Description: This article discusses market declines and the impact that white collar crime or gross dishonesty in financial reporting can have on market declines.

Description: Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2018-12, commonly referred to as long duration targeted improvements (LDTI), is the most significant GAAP accounting change impacting the life insurance industry in the past 40 years. This article discusses the impact of LDTI on variable annuities (VA) and fixed indexed annuities (FIA) from a product development and in-force management angle. Detailed discussion topics include hedging and ALM, product strategy and development, and pricing. LDTI will cause many VA and FIA writers to re-evaluate their hedging and asset liability management (ALM) strategy following the move to fair value accounting under the new MRB requirement. Stakeholder appetite for accounting volatility and resulting changes to hedging and ALM may trigger changes in product mix and designs. In addition to updating pricing infrastructure to handle the new requirements, pricing actuaries will need to produce analyses to educate stakeholders on the risks and pricing implications of any changes to designs, hedging and ALM.

Description: Thoughts on the future of financial reporting.

Description: S&P reissued a second Request for Comment (RFC) in May 2023 that proposed changes to their insurer capital adequacy methodology and assumptions, and suggested these proposed changes may become effective at the end of 2023. This paper is to highlight the notable changes between the current capital model criteria and the proposed model. We also discuss major changes from the first RFC and the second RFC, as well as several key items that still require enhanced guidance and clarification. Our analysis is based on information gathered from S&P's public comments, conversations with industry participants, and publications released by S&P Global as of July 2023 when this paper was written. Most U.S. life insurers are rated by S&P using their U.S. Life Statutory Capital model, while other insurers use the GAAP/IFRS Capital Model. Statutory financials will remain the starting point for U.S. life insurers under the proposed model, however there will be additional adjustments made to these numbers in an effort to create consistency and comparability with other accounting and solvency regimes.

Description: This article provides illustrations of an approach to presentation of income and expenses that may be applied to long duration contracts, i.e., those that are measured by the building blocks approach for the emerging new standard on insurance contracts.

Description: A summary of regulatory developments related to principle-based reserving.

Description: Read the March 2017 issue of The Financial Reporter published by the Financial Reporting Section.

Description: A question from a reading regarding the accuracy of a comment from the December 2016 issue of The Financial Reporter article titled “Negative GAAP Term Insurance Reserves—to Floor or Not to Floor?”

Description: Insurance accounting is in the midst of significant changes, many of which were proposed during a time of severe economic uncertainty. Given the concern about these regulations by many insurance finance executives, it is time for a re-examination of the capabilities of the financial reporting function. For insurers, actuarial components are a critical part of the financial reports, and so actuaries can be expected to play a critical role in moving the overall financial and regulatory reporting function forward. In fact, the financial and regulatory reporting function in an insurance company cannot advance significantly without actuarial expertise. This article explains how actuaries are therefore in the position of being able to help drive the evolution of a company’s finance function.

Description: Feature article discussing fixed indexed annuity accounting when living benefits are present.