The IFRS 17 accounting standard - which is expected to be implemented in January 2022 - challenges insurers to update their existing models to deal with the granularity of output needed.
For FIS's Prophet actuarial library development team, coping with a standard that last year was still in flux, and where interpretations continue to emerge, has been a significant challenge.
The team is responsible for the standard libraries of actuarial formulas, example models and templates that are supplied as part of the Prophet software suite, and it performs a vital role.
Oscar Weafer, FIS's director of risk solutions management and strategy, says: "Being one of, if not the only, vendor to provide end-to-end IFRS 17 reporting capabilities spanning both actuarial and accounting systems, the Prophet models have been designed to minimise the volume of data that is managed and is targeted at producing the results needed, in the format needed, by finance teams."
According to Weafer, this has meant the actuarial library development team needed to understand data transformations that take place post production, and the format and granularity of information needed to populate ledger systems using double-entry accounting – and use this information to drive the design of the enhancements being made to models.
He explains: "Using this knowledge, the team made available an IFRS 17 Toolkit that provides a template end-to-end model and process for reporting, covering the sourcing of data, performing the calculations and populating the ledger. The result is a way of insurers getting a sample IFRS 17 process running very quickly."
Among the team's achievements, in the first half of 2019, it devised a new method of allowing for scenario testing and general planning through projections of IFRS 17 accounts.
The upcoming Long Duration Targeted Improvements (LDTI) accounting standard gives US insurers much the same kind of challenge as IFRS presents in other countries. However, in addition to material calculation changes, the data needs of insurers are much greater under LDTI.
