Aflac’s Sales in Japan Are ‘Way Ahead of Target,’ CEO Amos Says: Tom Keene

Aflac Inc. (AFL), the health insurer that gets about three-quarters of its sales in Japan, will continue to beat goals in that country, said Chief Executive Officer Dan Amos.

“We have achieved all of our targets and our sales are actually running way ahead of target, as we said in the third quarter, and we expect them to continue,” Amos told Tom Keene and Ken Prewitt during an interview on “Bloomberg Surveillance” today.

Customers who bought policies through banks drove a 14 percent gain in Japanese sales for the nine months ended Sept. 30, Aflac said last week. The world’s biggest provider of policies supplementing work and government health coverage has prospered as the Japanese market has “pretty much gone back to normal” since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, Amos said.

“It’s amazing, the adaptability of the Japanese and how they were able to transform,” Amos said. “We as Americans would find this more difficult.”

Aflac rose 1 percent to 41.61 at 11:10 a.m. in New York. The Columbus, Georgia-based firm has gained 19 percent since Sept. 30, the third-best performance in the seven-company Standard and Poor’s 500 Life & Health Insurance Index behind Torchmark Corp. and Lincoln National Corp.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Frye in New York at afrye@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Kraut at dkraut2@bloomberg.net