EAIC: "Past and the Future"

The EAIC was founded in 1962 with the aim of furthering and developing international collaboration in the field of insurance of every sort.

We can read about the background of how EAIC was born in the letter dated February 1981 from the late Mr.Taizo Fukumuro to Mr. V.R. Ayllon, President of the Insular Life, Philippines at that time.

Mr.Fukumuro was an actuary of the Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Company when he planned to organize EAIC (East Asian Insurance Congress) with his Asian friends.

Here is a copy of the letter dated February 1981 from the late Mr. Fukumuro to Mr. V.R. Ayllon:

It was in 1957, as I remember, that I had an opportunity to attend the meeting of the International Congress of Actuaries held in New York in October. While I had free time, I visited the United Nations, which was located quite near the Congress site, and it so happened that I met two gentlemen from the Philippines there. They were Mr. E. S. Sevilla, National Life, and Mr. M. O. Hizon, G.S.I.S. They were the first Filipinos I had ever met. We talked for a while with each other. What I found then was that they knew much about insurance in the United States and Europe, but nothing about that of Japan. In the same way, I knew something about the U.S. and Europe, but was entirely ignorant regarding the Philippines. We came to the conclusion that it is nonsense for neighbouring peoples not to know each other, and that we should have some system or organization through which neighbours could become more acquainted. It was on this occasion that the idea of the E.A.I.C. was given birth. In 1959 I visited Indonesia and stayed there for about two months. On my way there and back, I visited Taipei, Manila, Hong Kong, Saigon, Bangkok and Singapore, each twice. I met many insurance people at each place, and found most of them to hold the same idea.

The first E.A.I.C. meeting was held in Tokyo in October 1962. Mr. E.S. Sevilla worked hard to draft the statutes and prepare many other documents. Dr. Y. Kato, professor of Marine Insurance at Hitotsubashi University, was willing to preside under the name of the Academic Society of Insurance Science of Japan, of which he was the president. (For Mr. & Mrs. Sevilla, this was also their honeymoon trip.) The detailed particulars of the first meeting are available in the “Proceedings” issued soon after. However, the total number of attendants from foreign countries, i.e. other than Japanese, was less than 20 persons. The second meeting was held in Manila in 1964, and, with the enthusiastic efforts of the Philippines, it was a very successful one. The total number of participants from foreign countries, i.e. other than Filipinos, was several times as many as in Tokyo. The present pattern of the activities of the E.A.I.C. was established there and was succeeded for long in the meetings that followed. The E.A.I.C., I may say, was born in Tokyo, but it was just in symbol. It was in Manila that it attained substance and manhood