2. AGENDA
Introduction and Overview
Definition of an Insurance Contract
Accounting for Insurance Contracts
Financial Components and investment contracts
Disclosures
3. NEED FOR AN INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ON INSURANCE
Diversity in accounting practice for insurance contracts internationally
Accounting practices for insurance contracts differ from practices in
other sectors
Other IFRSs do not address accounting for insurance contracts
4. OVERVIEW OF IASB & FASB JOINT INSURANCE PROJECT
Phase I
Objective was to:
Make limited improvements to accounting for insurance contacts
Provide disclosures that identify and explain amounts in an insurer‟s
financial statements arising from insurance contracts and provide
information about the amount, timing and uncertainty of future cash
flows from insurance contracts until the board completes phase II
Resulted in IFRS 4 Insurance contracts, an interim standard that permits
a wide variety of accounting practices for insurance contracts.
5. OVERVIEW OF IASB & FASB INSURANCE PROJECT(CONT’D)
Phase II
Currently ongoing
Objective is to develop a standard to replace the interim insurance
standard and to provide a basis for consistent accounting for insurance
contracts in the longer term
Joint project with FASB
DP Preliminary view on insurance contracts published in May 2007
ED expected in near future
6. OVERVIEW OF IFRS 4
Defines an insurance contract and focuses on types of contracts rather
than types of entities
Applies to:
Insurance contracts, including reinsurance contracts, that an entity
issues
Reinsurance contracts that an entity holds
Financial instruments issued with a discretionary participation features
Does not address accounting by policy holders
Does not apply to other assets and other liabilities of an insurer, such as
financial assets and financial liabilities within the scope of IAS 39/ IFRS
9
7. OVERVIEW OF IFRS 4 (CONT’D)
Generally insurers are required to continue their existing accounting
policies with respect to insurance contracts except where the standard
requires or permits changes in accounting policies
Requires some embedded derivatives and some deposit components to
be separated from insurance contracts
Requires a minimum liability adequacy test to be applied to recognized
insurance liabilities
Requires significant disclosures of the terms, conditions and risk
related to insurance contracts, consistent in principle with those
required for financial assets and liabilities
8. INSURANCE CONTRACTS – SCOPE EXEMPTION
Product warranties issued directly by a manufacturer, dealer or retailer
Employers assets and liabilities under employee benefit plans
Contractual right and obligations contingent on future use or right to
use a non-financial item (e.g. some royalties) and lessee‟s residual
value guarantee embedded in a finance lease
Financial guarantee contracts, except for contracts previously
accounted for as insurance contracts in respect of which issuer may
choose to apply IAS 39/IFRS 9
Contingent consideration payable or receivable in a business
combination
Direct insurance contracts held by policyholder
9. DEFINITION OF INSURANCE CONTRACTS
The definition of IFRS 4 refers to some traditional features of insurance
contracts, distinguishing them from financial instruments.
IFRS 4 definition:
“ a contract under which one party (the insurer) accepts significant
insurance risk from another party (the policyholder) by agreeing to
compensate the policyholder if a specified uncertain future event
(the insured event) adversely affect the policyholder”
10. INSURANCE RISK VS FINANCIAL RISK
INSURANCE RISK FINANCIAL RISK
Risk, other than financial risk,
transferred from the holder of
a contract to the issuer.
Risk of a potential future change in one
or more of:
Interest rate
Security price
Commodity price
Foreign exchange risk
Index of prices or rates
Credit rating
Credit index
Other variables, such as a non-financial
variable, that is not specific to a party to
the contract
Some insurance contracts expose the issuer to both insurance risk and financial risk. If insurance risk is
significant, such contracts are insurance contracts.
11. SIGNIFICANT INSURANCE RISK
Insurance risk is significant if, and only if, an insured even could cause
an insurer to
Pay significant additional benefits
In any scenario
Excluding scenarios that lack commercial substance
The condition may be met even if the insured event is extremely unlikely
or even if the expected (i.e. probability weighted) present value of
contingent cash flows is a small portion of expected present value of
contractual cash flows
„Additional benefits‟ are amounts in excess of those that would be
payable if no insured event occurred
12. SIGNIFICANT INSURANCE RISK (CONT’D)
Significance of insurance risk is to be assessed on a contract by
contract basis
If a relatively homogenous book of small contracts is known to consist
of contracts that all transfer insurance risk, an insurer need not
examine each contract within that book to identify a few non –
derivative contracts that transfer insignificant insurance risk
13. UNCERTAIN FUTURE EVENTS
Uncertainty (or risk) is the essence of an insurance contract
At least one of the following should be uncertain at the inception of an
insurance contract
Whether an insured event will occur
When it will occur
How much the insurer will need to pay if it occurs
14. CASE STUDY 1
Saving contract – investor pays in stream of money which insurer
invests in bonds
At the end of the fixed term contract, investor receives amount paid to
insurer plus interest linked to the return on bonds
Contract contains a clause that if the investor dies during the term of
contract, 110% of balance outstanding ( principal + interest accrued)
would be paid out of the investor‟s beneficiary
15. CASE STUDY 2
Unit – linked savings contract containing guaranteed minimum death or
survival benefits.
Benefit payable either upon the death of policy holder or upon maturity
of the contract, if the guaranteed minimum benefit is higher than the
unit value at the time a claim is made
If the contract is surrendered, then the policy holder receives cash for
the value of the units surrendered (less surrender penalties)
16. ACCOUNTING OF INSURANCE CONTRACTS
Temporary exemption from the IAS 8 hierarchy
IFRS 4 exempts an insurer from applying IAS 8 hierarchy (Para 10-
12) for developing accounting policies for insurance contracts
The implication of this temporary exemption is that accounting
policies for insurance contracts are generally retained during phase I,
with some exceptions
The objective of this exemption in phase I of the insurance project
was to avoid, for insurers transitioning to IFRSs, changes in
accounting for insurance contracts ahead of Phase II of the project
17. LIMITATIONS OF IAS 8 EXEMPTION
The IAS 8 exemption does not exempt an insurer from some implications of
para 10-12 of IAS 8; specifically an insurer should
Not recognize as a liability any provisions for possible future claims under
insurance contracts that are not in existence at the end of the reporting
period, such as catastrophe and equalization provisions
Carry out a liability adequacy test
Remove an insurance liability from its statement of financial position only
when the obligation specified in the contract is extinguished
An insurer should
Not offset
Reinsurance assets against the related insurance liabilities, or
Reinsurance income and expenses against expenses or income from the
related insurance contracts
Consider whether its reinsurance assets are impaired
18. LIABILITY ADEQUACY TEST
An insurer should assess at the end of each reporting period whether
its recognized insurance liabilities are adequate, using current
estimates of future cash flows under its insurance contracts
IFRS 4 only specifies minimum requirements for conducting the liability
adequacy test
The test considers current estimates of all contractual cash flows, and
of related cash flows such as claims handling cost, as well as cash
flows resulting from embedded options and guarantees
If liability is inadequate, entire deficiency is recognized in profit or loss
19. LIABILITY ADEQUACY TEST (CONT’D)
If existing accounting policies include an
assessment that meets the specified
minimum requirements, no further action
required
If current policy is not sufficient to comply
with IFRS 4, then the carrying amount of
the liability should be tested against the
requirements of IAS 37 and, if necessary
increased ( DR PL, CR liability)
If
not?
20. IMPAIRMENT OF REINSURANCE ASSETS
A cedant should consider at each reporting date whether its
reinsurance assets are impaired
A reinsurance asset is impaired if, any only if
There is a objective evidence, as a result of an event that occurred after
initial recognition of the reinsurance asset, that the cedant may not
receive all amounts due to it under the terms of the contract; and
That event has a reliably measurable impact on the amounts that the
cedant will receive from the reinsurer
21. CHANGE IN ACCOUNTING POLICIES
An insurer may change its accounting policies for insurance contracts
if, and only if, the changes make the financial statements
More relevant for decision making and no less reliable; or
More reliable and no less relevant
An insurer judges relevance and reliability using the criteria in IAS 8
This guidance applies to both changes made by an insurer applying
IFRSs and to changes made by insurers adopting IFRSs for the first time
22. CHANGE IN ACCOUNTING POLICIES ( CONT’D)
Current market interest rates
An insurer is permitted, but not required, to change its accounting
policies so that it remeasures designated insurance liabilities to reflect
current market interest rates and recognizes changes in those liabilities
in profit and loss
Shadow accounting
An insurer may apply “shadow accounting” to remeasure insurance
liabilities to reflect recognized but unrealized gains and losses on
related financial assets in the same way as realized gain and losses.
Adjustments to the insurance liabilities are recognized in other
comprehensive income only if the unrealized gains and losses on the
related assets are recognized in other comprehensive income
23. CHANGE IN ACCOUNTING POLICIES ( CONT’D)
An insurer may continue the following practices, but not introduce
them:
Measuring insurance liabilities on an undiscounted basis
Using non – uniform accounting policies for insurance contracts ( and
related deferred acquisition costs and related intangible assets, if any)
of subsidiaries
Insurer need not change accounting policy to eliminate excessive
prudence but cannot introduce additional prudence if insurance
contracts are already measured with sufficient prudence
24. CHANGE IN ACCOUNTING POLICIES ( CONT’D)
An insurer is permitted to continue applying and permitted to introduce
following accounting policies
Using shadow accounting
Remeasure designated insurance liabilities to reflect current market
interest rates / other assumptions and recognize changes in those
liabilities in profit and loss
25. INSURANCE AND INVESTMENT CONTRACTS
Unbundling of deposit component
Some insurance contracts contain both an insurance component and
a deposit component. For such contracts
Unbundling of a deposit component is permitted if
The deposit component can be measured separately; and
Insurer’s accounting policies require it to recognize all rights and
obligations arising from the deposit component, regardless of the
basis used to measure those rights and obligations
Unbundling of a deposit component is required if:
The deposit component can be measured separately; and
Insurer’s accounting policies do not otherwise require it to recognize
all rights and obligations arising from the deposit component
26. Unbundling of deposit component ( cont‟d)
Unbundling of a deposit component is prohibited if:
An insurer cannot measure the deposit component separately
27. EMBEDDED DERIVATIVES
A embedded derivative is a component of a hybrid (combined) contract
that includes both the derivative and a host contract
Components of insurance contracts that meet the definition of a
derivative are within the scope of IAS 39 / IFRS 9 and are therefore
subject to the general requirements for embedded derivatives under IAS
39 / IFRS 9:
However, there are two exceptions:
Components that meet the definition of an insurance contract ( e.g.;
components that transfer significant insurance risk); and
Surrender options with fixed terms
28. EMBEDDED DERIVATIVES (CONT’D)
As insurance contracts are not within the scope of IFRS 9, the
requirements in that standard to separate embedded derivatives are not
applicable to insurance contracts embedded in a host contract. A
component meeting the definition of an insurance contract does not
need to be separated from its host contract
For example, an option to take a life-contingent annuity contract would
not be separated from a host insurance contract
29. EMBEDDED DERIVATIVES (CONT’D)
Surrender option with fixed terms
A policyholder option to surrender an insurance contract
For a fixed amount
Or for an amount based on a fixed amount and an interest rate
Even if the exercise price differs from the carrying amount of the host
insurance liability
need not be separated from the host insurance contract
30. DISCRETIONARY PARTICIPATION FEATURES
Definition
A contractual right to receive, as a supplement to guaranteed benefits,
additional benefits
That are likely to be a significant portion of the total contractual
benefits;
Whose amounts or timing is contractually at the discretion of the issuer;
and
That are contractually based on, the performance of a specified pool of
contracts, or investment returns on a specified pool of assets owned by
the issuer, or the profit or loss of the issuer of the contract
IFRS 4 addresses limited aspects of DPFs contained in insurance
contracts or in financial instruments
31. DISCLOSURES
Disclosures comprise
Explanation of recognized amounts
Nature and extent of risks arising from insurance contracts
Explanation of recognized amounts
Accounting policies for insurance contracts and related assets, liabilities,
income and expense
Amounts of recognized assets, liabilities, income and expense arising from
insurance contracts, as well as gains/ losses recognized on reinsurance by
the cedant
How the most significant assumptions used to measure recognized amounts
are determined, and if practicable, quantified disclosure of assumptions
Effect of changes in assumptions used to measure insurance assets and
liabilities
32. DISCLOSURES (CONT’D)
Nature and extent of risks
Risk management objectives, policies and processes, and method used
for managing risk from insurance contracts
Sensitivity of insurance risk
Concentrations of insurance risk
Actual claims compared with previous estimates, i.e. claims
development
Information about credit risk, liquidity risk and market risk that IFRS 7
would require if the insurance contracts were within the scope of IFRS
7, with certain exceptions