IC issues reporting guidelines under IMF standards

MANILA, Philippines - The Insurance Commission (IC) has released new guidelines for the submission of financial reports by insurance and pre-need companies to help facilitate data gathering among industry players in compliance with International Monetary Fund (IMF) standards.

In a statement released over the weekend, Insurance commissioner Dennis Funa said he has signed a circular letter prescribing new reporting templates and deadlines to be followed by insurance and pre-need firms in the submission of their annual and quarterly reports.

Funa said the reporting templates would provide the pertinent data needed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in the compilation of the Other Financial Corporations Survey (OFCS), in compliance with the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) Plus of the IMF.

The OFCS survey covers the accounts of all players in the “other financial corporations” (OFC) sub-sector in the financial industry, including life insurance, non-life insurance and pre-need firms.

Combined with the Depository Corporation Survey – which covers banks, savings and loan associations, and non-banks with quasi-banking functions – the survey completes the monetary statistics framework of the entire financial sector.

“The compilation of OFCS begins with the construction of the balance sheet for the OFCS sub-sector,” Funa said.

“As part of this statistical undertaking, the IC, in coordination with the BSP, developed three sets of reporting templates for life insurance, non-life insurance, and pre-need companies that will facilitate the consolidation and analysis of the OFCS,” he said.

According to Funa, the annual and quarterly reports to be submitted to the IC should be made using the new reporting templates, accompanied by a statement of changes in equity and a certification by a company officer with the rank of at least vice president.

“In order to meet the additional reporting requirement of the IMF, the IC imposed the specific deadlines set forth under the circular letter addressed to all life insurance, non-life insurance and pre-need companies,” Funa said.