At the AcSOC meeting on October 20-21, 2016, the AcSB Chair noted that the IASB expects to issue its new insurance standard in early 2017 after completing an additional round of field testing (from July to October 2016) and a fatal flaw review of the new guidance. In reply to questions from members, Ms. Mezon said that Canadian insurers have a number of concerns with the new proposals, including how contracts will be grouped into portfolios. Also, the U.S. FASB issued a second insurance Exposure Draft in September 2016 with proposed targeted amendments to the proposals in its initial Exposure Draft. While the FASB’s proposed changes would result in U.S. GAAP being more similar to the IASB’s forthcoming new insurance standard and the Canadian asset and liability method used today, the discount rate proposals are different.  The AcSB will be discussing the U.S. proposals and the potential differences with the IFRS guidance with Canadian insurers, the FASB and IASB.

Review the meeting summary on the AcSOC's Web site.