11 September 2019

Insurance Europe: IFRS 17: EU insurers say some improvements welcome, but major issues still to be addressed

Insurance Europe and the CFO Forum have issued a joint call for further improvements to be made to International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 17 — insurance contracts — and have raised concerns over its timing.

European insurers submitted a joint response to a draft comment letter written by the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) in response to the International Accounting Standards Board's (IASB) proposed amendments to IFRS 17.

In their response, they argue that while the IASB has proposed several helpful improvements in its IFRS 17 exposure draft, unfortunately a number of issues remain unaddressed and further changes are needed.

Three issues — level of aggregation, transition and presentation — were given particular emphasis because they will have the largest overall impact on the operational complexity and costs of implementing IFRS 17. 

European insurers also commented on other areas of concern that were identified by the industry during EFRAG’s field testing exercise and implementation process, but which have not been fully or only partially addressed by the IASB.

The joint response also included Insurance Europe’s view that a two-year delay is needed, which therefore leads to a global effective date of 1 January 2023 for IFRS 17 (and IFRS 9 — financial instruments, for insurers).

Full letter on Insurance Europe

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