“The premiums have been sorted out.”
“No anomalies in the simulation.”
“APRC POOL linkage confirmed.”
The Taerim Insurance employees who had become an independence army still had not gotten off work since that day.
Several days had passed, but getting off work still seemed a distant dream.
They had thought that if they just worked hard and made the insurance, they would be able to go home right away.
With a sense of mission, they poured their souls into creating the insurance.
They designed the policy, ran simulations, and supplemented the risk cases.
They converted every situation into numbers and forced the structure of reinsurance into reality.
‘It’s a success.’
The order to design an insurance policy and release it as a product within 24 hours had failed.
It was physically impossible.
Instead, we created the insurance in five days.
Normally, from planning a single insurance policy to releasing it as a product,
it took at least six months, and as long as two years, but we finished it in just five days.
Within those five days, we even obtained approval from the Financial Supervisory Service.
The FSS approved the insurance exactly 42 minutes after receiving the product.
That fussy, impossible-to-communicate-with FSS approved the insurance in 42 minutes.
There were no requests for additional documents or revisions.
Nothing like this had ever happened in the history of the insurance industry.
At the news that the insurance had been approved, everyone froze rather than rejoiced.
Why?
Why was it approved?
Was this how a coder felt when the code ran, but they had no idea why it ran?
Could it be?
That major shareholder had said not to worry about the FSS.
Did he pull some strings?
Did it pass so quickly because of him?
There were many things they were curious about, but none of them could be resolved immediately.
For now, they were simply too tired.
The thought that it was over brought the fatigue crashing down on them.
Their eyelids grew heavy.
“Everyone, truly, you’ve worked hard. We’ll just send the product email to the companies and then go home.”
At the team leader’s words, faint smiles appeared.
Click.
Mass email sent.
Now we can get off work.
Finally, we can go home.
They turned off their computers and picked up the bags they had propped beside their desks.
Holding back the yawns that kept pouring out, they prepared to leave.
A beer on the way home came to mind, but they shook their heads.
Sleep came first right now.
Over the past five days, the only sleep they’d gotten was a few hours dozing with their heads down on their desks.
Just thinking about going home, washing up with hot water, and lying down on a soft bed already made them happy.
“Then I’ll be heading out.”
“Yeah, good work.”
At that moment, the phone rang.
He answered it unconsciously.
“Yes. Taerim Insurance…”
“Ah! Are you asking if this is that insurance? Yes. That’s correct.”
“Our newly released ‘Taerim Independence Insurance’ has favorable terms and broad coverage.”
“Pardon? You’d like to sign up? Yes. I’ll send you the list of required documents, so please prepare them and submit your application.”
“Ah. You already have all the documents prepared?”
“You’ll transfer the money right away, so you want us to approve it?”
“Yes, don’t worry. Our approval will be completed within 12 hours.”
The employee who hung up the phone was startled.
‘This quickly? We’re getting a response already?’
He hadn’t expected it at all.
He had thought they would mull it over for at least a day or two.
Taerim was a newcomer.
It was an insurance company, yes, but that had been only for insurance dealing with individuals, like life insurance and fire insurance.
This was their first time with marine insurance.
Naturally, from a shipowner’s perspective, it was hard to trust them.
To put it simply, it was like an automobile company that had only ever made passenger cars suddenly manufacturing and selling dump trucks.
Passenger cars and dump trucks were completely different in everything from structure to purpose.
No matter how well a company made passenger cars,
dump trucks were bound to be an entirely different matter.
Dump trucks weren’t cheap, either, so naturally, people would hesitate to buy them easily.
And Taerim wasn’t even a company known for making good passenger cars.
That was why they had thought the customers would need time to consider it.
But less than ten minutes after sending the email, a call came in right away.
As soon as he finished the call and put down the receiver, the phone rang again.
Since he needed to leave work, he looked around, wondering if someone else could perhaps pick it up.
The scenery around him was exactly the same everywhere.
Everyone had bags slung over their shoulders to go home, a phone in one hand, and a pen in the other as they took notes.
It seemed he couldn’t expect help from anyone else.
Everyone was clutching a phone.
It seemed every phone line in the company was busy.
Some people were even making calls on their personal cell phones.
Since the company lines were busy, customers had contacted their personal phones.
It was, quite literally, an emergency.
A bomb had dropped.
Getting off work in this situation?
It seemed unlikely.
He quietly put his bag down.
Sitting in his chair, he pressed the power button on his computer.
After taking the call, he felt a slight rush of dopamine.
Getting immediate feedback on the insurance they’d worked so hard to create was, in a way, enjoyable.
Let’s go. Round two.
On the lit monitor, he launched the core program for processing insurance.
.
.
.
They had burned themselves white.
No. They were still burning.
Insurance consultations were not the end.
For shipowners, once they filled out the documents, sent them in, and paid the premium, it was over, but for the insurance company, that was when it began.
The underwriting department had to dig into the relevant shipowner’s past and assign a risk rating, and reinsurance had to be designed as well.
The actuarial team had to run the formulas and calculate the premium, while the legal team reviewed the terms and conditions one more time.
Only after that process was complete would approval be granted.
We had promised to handle this process within 12 hours.
It was an unavoidable choice in order to get the ships sailing quickly.
Everyone had coffee and caffeine in their hands.
Their faces were turning into those of zombies.
The number of insurance contracts was no joke, either.
It became the largest number of contracts since the founding of Taerim Insurance.
Sales were also at an all-time high.
It was a new record, but no one could rejoice.
They didn’t even have the strength to rejoice.
Everyone processed the work mechanically, as if their souls had left them.
No matter how much they did, the work did not end.
It was so hard, and they were exhausted.
Even so, they handled the work.
The employees of Taerim Insurance did not think of this as work.
Thinking of it as something that saved the country filled their hearts with pride.
Of course, part of it was because of the incentive the CEO had promised.
Just the sense of accomplishment that they had done something.
The pride of having protected the country through insurance?
The pride of having become an independence army drove them forward.
Thanks to their insurance, the ships using our country’s sea routes began to move normally again.
The risk had been resolved.
.
.
.
“Anna. Is this right?”
I asked Anna while looking at the sales report.
“Yes. That’s right.”
Anna, who had already checked the sales report, answered.
Wow.
I should have done marine insurance sooner.
The numbers were… enormous.
Every time I said I was going to do reinsurance, everyone tried to stop me.
It couldn’t be done.
You couldn’t even start without an extraordinary amount of capital.
One wrong move and everything would be blown away in a single hit.
There could be payouts so large they couldn’t be handled.
So I had prepared myself.
Tens of trillions. No, I was prepared to spend around 200 to 300 trillion.
I thought it would be fine if I could protect the sea routes even by pouring in that much money.
It wasn’t because I was some great patriot.
It was just that the country had given me food even my dad never gave me, and it gave me a high school diploma, too.
If that was the case, wasn’t it fine to burn around 200 to 300 trillion?
To begin with, money did not have much meaning to me.
It was nothing more than numbers.
I had nowhere to spend it, and no reason to spend it.
I hardly consumed anything.
There was nothing I needed.
Forcing myself to buy something was quite a pain, too.
Anna said I needed to have expenditures,
so I bought buildings and bought land, but it wasn’t fun.
Even after buying land and buildings, my life did not change.
I was still living the same today as yesterday.
My satisfaction was far too low.
So I even stopped shopping.
Then this incident broke out.
I started reinsurance with the mindset of throwing money away.
I started with that resolve, but instead, money was piling up.
It wasn’t something I started to make money,
but the money was coming in first.
This wasn’t part of the plan.
This was awkward.
But why were the stocks going up?
Not only Taerim Insurance, but Taerim Financial Group stocks as a whole were all rising.
I hadn’t done anything, yet my assets were increasing.
They kept increasing.
“Anna. Why are the stocks going up?”
Without a word, Anna held out a tablet.
[Independent Company, Taerim Insurance]
Taerim Insurance recently entered the fields of marine insurance and reinsurance. Breaking away from its previous business structure centered on personal insurance and automobile insurance, it has launched ‘Taerim Independence Insurance,’ which puts forward ‘national pride’ and ‘the protection of independent maritime routes.’
An industry insider said, “Until now, we had no choice but to sign up for marine insurance from global insurers, even if we hated it, but now that there is insurance made by one of our own companies, we feel reassured. Both its coverage and benefits are comparable to those of global companies. We plan to continue using Taerim’s Independence Insurance in the future.”
Who wrote this article?
Why is this being covered in the society section?
It’s just a product from a single company.
Covering something like this in a newspaper, which is a public good, is cheating.
If you’re going to do this, take money for it.
Why are they running ads I never even asked for?
Taerim Independence Insurance became a major social issue.
We were not the only ones pleased by this phenomenon.
The Insurance Association of China (IAC) and the Philippine Insurers and Reinsurers Association (PIPA) were pleased as well.
What I had asked of them was simply permission to use their names.
I didn’t need their money or their systems.
I had the money, and Taerim had the system.
What we lacked was recognition and trust.
We had decided to borrow only that.
But after seeing that we were doing well, they sent over a proposal to create an actual collaborative POOL.
They suggested creating Asia’s largest reinsurance association.
Insurance companies in Hong Kong and Singapore also expressed their intent to participate.
And so, instead of an APRC in name only, it looked like a real APRC was about to be created.
Since reinsurance was possible with just us alone, Europe also reached out to us.
Once they smelled money, they started sticking to us from all sides.
In any case, we no longer had to worry about insurance.
*******
Tokyo.
Seiwakai headquarters.
Minase was out in the garden, drinking tea.
The weather was beautiful.
There was not a breath of wind, and the surface of the pond was smooth as glass.
It was quiet.
Even the koi that usually rushed over to beg for food whenever they saw Minase were swimming quietly beneath the surface today.
Minase sat at a table placed in the middle of the garden.
The tea in his teacup had already gone cold, but Minase paid it no mind.
He repeated the motion of looking at the cold teacup, then looking at the garden.
Outwardly, he was calm, but his expression was clearly complicated.
“I apologize.”
A voice was heard.
Looking closely, Kuroda was kneeling beside Minase.
“The Busan Port operation failed?”
“The police and the National Intelligence Service were at the scene.”
Kuroda spoke carefully.
“No matter who was at the scene, that alone would make it difficult to prove a crime. The wind was strong, too, so couldn’t you have said it was a mistake?”
“I apologize. They seemed to know something. The money and messages the crane operator received became decisive evidence.”
Minase’s hand stopped above the teacup.
His expression hardened coldly.
“I apologize. Even so, it should not be connected back to us.”
Kuroda hurriedly added.
A brief silence passed.
“It seems the schedule will be longer than expected if we’re going to tighten the noose with insurance alone. It would have been convenient if an incident had occurred.”
Minase spoke as if regretting it.
At those words, Kuroda’s expression stiffened.
He had to say that even the insurance plan had fallen apart, but he could not bring himself to open his mouth.
“Um…”
“Is there more you have to say?”
“I apologize. Taerim Insurance in Korea has released marine insurance.”
“Wasn’t there already plenty of marine insurance? The issue was that reinsurance wasn’t possible.”
“Taerim is handling reinsurance as well. Together with the Insurance Association of China and the Philippine Insurers and Reinsurers Association, they have created a POOL called APRC and are accepting reinsurance.”
“What?”
Minase rarely showed any change in expression, but today was different.
His voice rose and grew sharp.
Kuroda had served Minase for over twenty years, but this was the first time he had seen him like this.
Faced with that sight, Kuroda could say nothing and merely lowered his head.
“I apologize.”
“Then are you saying the Korean sea routes are operating normally?”
“…Yes. That is correct.”
“Haa…”
Minase let out a deep sigh.
Nothing was going the way he wanted.
When they had first launched the reinsurance operation, he had been satisfied.
It was an operation that could bleed Korea dry without placing any burden on the government.
All responsibility could be shifted onto the private sector.
While Korea floundered,
he had planned to nibble away at them one piece at a time, but everything had gone awry.
Still, he could not simply sit back and do nothing.
He had to inflict some kind of damage.
He had to scatter ashes, at least, or splash them with muddy water.
He could not just stand by and watch Korea escape this crisis.
“Then we should at least stir up an insurance dispute. Cause an accident and make an unreasonable fuss, claiming the insurance payout is being delayed. Say that Taerim isn’t a trustworthy company!”
Minase’s voice rose.
At Minase’s outburst, Kuroda let out a troubled breath and replied.
“We also took that into consideration and caused several accidents, but the insurance payouts were made cleanly.”
“What?”
“We caused suspicious accidents several times, but the insurance money was paid out without question or complaint.”
“Then just keep causing accidents.”
“If we do that, the credibility of our own shipping company will become an issue as well. If we get branded as a shipping company with too many accidents, we’re finished too.”
“How frustrating.”
Minase looked furious.
He made no effort to hide his emotions.
“Kuroda.”
“Yes, Chairman.”
“Is there no other way? We cannot stop here, can we?”
Kuroda’s face hardened.
In truth, the current method was already quite drastic.
They had already crossed the line long ago.
It would be difficult to do anything more.
There were too many eyes watching.
While following regulations, while avoiding scrutiny,
there were not many ways to cause just the right amount of damage.
If they wanted to screw Korea over, Japan had to be prepared to plunge into the gutter as well.
There was no way to act noble while harming only Korea.
But that was not what Minase wanted.
He was thinking only of harming Korea while Japan suffered no damage whatsoever.
Even now, the shadow of the Japanese occupation remained deeply rooted in Minase’s mind.
Korea had been Japan’s vassal state, and it should have remained that way.
But Korea was no longer a country Japan could control at will.
It was an economic powerhouse that could stand shoulder to shoulder with Japan.
That was what Minase disliked the most.
He had thought that if they simply blocked the sea routes bound for Korea, Korea would come asking for mediation on its own.
He had thought they would crawl in and beg for forgiveness, pleading to be saved.
He had thought they would beg them to please open the routes,
to approve the reinsurance.
But Korea had resolved the problem on its own.
The reinsurance meant to strangle Korea had instead returned as a slump in Japan’s sales.
Kuroda had been hearing complaints every day from the CEO of Seiryu Re Insurance.
By refusing reinsurance under the name of “risk holding” without any basis, they had missed out on enormous sales.
Not only that, they had also created a monster called Taerim.
If they had not held the reinsurance,
that Taerim Insurance, which was now absorbing marine insurance like a black hole, would never have been born.
They had failed to blockade the routes, sales had fallen, and customers had been stolen.
On top of that, even the symbolism of Seiryu as the standard was beginning to waver.
After thinking for a long while, Minase spoke.
“No matter how I look at it, this isn’t Korea’s usual response.”
“It is a little different from usual.”
“It seems some new guest has arrived.”
“Come to think of it, Taerim’s CEO changed a few months ago.”
Minase’s expression changed.
It was the face of a predator before a hunt.
“Then start digging there. Something is bound to come up.”
“Yes.”
Minase poured the tea, long since gone cold, into the garden.
The garden was still silent.