Our Guides to financial statements help you to prepare financial statements in accordance with IFRS. They illustrate one possible format for financial statements prepared under IFRS.

This guide (PDF 2.8 MB) is based on a fictitious multinational insurer that is not a first-time adopter of IFRS. It illustrates example disclosures for an annual period beginning on 1 January 2021, when IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts and IFRS 9 Financial Instruments are applied for the first time. It assumes that the temporary exemption from IFRS 9 was applied before 1 January 2021.

IFRS 17 is a new and complex standard, and the interpretation of its requirements is subject to ongoing discussions. This guide does not pre-empt this process. Instead, it aims to help insurers understand the disclosure requirements so that they can consider them in planning their implementation projects.

Investors continue to ask for a step-up in the quality of business reporting, so insurers, in common with other entities, should be careful not to become buried in compliance to the exclusion of relevance. In preparing their financial statements, entities need to focus on improving their communication by reporting financial information in a meaningful way and innovating their financial statement presentation and disclosure in the broader context of better business reporting. For more information, see our Better business reporting website.