New Global Insurance Accounting Rule Could Be Delayed One Year

A global standards body has proposed a one-year delay to implementing its new accounting rule aimed at increasing visibility in how insurers earn money, after the industry said it needed more time to prepare for such a sweeping change.

A spokeswoman for the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) said that at a meeting on Wednesday the IASB backed a 12-month delay to January 2022.

The insurance industry had called for introduction of the rule to be delayed until 2023. There will be a public consultation on the proposed delay.

Last month insurers from across the world called for a delay and amendments to the rule that has been 20 years in the making and aimed at prising open a “black box” of national practices.

“While it is good that the IASB Board has at last recognized the need to consider improvements and a delay to IFRS 17… one year is simply not enough time to both fix the problems with IFRS 17 and to give insurers enough time to implement the standard properly,” said Olav Jones, deputy director general of Insurance Europe, an industry body.

IASB rules are used in over 100 countries, including the European Union, but not in the United States.

The IASB spokeswoman said the board was likely to discuss in December whether actual amendments to the new rule were needed.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; editing by Susan Fenton and Alexandra Hudson)

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