Insurance Industry Progresses with IFRS 17

LONDON (PRWEB) October 17, 2018

Second Aptitude Software survey shows industry progress in last 9 months, although target implementation dates slip as insurers work through data, systems and operational accounting challenges.

A new survey from Aptitude Software shows the progress of insurers on their IFRS 17 projects even as regional regulators, insurance associations and insurers themselves increasingly call for an extension to the IFRS 17 standard effective date.

Despite calls for delay, Aptitude's survey results show that insurers have made considerable progress since the standard was published over a year ago. 37% of those surveyed have successfully completed an impact analysis and reached the solution design phase compared with the 14% of insurers who had reached this stage in January 2018.

However, the percentage of insurers at the implementation stage did not move much - 8% in January 2018 vs. 11% in September 2018 - which indicates many have struggled with the operational complexities of IFRS 17.

Ross Chapman, Global Marketing Director, at Aptitude Software notes, "When we surveyed insurers at the end of 2017 for our first report, the majority of insurers - 55% - reported that they would be making an IFRS 17 vendor selection in Q1 or Q2 of 2018 with no insurers indicating they would select a vendor in 2019. Now we're seeing that over a quarter of respondents have now pushed their software selection dates into the first half of 2019."

A recent KPMG report showed that "70% of respondents who plan to buy a solution have not yet selected a vendor."

While the industry waits for a final decision and clarification on the finer points of the standard, many insurers have continued working on areas which will both help them achieve compliance and deliver broader business benefits. This includes things like identifying and standardizing required data, linking key management reporting dimensions with underlying financial transactions and defining and centralizing accounting policy.

A group finance director at a large international insurance organization observed, "We started the IFRS 17 program in 2016 and quickly became aware of its complexities and far-reaching implications. We therefore designed an approach which aimed to use the significant investments required for IFRS 17 as the base to further upgrade our market value reporting environment. This should support us in delivering better and faster information at significantly lower cost levels."

The report is available for download here. Deloitte and Aptitude Software will be discussing the findings from this report as well as sharing experiences and observations from current IFRS 17 projects. Please email [email protected] to request the on-demand recording when it's available.

About Aptitude Software
Aptitude Software is a leading financial software specialist. Aptitude's technology equips CFOs, of the world's largest organizations, with competitive advantages by streamlining and automating financial accounting processes and enabling faster actionable insights.

Aptitude Software offers the most comprehensive IFRS 17 software solution available. It provides centralized access to granular detail and the financial control needed to generate and substantiate the accounting and disclosure reporting required by IFRS 17. It reduces the cost and risk of IFRS 17 change programs with a specialist product approach that leverages Aptitude Software's proven operational accounting platform and fits into existing actuarial and financial reporting environments.

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