Preface

Standards amended by AASB 2022-1

This Standard makes amendments to AASB 17 Insurance Contracts (July 2017).

These amendments arise from the issuance of International Financial Reporting Standard Initial Application of IFRS 17 and IFRS 9 – Comparative Information (Amendment to IFRS 17) by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in December 2021.

Main features of this Standard

Main requirements

This Standard amends AASB 17 to add a transition option referred to as ‘a classification overlay’ relating to comparative information about financial assets presented on initial application of AASB 17 and AASB 9 Financial Instruments at the same time. The amendments relate to financial assets for which comparative information presented on initial application of AASB 17 and AASB 9 has not been restated for AASB 9. Applying the transition option would permit an entity to present comparative information about such a financial asset as if the classification and measurement requirements of AASB 9 had been applied to that financial asset. This enables insurers to reduce potentially significant accounting mismatches between financial assets and insurance contract liabilities in the comparative period (or periods), to improve the usefulness of the comparative information in the general purpose financial statements.

Application date

This Standard applies to annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2023. Earlier application is permitted.