Insurers: Are You Ready for IFRS 17?

The January 2022 compliance deadline seems a long way out, but savvy insurers are acting now. Find out why, and the top 10 things to look for in an IFRS 17 solution.

For many insurers, this accounting process will look familiar:

  • Tools and processes vary for different lines of business.
  • The needed data is stored in hundreds of files.
  • Calculations are performed by multiple, undocumented spreadsheets, with little or no version control.
  • Humans have to step in to help cobble together data from different channels.
  • The process of preparing and presenting financial data is not manageable or traceable.
  • The path from input data to P&L numbers is largely a black box.

In a simpler time, this patchwork was passable. But change is coming. New regulations will bring greater complexity to the accounting process for insurers, which will make semi-manual, legacy processes look like a house of cards and raise doubts about the validity of the final numbers on the P&L sheet.

That looming change, of course, is IFRS 17, the new International Financial Reporting Standard issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in May 2017. It defines how accounting will be done by insurers in the more than 100 countries that adopted IFRS. IFRS 17 will replace IFRS 4 Phase II, which isn’t a comprehensive international standard but rather a structure for grandfathering in the use of countries’ national standards.

IFRS 17 will usher in a new era that puts insurers on a level footing internationally

 Digital
SAS

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