Financial Statements for Insurance Companies

Paper Summary:

This paper describes the increased difficulties in understanding the financial statements of insurance companies that will occur as a result of Financial Accounting Standard 115 (FAS 115) adopted by the Financial Accounting Standards Board. The paper explains that FAS 115 will create wide variations between companies in the carrying values used for debt securities which will necessitate even more analysis to determine a company's financial condition as well as make it impossible to compare companies' financial positions without restating each company's debt-security portfolio values to a common basis.

From the Paper:

"Higher equity levels created by having debt securities carried at market will be misleading to financial statement users. Hardly anyone believes that a company can fully retain the security gains that currently exist in their portfolios. To do so would require curtailing crediting rates to those available based on current rates on new money. Competitive pressures won't allow companies to do this and retain their policyholder funds. To reflect such gains as equity of the company in the financials is just plain misleading."

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