Balance Sheet Assets
- 02:33
Understand common asset accounts for a property and casualty insurance company
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Transcript
Now let's take a look at the balance sheet of an insurance company. You can see, we've got a number of assets which are pretty normal for a general operating business. We've got goodwill, 'cause the company's made acquisitions. We've got some fixed assets. But the first item which is related to the insurance business is they've got some investment property. So this is property they've invested for a financial return, rather than using their operational assets. Next item is the reinsurance assets. This is where the company, this property and casualty company, has sold some of its premiums, probably to spread its underlying risk. So perhaps they've got some kind of concentrated risk in a geographical area or a particular insurance line and they've sold that to the wholesale market which is known as the reinsurance market. Now, they hand over the cash to the reinsurer and then they are due to get some of that back to pay the claims that they've got for those reinsured premiums, and that is what that asset relates to. So it's essentially a receivable from the reinsurers. Then we've got a few other items. One that is again related to insurance is deferred acquisition costs. So where the insurance company's paying a third party to generate the premium, in other words, get the business from the earned client, they will pay them an upfront fee and that is an acquisition cost. But of course, you won't expense that immediately. What we will do is we will spread that over the life of the policy, hence the term deferred acquisition costs. So it sits on the balance sheet as an asset, almost like a prepaid expense, and then gets recognized over the life of the policy. And then there's some prepayments, some derivatives. Then, we have got the main workhorse of the asset side of the balance sheet, and these are the financial investments and any cash holdings. This is known as the kind of float. And what that means is this is the investments that have been financed by all the premium holders giving the insurance company money. And they will typically invest that for a financial return. And you can see the vast, or the biggest asset in this balance sheet, are financial investments. It's over half the balance sheet. Often, the insurance companies are required to keep some cash on hand for regulatory purposes. But you can see here, this is the dominant share of the balance sheet.