Insurance Europe

Corporate reporting

As Europe’s largest institutional investor and a major industry with a unique business model, the insurance industry is an important user and preparer of financial and sustainability (non-financial) reporting . Insurance Europe engages with policymakers and stakeholders to ensure that the measures insurers are required to report reflect the business model and achieve their objectives, that insurers have the data they need to make good investment decisions and that unnecessary costs and unintended consequences are avoided.

Priority: Long-term investment & sustainable finance

Financial reporting that correctly reflects the insurance business model

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) develops International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). In Europe, all companies with listed equity or debt are required to provide consolidated group reporting on an IFRS basis. In addition, many countries in the EEA have adopted IFRS as part of their national GAAP reporting and so these standards are also used by many unlisted companies.

Less (and better) is more

Annual Report article, May 2024

The European insurance industry supports the aim of the IASB to achieve high-quality and comparable global financial reporting standards. Insurance Europe aims to ensure that IFRS standards correctly reflect the insurance business model including its long-term nature, the interaction between assets and liabilities, and pooling and mutualisation of risks.

Meaningful, consistent and comparable sustainability reporting

Joint key messages on
EFRAG’s first set of European Sustainability Reporting
Standards

As investors, insurers need reliable and comparable ESG data on their investments so that they can take sustainability into account when making investment decisions and help to shift investment towards supporting Europe’s goal to be net carbon neutral by 2050. The data is also vital so that insurers can comply to the European taxonomy and sustainable finance disclosure requirements.

In that perspective, European insurers support the ongoing development of EU Sustainability Reporting Standards by the EU Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG). Insurance Europe aims to ensure that these standards are:

developed through constructive cooperation with international initiatives such as the International Sustainability Standard Board (ISSB) to avoid double reporting effort, and
are implemented following a phased approach in order to achieve feasibility of the framework and favour quality over exhaustiveness.