ABSTRACT:
IFRS 17 establishes principles for the recognition, measurement, presentation and disclosure of insurance contracts issued, reinsurance contracts held and investment contracts with discretionary participation features issued. The previous IFRS standard on insurance contracts, IFRS 4 – Insurance Contracts, was an interim standard that allowed entities to use a wide variety of accounting practices for insurance contracts, reflecting national accounting requirements and variations of those requirements. IFRS 17 reflects the IASB’s view that an insurance contract combines features of both a financial instrument and a service contract. In addition, many insurance contracts generate cash flows with substantial variability over a long period. To provide useful information about these features the IASB developed an approach that: (a) combines current measurement of the future cash flows with the recognition of profit over the period services are provided under the contract; (b) presents insurance service results (including presentation of insurance revenue) separately from insurance finance income or expenses; and (c) requires an entity to make an accounting policy choice portfolio-by-portfolio of whether to recognise all insurance finance income or expense for the reporting period in profit or loss or to recognise some of that income or expense in other comprehensive income.
Keywords: IFRS 17, Insurance Contracts, Reinsurance
