Taking On Family Roles by Contract: Three Services and Four Revenue Streams of Guarantor Services
Series “Inside Japan’s Lifetime Support Business,” Part 2 of 12
How do guarantor and lifetime support services work as a business? In Part 2, we lay out the business structure from three angles: the services provided, the profile of the providers and the composition of revenue.
Three services that connect life before and after death
The business centers on three services: guarantor services, daily living support and post-death arrangements. When a client is admitted to a hospital or facility, the provider serves as the emergency contact and pays fees; in daily life, it accompanies the client to medical appointments and helps manage living expenses; and after the client dies, it handles the funeral and interment, clearing out belongings and administrative procedures. Supporting a person from life through death under a single contract is what most distinguishes these services from other end-of-life planning (shukatsu) services.
The partners a provider needs also depend on which services it specializes in. For example, a provider that handles post-death arrangements cannot do without partnerships with funeral homes and companies that clear out the belongings of the deceased.
Most providers are small organizations
A breakdown of the 204 providers surveyed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) gives a clear picture of the market.
General incorporated associations and NPOs account for about 80%
The most common length of operation is “1–5 years”
About 70% of providers have five or fewer staff engaged in the business
Over 30% of providers have fewer than 10 clients under contract, while 10% have 300 or more
Many providers are new and small, yet large providers also exist: it is a market with wide differences in scale. Contracts often continue until the client dies, so the question is whether a provider can maintain its operations over the long term.
Revenue comes from four sources
Provider revenue generally consists of the following four elements.
One-time fees at signing: enrollment fees, contract fees, etc.
Advance deposits: prepayments to cover post-death arrangements and future costs such as the funeral, interment and clearing out belongings
Recurring fees: monthly or annual membership and administration fees
Pay-per-use fees: charged each time the provider accompanies the client or handles a procedure
Of the providers surveyed, 77.0% receive advance deposits. However, advance deposits are not provider revenue; they are money held on behalf of the client. The business’s income and expenses must be built on one-time fees, recurring fees and pay-per-use fees, and the balance between recurring and one-off income determines how stable the business is.
Many stakeholders: another feature of the business
The provider signs a mandate contract with the client and, on the client’s behalf, coordinates with hospitals and care facilities, notary offices and licensed professionals, funeral homes, local governments and others. In the MIC survey, 94.1% of providers shared the content of their contracts with hospitals and care facilities. With so many parties involved, clearly defining who does what is a precondition for protecting clients and keeping the business running smoothly.
In the next installment, we look at the background that drives demand for these services, from the perspectives of both demographics and frontline medical and long-term care.
Source material for this column
This column is based on Part 7, “Lifetime Support and Guarantor Services,” of Next Co., Ltd.’s Senior End-of-Life Planning Business: Comprehensive Training Textbook (Annotated Edition, 2026), which is written in Japanese, and has been reorganized from a business and market analysis perspective.
To discuss using this material for business planning or in-house training, please contact us.
Related articles
Figures in this article are based on published data and our own materials as of November 2026.
This is an English translation of a column originally published in Japanese by Next Co., Ltd.
About Next Co., Ltd. We support companies in Japan’s senior care and end-of-life planning (shukatsu) market through research, business development and training. Our English textbook, Senior End-of-Life Planning Textbook, explains the market from the big picture down to day-to-day practice, including senior housing and care facility placement consulting. See the English edition | Buy on Gumroad | Contact us
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