FASB issues updated insurance standard

December 16, 2022

FASB on Thursday amended transition guidance in Accounting Standards Update No. 2018-12, Financial Services — Insurance (Topic 944): Targeted Improvements to the Accounting for Long-Duration Contracts (LDTI).

The amendments to the ASU require that an insurance entity apply a retrospective transition method as of the beginning of the earliest period presented or the beginning of the prior fiscal year if early application is elected.

In FASB's summary of the amended standard, the board said it received feedback from stakeholders "indicating that applying the LDTI guidance to contracts that were derecognized because of a sale or disposal of individual or a group of contracts or legal entities before the LDTI effective date likely would not provide decision-useful information to investors and other allocators of capital and may result in significant operability challenges for insurance entities to apply the guidance."

The update was issued to reduce implementation costs and complexity related to the adoption of LDTI for contracts derecognized before the LDTI effective date.

[Journal of Accountancy]