Report Summary

When the IASB issued its most recent exposure draft for the new accounting standard for insurance contracts in June 2013, insurers interpreted this as the sign to warm-up for a three-year race. Depending on when the IASB publishes its final version of the standard, that is how long the industry will have to prepare for radical changes to the way that it draws up and presents its financial statements. The standard – IFRS 4 Phase II – transforms how insurers account for income and liabilities from insurance contracts that they sell, and creates a new financial language with which to inform investors about the performance of this complex global industry.

This new financial language will be spoken by all insurers that adopt IFRS regulations, thereby delivering consistency in financial reporting for a sector that has never had it. In addition, it will introduce a significant degree of transparency that aims to open what many have considered an accounting and actuarial black box.

However, the project to create a single global accounting standard that applies to the whole sector has faltered. While the accounting standard setters, the IASB and its U.S. counterpart, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), have come close to converging their accounting rules on the subject, that dream has not come to fruition.

Research Methodology

In August and September 2013, The Economist Intelligence Unit, on behalf of Deloitte, surveyed 293 senior insurance executives around the world to discover how they were preparing for these accounting changes, what their impact is likely to be and what challenges their businesses face in conducting this once-in-a-generation transformation. The report presents the highlights of the survey findings, along with additional insights from senior executives.