The Financial Accounting Standards Board is taking another look at how companies should value investments.
FASB, Norwalk, is starting an effort to revise the guidance used to implement fair value accounting rules.
FASB also is starting an effort to revise fair value estimate disclosure rules, FASB officials say.
FASB is reacting to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission report and feedback from a FASB advisory group, FASB officials say.
Critics of the fair value accounting rules say they force too many companies, including insurers, to record fluctuations in asset values in ways that distort financial statements, by treating long-term investments as if they were being sold through a fire sale.
Fair value accounting defenders argue that the rules help give investors, regulators and others a clear idea of how companies stand at a particular point in time.