I’ve been brewing a wild idea for a while.
Insurance regulations weren’t written with IFRS17 in mind. This causes some head scratching when it comes to premium volume measure for non-life insurance, but common sense gets you to the right answer without much trouble. Those who say otherwise seem to be looking for problems where none exist.
I have been pondering whether IFRS17 makes life interesting for microinsurers given the wording of FSM2 “Valuation of Assets, Liabilities and Eligible Own Funds” for microinsurers (issued by the PA). The interpretation and application challenges actually predate IFRS17. FSM2 makes some silent and unlikely assumptions around treatment of premium debtors for typical microinsurance business. More on that in a future article.
IFRS17 does make life interesting (in the worst meaning of the word) for microinsurers, in that they must all apply IFRS17 to their insurance contracts. There’s no reason not to apply the Premium Allocation Approach given restrictions on policy term – and this simplifies many of the calculations significantly. Whether the audit firms looking at microinsurers understand IFRS17 or the required disclosures is an important quite separate topic, but one which must be resolved independent of the prudential reporting basis itself.
So here’s a wild idea. Why not drop FSM2 altogether and align the prudential balance sheet with the IFRS one?
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