International Accounting Standards Applied to Property and Casualty Insurance-Overview of Reserving Issues

This paper provides an overview of the newly developing International Standards (IAS or IFRS) for Insurance, with emphasis on issues impacting property and casualty insurers and the reserving work that actuaries do to support that. Those standards will emerge in two phases, with the more challenging actuarial issues deferred to Phase II. This paper focuses on the Phase II actuarial issues but also provides a brief overview of Phase I issues. The paper is intended to serve two purposes – providing background information for those actuaries not yet familiar with IAS developments, and encouraging discussion with research on new challenges that casualty actuaries will face in determining reserves on the new bases required to implement these standards.