IFRS 17: The New Accounting Insurance Standard

Overcoming signi?cant di?erences between individual/single national ac- counting practices has not been a painless process for any of the countries involved. They had to frequently, sacri?ce settings established over years of practice on the altar of standardizing accounting language, in a world where there are no more boundaries and borders. The International Financial Re- porting Standard 17 is the ?first and truly International Standard issued by the International Accounting Standard Board with the goal to undertook a project to make insures' fi?nancial statements more useful and insurance account- ing practices consistent across jurisdictions. It establishes principle for the recognition, measurement, presentation and disclosure of insurance contracts within the scope of the Standard, ensuring that an entity provides relevant information that faithfully represents those contracts. This dissertation aims to describe the peculiarities that characterize the individual phases of the long path known as "Insurance Project" and landed to IFRS 17, as well as to report the examination of the critical aspects and the adjustments made in each of these phases. Furthermore it will focus on the main insights arising from the Standard it self giving some interpretation and estimates of the adoption potential impact. It will not neglect to men- tion the parallel projects in which the Board is involved, ?first of all Solvency II. They will intertwine, influencing themselves in various way, enriching and further slowing down the race towards the goal of issuing the definitive standard.