Insurance data upgrade

Insurer data upgrade

International financial reporting standards are created by international standard-setting boards. IFRS 17 is designed to enable better understanding of insurer’s exposure, profitability and financial position and to facilitate comparison across similar insurance companies. Updates to financial standards are infrequent — the new standard replaces IFRS 4, which came into effect from 1 January 2005.

The New Zealand standard, NZ IFRS 17, went into mandatory effect for insurers from the start of the financial year, commencing on or after 1 January 2023. We issued the Interim Solvency Standard 2023 on 20 September 2022 and it is consistent with NZ IFRS 17. It went into mandatory effect for insurers from the date specified in each insurer’s modified licence conditions (intended to be the same date as the start of NZ IFRS 17).

Current QIR and AIR templates and definitions

On 16 April 2025, we finalised and published the new templates and definitions for Annual Insurer Report (AIR) and Quarterly Insurer Report (QIR). The templates and definitions will be updated from time to time. Each material change will have a new version number and we will specify the applicable version for each Report Date. It is the insurer’s responsibility to download and use the appropriate template version for each set of reporting to the Reserve Bank.  Immaterial changes (for example, changes to the list of insurer names) will keep the same version number but will have a new release number.

The current version is version 1.7 which was published on 16 April 2025.

The updated versions must be used for Report Dates on or after 1 March 2025.

The changes in version 1.7 are: 

• Update for the Interim Solvency Standard 2023 2nd amendment, which comes into effect 1 March 2025.
• [AIR only] New reporting on statutory funds to assist supervisors to monitor compliance with various obligations.
• New checks for missing data on most input rows to improve data quality.  The sign-off sheet provides a summary of “expected?” (based on publicly available information on insurer circumstances) with “populated?”.  Since there may be other circumstances (or changed circumstances) not taken into account in the “expected?”, insurers may submit returns with flagged potentially missing data. This is a difference to the existing validation check result of fail.  However, insurers are expected to fully populate the return and data flagged as potentially missing is liable to be followed up for an explanation and/or resubmission. 
• Default option for all drop-down lists is “not selected” to assist in identifying errors. 
• Correction of bug in solvency treatment of asset and reinsurance guarantees.
• Change description of capital adjustment for discretionary wind-up to elections under NZ IAS 1 for not going concern, to reduce confusion with the distressed wind-up capital charge.
• Correction of 2 bugs in version 1.6 validation checks.
• New validation check that Report Date is on or after earliest date applicable for the version of template.
• Some minor changes to support RBNZ processing. 

Second Amendment of the Interim Solvency Standard 2023

The Interim Solvency Standard 2023 was amended by the Reserve Bank on 6 December 2024 and comes into effect 1 March 2025.  For reporting from 1 March 2025, the new versions of the data return templates are required to be used.  All data returns submitted (including on current templates) should now include solvency projections determined on the basis of the amended standard.  However, we are conscious that it may be difficult to have amended processes in place for the 31 December 2024 reporting date.  We will accept projections in these reports that are produced on a best-efforts basis, provided that commentary is provided so that Reserve Bank staff understand how the figures provided have been determined.

Questions

If you identify errors in the templates and definitions or have any questions, please email [email protected] and copy your insurance supervisor.