Insights: Financial Statement Audit

After several years of deliberation among various NAIC committees and working groups, working capital finance investments (WCFIs) were approved as admitted assets for insurance companies effective January 1, 2014.

On February 19, 2014 the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) announced it would abandon its rewrite of existing US GAAP through the Insurance Contracts Exposure Draft and instead focus on targeted improvements to the existing standards for long-duration contracts and targeted disclosure enhancements for short-duration contracts. On April 16, 2014 the FASB began its discussions on those improvements and disclosures that should be included in the scope of this project.

Over the last few years the NAIC has established its expectations for insurance companies to maintain a risk management framework and conduct an Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA), including the filing of an ORSA Summary Report with state regulators. In 2012, the NAIC issued a Guidance Manual to provide insurers guidance with respect to reporting on ORSA, and later the NAIC adopted an ORSA Model Act. In 2012 and 2013 the NAIC conducted two separate feedback pilot projects and provided feedback and observations in a memo to the industry.

Newly approved Florida legislation demands new insurer solvency requirements, disclosure requirements and requirements for individuals to disclose information about any affiliated company.

For years, risk governance meant risk management, with a relatively narrow focus on specific areas: loans, legal, and possibly IT. Then, everything went sideways in 2008-2009, and regulators saw the need for a more proactive, comprehensive risk governance strategy. Within the past five years, new rules and guidelines have begun changing the flaws regulators could see boards of directors were not engaged at the right level; board members and executives weren’t getting the right information to make informed decisions; and management didn’t have tools in place to facilitate a timely and comprehensive analysis of overall risk.