IASB paper whips up industry

Although the IASB discussion paper on accounting for insurance contracts contains a lot of useful consideration of the issues there is a long way to go in turning it into a practical solution, says Neil Coulson, a partner with accountancy firm CLB Littlejohn Frazer

Neil Coulson can be contacted at ncoulson@clblf.com or on tel: 020 7987 5030.

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) discussion paper on accounting for insurance contracts paper issued in May 2007 addressed a number of fundamental proposals that would radically change insurance accounting. It seeks to strike a difficult balance between producing a workable standard for both life and non-life insurers whilst ensuring consistency with fundamental accounting principles adopted for all other industries. There is a feeling that particularly for life insurers the current standard IFRS4 allows such a wide range of accounting that there is little consistency and that a new standard is needed.