| The insurance market has always been known as a typical asymmetric information market. Especially the complexity of the insurance accounting is exacerbated by the asymmetric information of the insurance market, so that people call the insurance accounting as the "black box". With the growth of global economic integration and capital markets, enhancing the transparency of information, including the insurance market, has been welcomed. As an effective way to enhance the transparency of the insurance market, information disclosure has been a high degree of attention in the international and domestic. In2004, the IASB (International Accounting Standards Board, IASB) released the "IFRS4:the insurance contract. This is the first clear disclosure of the insurance company. In line with the practice of development, IASB established a unified global insurance contract and the recognition and measurement criteria. Through extensive solicitation of opinions, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) released Exposure Draft, ED,2010/8, Insurance Contract. This Draft has done more details on the requirements for disclosure of insurance company information, including the overall goal, the details, the confirmed amount of disclosure and the associated risks. At the same time, Chinese Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) is also actively involved in the formulation of the new insurance contract criteria. Combined with the actual situation of Chinese insurance industry, CIRC has made a lot of constructive comments on the disclosure of information. On May26,2010, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission has developed the Life Insurance Company Information Disclosure,(short for "Rules"). It complies with the requirements of the IASB, and reflects that we should keep pace with the time on the enactment of the Insurance Accounting Standards. The Rules say domestic commercial life insurance companies shall release disclosure reports of last-year information in the company’s Internet sites and appoint newspapers every year on April30. As well, the disclosure contents include financial and accounting information, the status of risk management information, business information and reimbursement capacity information about insurance products, etc.Both the IASB rules and Chinese measurement has shown the importance of disclosure of the insurance company. These provisions also apply to an important branch of the insurance business-life insurance companies. Since the recovery of the life insurance business in1982, and by the end of2010, the domestic life insurance premiums total add up to1.063232trillion Yuan, accounting for73%of the original premium income of the entire insurance market, insurance penetration of2.7%, the insurance density increased to792Yuan per capita. The development of the life insurance business shows a good momentum of steady development. Due to the complexity and specificity of its own business, its information disclosure also has the particularity of its off-balance sheet disclosure of information. Not only the number of off-balance sheet disclosure of information is much higher than the information in the table, but also a more to more information needs of the attention.The IASB rules and methods of implementation illustrate the importance of the disclosure of life insurance companies. It is worthy of special expectations and concerns on the amount of future cash flowing of the life insurance companies’ contracts, the quality of the disclosure about the time, the uncertainty of the balance-sheet information. What’s more, if there are problems, what are the problems? Why these problems exist? How to solve and improve them? This paper attempts to answer and solve these problems B carding the literature, analysis theoretical, the testing practice, proposed measures and other ways.Specifically, the main research contents are as follows:Chapter I: Introduction. This part mainly describes the purpose, the meaning, the contents, the methods, the innovation and inadequate of the research.Chapter II:A Literature Review. This part settles and reviews the information disclosure of life insurance company sheet, tries to analyze the related articles about the information disclosure of off-balance sheet and the off-balance sheet of the life insurance companies, and summarizes the domestic and foreign relevant results, and points out that blank about the balance-sheet disclosure and in-depth study necessity in the current life insurance company. Chapter III:the theoretical analysis on the off-balance sheet disclosure of information of Life Insurance Company. In this chapter, the author tries to do the economic analysis of off-balance sheet information disclosure in life insurance companies. In order to find the profound reasons to the poor quality, the substandard problem, and the untimely problem of off-balance sheet information disclosure, this paper states from different angles, including, the supply and demand theory, agency theory and game theory. It points out that the objective function of supply and demand side is inconsistent, and this leads to the information disclosure existence in the contradiction between supply and demand. It also points out the information superiority for seeking their own max interest’s takes action to their advantage and harms the interests of information disadvantage part, based on asymmetric information. Based on the rational economic assumptions and the principle of non-cooperative information, under the given conditions, between the supply side and the users of the information, this paper analyze how they interact to achieve a balanced and strategic options to maximize their own benefit.Chapter IV:the current situation, problems and causes of off-balance sheet information disclosure in China’s life insurance companies. Firstly it describes the current situation of life insurance companies’off-balance sheet information disclosure from the macro and micro angle, and points out that the current life insurance companies’information disclosure is not standardized, high-quality and timely. The current disclosure also has the problem of single channel and more financial information. At last this chapter analyses the reason for these problems from the macro and micro practice.Chapter V: the evaluation and improvement of information disclosure based on the questionnaire survey. In order to prove the analytical result, deeply excavate specific contradictions in current information disclosure of off-balance sheet from the practice, and solve these contradictions, the paper uses the form of questionnaire survey, respectively employing the supply side of the information disclosure, the management of life insurance companies, and the demand side, all information users as the respondents to process investigation. It points out that the information disclosure of life insurance companies has the gap between supply and demand. Understanding the information user should have the qualitative characteristics, disclosure ways, influencing factors and so on, we can lay the foundation for building the framework of off-balance sheet information disclosure in life insurance companies.Chapter VI:the framework of off-balance sheet information disclosure in life insurance companies. On the condition that off-balance sheet information disclosure has flaw, and on the basis of theoretical analysis and practical testing on the current life insurance companies off-balance sheet disclosure contradiction, the paper points out that its necessity and feasibility to build off-balance sheet information disclosure framework. Then according to the dialectical relationship between the balance-sheet information and off-balance sheet information, from the core of the financial accounting conceptual framework, the paper puts forward the framework of off-balance sheet information disclosure in life insurance companies which has a target of decision-useful concept, a principle of insisting on accounting standards and disclosure standards, a core quality features system of decision usefulness, a pattern of words and chart, and a method of other financial report and other reports.Chapter VII:life insurance companies balance-sheet disclosure objectives, principles and methods. About the goal of accounting, there are two types. One is to realize the responsibility, and the other is to achieve decision usefulness, taking the entrusted with the responsibility of performance into account. Based on the analysis of the connotation, difference, and connection of the two theoretical schools, this paper puts forward that the off-balance sheet information disclosure in life insurance companies is mainly in order to provide the useful information for information user to make decision. Therefore, useful decision is the target of the off-balance sheet information disclosure.Chapter VIII:the quality of information disclosure characteristics System of Life Insurance Company table. The target provides direction and guide for the information disclosure in life insurance companies. The principle is the line and standard to restrict the process of the off-balance sheet information disclosure. Based on the life insurance company’s future cost, uncertainty liabilities and other characteristics, the off-balance sheet information disclosure in life insurance companies needs to meet the requirements of the generally accepted accounting standards, also needs to meet the requirements of the statutory accounting standards. In addition, the business characteristics of life insurance company’s products is invisible and interest first cost later, which decide that the off-balance sheet information disclosure requirements in life insurance company are much higher than general enterprises. Thus the life insurance company off-balance sheet information disclosure needs to follow the generally accepted accounting principles and legal accounting standards of disclosure principle. Besides, it still needs to follow the public, the real time principle of information disclosure.Chapter IX:the contents of the off-balance sheet information disclosure of the life insurance companies. This part of this paper tries to analyze the ways and methods of the off-balance sheet information disclosure in life insurance companies. In consideration of the single channel and the status of the current off-balance sheet information disclosure, this paper puts forwards the ways of using words and charts, including notes, supplementary information and other financial reports to enrich the off-balance sheet information disclosure and improve its quality, so as to provide better service for information user.During structuring the off-balance sheet information disclosure in life insurance companies, this paper tries to bring forth new ideas as follows: First, the paper examines the gap between supply and demand of the off-balance sheet information disclosure of the life insurance company. The existing literature, mainly using the theoretical analysis, shows that the information gap between supply and demand exits. This paper uses the questionnaire survey form, and takes the management, regulators, investors and policy holders of life insurance companies as the surveyed target. It surveys the attention of users of information on six categories of off-balance sheet information and the specific projects for each category of information content survey. By t test, it verifies that there are significant differences on the information supply and demand sides of the life insurance company. By analysis of variance, this paper further validates there are also significant differences in the information within the demand side, regulators, investors and policy holders of life insurance information in the company table.Second, it builds a framework of information disclosure in the life insurance company sheet. There are internally consistent logic of relations in the current financial accounting conceptual framework, however, it mainly constrains and norms the recognized information in the statement, and among the principle of disclosure in the table, borders, and quality characteristics, it is lack of internal consistency of the logical framework. It is the special nature of life insurance products, the risk of uncertainty, the cost of a future, the liability of the expected characteristics, that make the off-balanced sheet disclosure of life insurance companies is very special and important for the used information. The relationship between the view of the recognized in the statement and the balance-sheet disclosure, on one hand, differs from each other, on the other hand, has the special interdependent impact. Therefore, on the basis of the rational core of the financial accounting conceptual framework for reference, and by the characteristics of life insurance companies, this paper puts forward to facing up to the difference of the balance-sheet information in the table, and building the target to meet the decision-making useful and prudential supervision for the disclosure, adhering to accounting standards and disclosure standards for the disclosure principles, taking the soundness, relevance, to reflect the true, comparability and understandability as the main quality of the information, using the text-chart disclosure as the ways of disclosure, taking the note, the framework of other financial, and other reports for life insurance companies balance-sheet information as the framework. It makes a useful attempt to regulate the balance-sheet disclosure of our life insurance company.Third, the evidence on the influencing factors of the off-balance sheet information disclosure in life insurance companies has been tested. For the sample of51life insurance companies’annual reports in2010, the paper verifies the factors of influencing the off-balance sheet information disclosure in life insurance companies firstly.Lastly, the paper puts forward the idea of layered information disclosure, in order to track the leading edge of the international accounting standards, and to combine the reality of the life insurance company. The exposure draft of The International Financial Reporting Standards, which released in June2010, has great forward-looking guidance significance to the development of the insurance accounting theory. The paper also combs the latest development of information disclosure from the International Financial Reporting Standards, combs with the reality of the information disclosure in life insurance companies, and raises the three levels for the off-balance sheet information disclosure in life insurance companies in a creative way: mandatory disclosure, restrictive disclosure and encouraging disclosure. |
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