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The increase could come into effect in January 2017, according to the Ministry of Finance group studying the issue. It may be introduced in phases and would follow a 15.5 percent rise approved in July last year, the first increase in quake premiums in 18 years.

Japan’s earthquake insurance rates vary by region and are based on so-called hazard maps published each year by the Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion. Since the March 2011 disaster, the hazard maps have been expanded to other areas, said Professor Hiroyuki Fujiwara at the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention.

Seismologists that draw up Japan’s hazard maps warn of a large earthquake that could do more direct damage to metropolitan Tokyo, the world’s biggest city with a population of about 30 million and the heart of Japan’s government, business world and financial markets.

The city sits adjacent to three major fault lines on the boundary of two tectonic plates, the Philippine and the Eurasian. Between 2000 and 2009, Japan experienced 20.5 percent of the world’s earthquakes that were magnitude 6 or above, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency and U.S. Geological Survey data.

Fujiwara said there is a 70 percent chance of a magnitude 7 quake hitting Tokyo within the next 30 years……..http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-30/japan-quake-insurance-on-the-rise-as-fukushima-shakes-confidence