Insurers, pre-need firms to submit more data to IC

THE Insurance Commission (IC) has issued guidelines for the inclusion of data for the Other Financial Corporation Survey (OFCS) in the insurance sector’s submission of quarterly and annual financial reports, pursuant to standards set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In a statement, the regulator said the Insurance Commissioner had recently inked rules for non-life, life and pre-need firms on including data for the OFCS in their financial reports.

“The OFCS is an analytical survey that when consolidated with the present Depository Corporation Survey will complete the monetary statistics framework and, thus, providing a comprehensive measure of the claimed and liabilities of the entire financial sector,” the IC stated.

The OFCS deals with accounts of all resident OFCs sub-sector that includes life, non-life and pre-need sectors.

“The compilation of OFCS begins with the construction of the balance sheet for the OFCs sub-sector,” Insurance Commissioner Dennis B. Funa was quoted as saying in a statement.

“As part of this statistical undertaking, the Insurance Commission, 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 added.

The IC said the sector’s preparation for the production of annual and quarterly data series for the consolidation and pilot compilation of OFCS is targeted to be done by December of this year.

In February of last year, the IC entered into a memorandum of agreement with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Governance Commission for Government-owned-and-controlled-corporations to gather necessary data from the OFC sub-sector for each of the parties’ respective jurisdictions, as well as to conduct data gap analyses.

“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,” Mr. Funa said.

The regulator noted reports to be submitted by life, non-life and pre-need companies should begin using the reporting templates along with a statement of changes in equity as well as a certification by an officer from their respective firms that has a rank of at least vice president.

The expansion of the financial database, which now includes the reporting of OFCS, was through the establishment of the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) Plus by the IMF.

The Philippines has already subscribed to the SDDS Plus, which has given the country a “good statistical citizenship” status since its subscription in 1996. For the country to retain its status, the additional reporting requirement under the SDDS Plus must be fully observed.

The SDDS Plus completes the three tiers of the IMF’s data standards initiative. The first tier is the SDDS and the second tier is the General Data Dissemination Standard. — JMDS