Insurance contracts

Date recorded:

The Staff provided the IASB with a brief oral update on the insurance contracts project (no agenda paper for this session).

Drafting

The forthcoming IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts is being finalised. Since November the Staff have been revising the draft and used that draft to undertake fatal flaw reviews. The Staff have used an expanded fatal flaw process, by sharing the draft with a wider group than normal. The Staff have reviewed the external comments on the draft Standard. In the light of those comments the Staff consider that some additional minor issues will need to be brought back to the Board in February to ensure that they are being dealt with appropriately. As a consequence the Staff are now estimating that IFRS 17 will be issued in May 2017.

Supporting implementation

The Staff also discussed the call for a transition resource group on the grounds that the changes for many entities will be fundamental and challenging. People will also be approaching the new requirements from several different perspectives given the diversity in accounting practices permitted under IFRS 4 Insurance Contracts. The Staff will therefore establish a transition resource group. The membership has yet to be determined, but the Staff will assess, and learn from, the transition resource groups that have preceded this one. Once the terms of reference have been established there will be a public call for membership. As with other resource groups it will be an open and public process.

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