(Financial Reporting for Insurance Companies: Overview, Criticisms, Evidence) It is well known that accounting practices for insurance operations / contracts have been diverse, and have often differed from practices in other sectors. The present article deals with the main aspects related to the functioning and the financial reporting of insurance companies that operate in Italy, particularly shedding light to the existence of a double accounting regime due to a kind of ‘double track’ that sees local accounting principles on the one hand, vs the quite different requirements of Ias / Ifrs architecture (compulsory for quoted insurance companies and for all consolidated accounts) on the other hand. Such condition / situation appears able to create a sort of “mismatch” between assets and liabilities estimates, possible “shadow accountings”, and a lower level of comparability. At this regard, an insurance company can determine accounting mismatches arising when insurance contract liabilities and the assets that back them are measured on different bases and, furthermore, is permitted to change its accounting policies so that a recognised but unrealised gain or loss on assets affects the measurement of the insurance liabilities. That said, the articles is chiefly voted to show some empirical evidences about Italian quoted insurance companies, where FTA (their First Time Adoption of Ias / Ifrs) is considered as a crucial “event case” expected to produce actual accounting differences (tested by the Wilcoxon Z statistics: in particular we found statistically significant differences in their income and equity-capital in terms of p-values). Therefrom, it seems undoubtedly useful to draw attention – at last – to the future of insurance companies and of their accounting and financial reporting problems, and to solicit business administrators to take into consideration the potential impact of both the “principle-based” Phase II of Ifrs 4 (still in the form of ED) and the “rules-based” Solvency II proposals.
Sui bilanci delle compagnie assicurative. Alcune considerazioni ed evidenze
TALIENTO, MARCO
2013-01-01
Abstract
(Financial Reporting for Insurance Companies: Overview, Criticisms, Evidence) It is well known that accounting practices for insurance operations / contracts have been diverse, and have often differed from practices in other sectors. The present article deals with the main aspects related to the functioning and the financial reporting of insurance companies that operate in Italy, particularly shedding light to the existence of a double accounting regime due to a kind of ‘double track’ that sees local accounting principles on the one hand, vs the quite different requirements of Ias / Ifrs architecture (compulsory for quoted insurance companies and for all consolidated accounts) on the other hand. Such condition / situation appears able to create a sort of “mismatch” between assets and liabilities estimates, possible “shadow accountings”, and a lower level of comparability. At this regard, an insurance company can determine accounting mismatches arising when insurance contract liabilities and the assets that back them are measured on different bases and, furthermore, is permitted to change its accounting policies so that a recognised but unrealised gain or loss on assets affects the measurement of the insurance liabilities. That said, the articles is chiefly voted to show some empirical evidences about Italian quoted insurance companies, where FTA (their First Time Adoption of Ias / Ifrs) is considered as a crucial “event case” expected to produce actual accounting differences (tested by the Wilcoxon Z statistics: in particular we found statistically significant differences in their income and equity-capital in terms of p-values). Therefrom, it seems undoubtedly useful to draw attention – at last – to the future of insurance companies and of their accounting and financial reporting problems, and to solicit business administrators to take into consideration the potential impact of both the “principle-based” Phase II of Ifrs 4 (still in the form of ED) and the “rules-based” Solvency II proposals.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
