Japan’s Foreigners face visa denials over secretly shared insurance premium records- In line with tightened residency status screenings, more than 100 municipalities are notifying immigration of foreign residents who are deemed egregiously delinquent in paying National Health Insurance premiums.
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16635757
8 Comments
I had a friend whom for every company he worked was told that they would cover his health insurance each time this was always dragged out and never happened on whatever bs excuse they hit him with. Every time he fell into this grey area where he should not be in the NHI but also had to be, therefore missing payments because of his employer. On these new rules he would be denied stay simply because of workplace exploitation and the black company walks free and in all these discussions and news articles I always think the fact that companies put people into these positions more often than not it makes me pretty mad because it isnt always the person “not paying” whos at fault yet Japan treats it as such…
edit: Im surprised that every commenter has had this kind of experience in some shape. Incredbily ironic that this real and clearly widespread issue isnt even acknowledged by any party involved in these things.
I got hit for not paying insurance but it was written into my work contract that they would pay my health insurance. The company just didn’t and I got in trouble for it. If a foreigner gets dinged for this and it was a company promise the foreigners should be able to sue.
Didn’t they say they’d only deny visas in the case of “intentional non-payment?’ as in, if it just was a mistake, they said they’d work with people to fix it and not just immediately deport them?
Well.
When I first got to Japan, the company I worked for at that time told our entire group not to join national health insurance and then sold is third party health insurance.
These kind of companies should be investigated and destroyed.
Semi related. Theres also the case of the Japanese Health and Pension Service just straight up ignoring your company’s application for company health and pension insurance. This happened to a company I worked for. The company applied and did not hear back for a few months. Not one word from the Health and Pension Service . Just silence. They followed up on the application and the Japanese Health and Pension Service told the company the cards were not issued because they did not believe the company was legit. The company was a fairly new K.K. but had all the document filings in order. It took the company’s accountant (Japanese) to go down to the office and berate the staff there before the cards were finally issued.
The best thing to do is enroll personally, you can also call and check from your pension office or city office to see if you’re enrolled.
I saw a crashout by some dude at the consultation corner at immigration. Basically didnt pay his pension bills. They told him basically you have a month to get out.
One of the biggest challenges with all of these new regulations, rules and laws is they are always backwards looking. In my head- new legislations is usually forward looking – such as all new infractions will incur a penalty – and they would help people get caught up and give them a date with which they need to be caught up by. but here – it seems like at any day in the future they can pass a law which deems something you did 5-10 years ago is grounds for denying residence card renewal, PR, etc now.