 million (building) and ¥10 million (contents).
Is insurance compulsory?	Not by law. A lender will require fire insurance, and a condominium's rules often do too.
Does it matter that nobody lives there?	Yes — a great deal. Tell the insurer; do not assume.
Are typhoons and floods covered?	Wind and hail usually yes; flood (水災) is frequently an option you have to select.
Can I claim from overseas?	Yes, but somebody in Japan has to receive the paperwork and meet the adjuster.

Fire insurance: broader than the name, with one large hole

A Japanese 火災保険 is really a property policy. Beyond fire it normally deals with lightning, explosion, wind and hail, water damage from burst plumbing, and damage caused by third parties, with flood (水災) and theft often offered as options rather than included.

The hole is earthquakes. A standard fire policy pays nothing for a building shaken down by an earthquake — and nothing for a fire that an earthquake started, which is the part owners find hardest to believe. In a country where the fire risk after a large quake is the headline risk, that exclusion is the whole reason the second policy exists.

Earthquake insurance: government-backed, and deliberately limited

Earthquake insurance in Japan is not an ordinary commercial product. It is operated jointly by the insurance industry and the government, which reinsures the enormous losses a major quake would produce. That is why the terms are identical whichever company sells it to you — there is nothing to shop around for except the underlying fire policy.

Three consequences follow from the design:

1. It attaches to a fire policy

You cannot hold earthquake cover on its own. If the fire policy lapses, so does the earthquake cover.

2. It is capped

You insure between 30% and 50% of the fire insurance sum, up to ¥50 million for a building and ¥10 million for contents. Earthquake insurance is designed to help you restart life after a disaster, not to rebuild the house to its former value. An owner expecting full reinstatement will be disappointed, and it is better to know that now than in the week after an earthquake.

3. It pays in four bands, not on a repair estimate

Rather than pricing each repair, the assessor places the damage in one of four categories, and the payout is a fixed share of the insured amount:

Assessment	Pays
Total loss (全損)	100% of the earthquake sum insured
Major half loss (大半損)	60%
Minor half loss (小半損)	30%
Partial loss (一部損)	5%

Damage below the partial-loss threshold pays nothing. The system is built for speed across hundreds of thousands of claims at once, and it trades precision for it.

The empty-house problem

This is the point that catches akiya buyers and inheriting families, and it is worth reading twice.

Japanese fire insurance is sold in classes. A home somebody lives in is a residential risk (住宅物件). A building nobody lives in is frequently not accepted as one, and insurers commonly place an empty house in a general risk class (一般物件) — the same class as a shop or a warehouse — or decline it altogether.

The consequences are practical:

• The premium rises, sometimes sharply, for cover that is often narrower.
• Earthquake insurance may become unavailable, because it is meant for buildings used as residences. An empty house insured as a general risk typically cannot have it attached.
• A policy bought when the house was lived in may not respond once it is empty, if the change was never declared. Insurers ask how a building is used because the answer changes the risk they priced.

There are specialist products for empty houses, and a property that is furnished, visited and maintained is treated more favourably than one that is abandoned. What does not work is silence. If your Japanese property is empty, or is about to be, tell the insurer and get the position in writing — including what they expect of you over winter, when a house left empty can burst its own pipes.

The risks that actually materialise

Earthquakes dominate the conversation. Claims are dominated by water.

• Water damage from plumbing. A pipe splits in a freeze or a joint fails, and the house floods while nobody is there. Policies commonly cover the resulting damage; the pipe repair itself is sometimes excluded. Check which yours does.
• Damage to the flat below. In a condominium this is the expensive one. Your water ruins somebody else's ceiling, lighting and belongings, and they look to you. Personal liability cover (個人賠償責任) is the rider that deals with it, and it is cheap; owners of condominium units should check they have it.
• Typhoons. Wind and hail damage is normally included. Flood (水災) often is not — it is an option, and for a property near a river or on low ground it is the option that matters. Your municipality's hazard map is the honest guide to whether you need it.
• Heavy snow. Snow-load damage to a roof is usually within the wind-hail-snow cover, and it is a real risk for an unmaintained house in the north.

Claiming when you live overseas

A Japanese claim is not an online form. It runs on post, paper and a site visit, and every piece of it is in Japanese.

The sequence is roughly:

1. Notify the insurer promptly. Policies require notification without delay, and there is an outer limit — insurance claims in Japan are generally subject to a three-year limitation period from the event.
2. Photograph everything before anything is cleaned up. This is the single most useful thing a local contact can do on the first day.
3. An adjuster inspects the property. Somebody has to let them in and answer questions about the building.
4. Paperwork goes back and forth by post, to the address the insurer has on file.
5. Payment is made to a Japanese bank account in the policyholder's name, which is its own problem if you do not have one.

Three things quietly decide whether this works: whether the insurer's letters reach a human being who reads Japanese, whether someone can open the building for the adjuster, and whether your registered address is current. Since April 2026, registering a change of address has been compulsory for property owners, and overseas owners cannot use the automatic route available to residents — see our guide to address change registration.

A short annual check

• Do you still hold a live fire policy? Ask for the current certificate. Policies bought at purchase for five or ten years quietly expire.
• Is earthquake cover attached, and at what sum? If it matters to you, confirm the figure rather than assuming the maximum.
• Does the insurer know the house is empty?
• Is flood cover selected, and does the hazard map say you need it?
• Do you have personal liability cover? Essential in a condominium.
• Where does the insurer send post? If the answer is an address you left years ago, fix that before you need them.

How Japan YES helps

We are not an insurance broker and we do not sell policies. What we do is make the paperwork work from overseas: we act as your contact address in Japan and your tax representative (納税管理人), receive and scan the insurer's letters, translate them so you can see what is being asked, and coordinate access when an adjuster or a contractor needs to get into the building.

If you are not sure what cover your Japanese property currently has, send us what paperwork you can find and we will read it and tell you what it says — or compare plans, from ¥66,000 a year, tax included.

This article explains how these policies are structured in general terms and is not insurance advice. The wording of your own policy governs what it pays.