Accounting
The accounting rules are key for insurers as they define the nature and extent of the information insurers communicate to the external world through their financial statements.
At this stage they are key transformation of fundamental accounting rules for companies reporting under International Financial Reporting Standards (‘IFRS’). Those changes are made to attempt to reach accounting standards that are strong, consistent and workable and which increase the transparency and the comparability of financial statements reporting under IFRS. Key project are currently running such as the creation of a standards for valuing insurance contracts in the books of insurers and the review of the layout of the financial statements.
The CEA is actively participating to those projects (ie: by issuing comment letters, by discussions with the policy makers) and ensures a strong voice for the European Insurance Industry.
In parallel to the review of the IFRS, local accounting rules remain applicable for most insurers (those not applying IFRS). However, local regulators are following 2 trends: either the local standards setters has decided to apply IFRS in a near future (and drop local rules) or they are progressively updating their local rules to make them converge with IFRS.
The CEA will assist companies confronted with issues related to this switch in local accounting rules, in particular for issues specific for insurance companies.