Insurance Contracts – International Accounting Standards Board

Date recorded:

At its meeting on October 24, 2018, the International Accounting Standards Board (the Board) met to consider criteria for evaluating possible amendments to IFRS 17.

The Board noted that at a future meeting it would consider whether any of the concerns and implementation challenges discussed by the Transition Resource Group and other stakeholders, including those relating to the costs and benefits of IFRS 17, indicate a need to amend the requirements of IFRS 17.

The Board tentatively decided, that when proposing any amendment to IFRS 17, in addition to demonstrating a need for the amendment, the staff must show that any proposal meets the following criteria:

  1. the amendments would not result in significant loss of useful information relative to that which would otherwise be provided by IFRS 17 for users of financial statements—any amendments would avoid: (a) reducing the relevance and faithful representation of information in the financial statements of entities applying IFRS 17; (b) causing reduced comparability or introducing internal inconsistency in IFRS Standards, including within IFRS 17; or (c) increasing complexity for users of financial statements, thus reducing understandability.
  2. the amendments would not unduly disrupt implementation already under way or risk undue delays in the effective date of this Standard, which is needed to address many inadequacies in the existing wide range of insurance accounting practices.

The Board discussed an overview of the main concerns and implementation challenges raised by stakeholders about requirements in IFRS 17.

At a future meeting, the Board will consider whether any concerns and implementation challenges indicate a need for standard-setting to amend the requirements of IFRS 17 beyond the annual improvements the Board has already tentatively decided to propose. The Board will also consider implications for the effective date of IFRS 17.

Review the IASB Update and podcast on the Board's Web site.

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