Description: This is a series of 4 articles designed to address fundamental concepts such as GAAP rules and their application to some of the major accident and health lines of business offered by insurers. The first article begins with a review of the structure/hierarchy of generally accepted accounting principles GAAP. From Society of Actuaries Financial Reporting Monograph, M-AS99-1.

Description: This paper addresses the classification of products according to their accounting standards: SFAS 60 for traditional products, SFAS 97 for interest sensitive products, and SOP 95-1 for participating products. In particular, the question of which products should be classified under the Statement of Position will be addressed. In addition, it will be shown that if a product's dividend formula passes on to the policyholder significantly less than a full asset share an over-reserving problem will occur if the Statement of Position is used as the accounting system.