Description: FASB's Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 97 contains wide-sweeping changes to the preparation of GAAP financials for insurance companies. The focus of this article will be on the ramifications of the interest rate FASB has decided to use to amortize deferred acquisition costs.

Description: The Actuary Vol. 22, No. 2. This article discusses how the the choice of basis for measuring Interest Rate Spread impacts pricing and accounting for interest sensitive products.

Description: This article discusses the impact on the financial statements of changing from Statutory Accounting to GAAP Accounting and the under-reporting of long-term earning power by insurance companies because of the AICPA technique of handling the transition.

Description: Life insurance companies find themselves in a significantly more complicated environment than that of just a few years ago. Managements face an uncertain investment environment, the real possibility of deteriorating future mortality due to the spread of AIDS, and alternative and competing distribution systems.

Description: This article describes that some companies are ‘approaching the problem of how to accommodate Universal Life in GAAP statements by using a simple method which produces not unreasonable results and waiting for consensus on appropriate methodology to develop. This describes so of the methodology currently in use.

Description: This article discusses the FASB Exposure Draft, “Accounting and Reporting by Insurance Enterprises for Certain Long-Duration Insurance Contracts and for Realized Gains and Losses from the Sale of Investments.”

Description: This Special Release of the Financial Planning and Control Division of the LOMA is a well-organized summary of the responses of 96 U.S. stock life insurance companies that adjust statutory statements to a GAAP basis. Results are presented in Section A for all 96 companies, in Section B for 36 companies with less than $25 million of premium income, and in Section C for the remaining 60 companies. From The Actuary, October 1974, Vol. 8, No. 8.

Description: Contrasts the new version of GAAP for mutual companies with GAAP for stock companies.

Description: This article from The Actuary, April 1971, volume 5, Issue 4 talks about an exposure draft. The Exposure Draft of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants on Audits of Life Insurance Companies has not apparently had among actuaries the wide circulation it deserves, judging by the relatively few responses to Robert Winters letter in the February issue of The Actuary. This is a most important document because it affects not only the accounting practices of life insurance companies but also the status of the actuarial profession.

Description: Book review for “Unaccountable Account,” by Abraham J. Briloff recommending it as a good description of some of the problems with GAAP accounting.