International Accounting Effect on Insurers’ Results. Empirical evidence from Ias-Ifrs FTA in Italy

The paper analyzes the main features related to the functioning and the financial reporting of insurance companies from Italy. In this regard, it sheds light on the existence of a double accounting regime, i.e. a ‘double track’ that sees local accounting principles on the one hand, vs the quite different requirements of Ias/Ifrs architecture, mandatory for listed insurance companies with reference to consolidated accounts, on the other hand. Such condition is able to create a sort of mismatch between assets and liabilities estimates, possible shadow accountings, and a lower level of comparability. The work is devoted to show some empirical evidences concerning Italian quoted insurance companies, where FTA (first time adoption of endorsed Ias/Ifrs) is considered as a relevant event case determining accounting differences (tested through various methods, from Gray’s Index of conservativism / comparability, to Z inferential univariate statistics).