AICPA proposes implementation guidance for insurance standard

The American Institute of CPAs’ Financial Reporting Executive Committee posted draft versions of its interpretations of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s new long-duration insurance accounting standard.

The standard, which FASB issued in 2018, makes specific improvements to its existing insurance standards for recognition, measurement, presentation, and disclosure requirements for long-duration contracts issued by an insurance company. The AICPA’s FinREC group and the AICPA Insurance Expert Panel plan to continue to develop working drafts on accounting implementation issues that have been identified for the new standard.

The four working drafts released by the AICPA to help insurers implement the standard include:

1. Issue #3: Market Risk Benefits – Scope
2. Issue #4D: Market risk benefits – Retrospective adoption of market risk benefits guidance and the effect on purchase accounting
3. Issue #6: Use of Discount Rates or Yield Curve for interest accretion on Insurance Liabilities under ASU 2018-12
4. Issue #16: Level of Aggregation for the Measurement of the Liability for Future Policy Benefits

The AICPA plans to include the final versions for the project in its Audit and Accounting Guide: Life and Health Insurance Entities.

In the meantime, the AICPA is looking for feedback from preparers of financial statements, practitioners and other interested parties. Comments should be emailed to Kim.Kushmerick@aicpa-cima.com by July 29.

FASB had originally been working with the International Accounting Standards Board on a converged insurance accounting standard for U.S. GAAP and International Financial Reporting Standards. U.S. GAAP was perceived to have more detailed standards for insurance accounting, but the two boards eventually decided to go their own separate ways. FASB elected to tweak its existing standards, mostly for long-duration insurance contracts like life insurance and annuities. Last year, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the board decided to defer the effective date of the standard until 2023 for public companies and 2025 for private companies (see story).