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September 29, 2016 at 12:57 PM
The Financial Accounting Standards Board has proposed a rule change that could make insurers’ finances look worse now that interest rates are low but could make their finances look better when rates start to rise.
The Norwalk, Connecticut-based group has posted a draft of “Financial Services — Insurance (Topic 944),” a proposed accounting standards update that would affect accounting for long-duration contracts.
The draft standard change could affect accounting for annuities, life insurance, long-term care insurance, long-term disability insurance and any other products that involve promises to pay benefits far in the future.
The draft would change the rules governing discount rates, or the rate-of-return assumptions insurers use to estimate how much cash they will take in and how much they will have to pay out in connection with future policy benefits.
In the draft, which is based on comments on a document FASB posted in 2013, the board proposes requiring insurers to use a discount rate based on yields on high-quality bonds and other high-quality fixed-income investments when they report on their finances.
Related: FASB proposes new accounting for insurance contracts
An insurer would report on the amount of market risk benefits it has promised, calculate how changes in yields on high-grade bonds have affected the value of the market risk benefits, and include changes in the value in a figure called “other comprehensive income.”
The “other comprehensive income” figure is similar to the “net income” figure but includes the effects of some changes in investment asset values that a company can keep out of net income.
Today, an insurer locks in a discount rate assumption when it sells a long-duration product. An insurer is supposed to update the assumptions and create premium deficiency reserves when big changes in investment yields conflict with the original discount rate assumptions.
FASB is also proposing changes in the rules governing deferred acquisition costs.
FASB says it wants to use a new measuring tape for measuring insurer liabilities because the current approach relies on stale, speculative information. (Image: Thinkstock)
FASB draft may start a new mark-to-market battle
Today, “for certain contracts, the insurance liability is measured using out-of-date assumptions,” FASB says in a bulletin discussing the draft. “Also, an expected investment portfolio yield is used to discount the liability.
