Example Financial Statements
- 02:39
Explores the income statement and balance sheet of a real insurance company, that provides both life and non-life insurance.
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Transcript
So let's look at some real insurance financials, because I think it can be quite helpful to see that real life is a little bit noisier and sometimes some of the descriptions aren't quite what we expect. Now, we are gonna use Generali as a case study here, and this is their balance sheet for 2017. Now, starting off at the top, things look pretty much as they would for any company with intangible and tangible assets, so that's not particularly exciting yet. However, the third line shows amounts ceded to reinsurers from insurance provisions. So that's the amounts receivable from reinsurers as a result of reinsurance activities. Now, if you were to net this off against insurance provisions, this would give you the net amount owing to policy holders. Now, the next item is investments, and the most noticeable thing here is clearly that it's just a very large number compared with the other line items. However, you can also see that they've separately identified the investments which back unit linked policies, and they're classified as investments where the investment risk is born by the policy holder. Now, scrolling down, everything else in assets looks pretty standard. You've got receivables, other assets, and cash and cash equivalents, but if you look in the notes to Generali's accounts, you would see that the DAC asset is actually included within other assets. Now, continuing our journey down the balance sheet, you can see that the only other balance which is unique to insurance is the insurance provisions and liabilities. So that's the insurance reserves. And these are the dominant item in liabilities. And you can see that the reserves relating to unit linked policies are shown separately, again, described as policies where the investment risk is born by the policy holder. And you can also see that the amounts here are similar to the amounts shown within investments. So now let's look at Generali's income statement for 2017. Now, this immediately looks quite different to a corporate income statement, starting off with the premiums right at the top. And these are the growth earned premiums. So that's the amounts before reinsurance. And then they show the amounts paid away to reinsurers before showing the net earned premiums. Now, below this you can see the fee income and the investment returns, which then allows 'em to show their total revenues, or total income. And I think it's important to highlight as insurance companies don't show a separate subtotal for premiums less claims in their income statement, as they have to show all their revenues first before showing their expenses. Now, below this we can see the claims expense, and just as with premiums, they show this first on a gross basis and then after reinsurance recoveries. Now, one final thing to highlight is that the acquisition and administration costs, which are included here below claims include the amortization of deferred acquisition costs.