Integrated Reporting: Towards a Global Adoption?

Integrated Reporting applies principles and concepts that are focused on bringing greater cohesion and efficiency to the reporting process, and adopting ‘integrated thinking’ as a way of breaking down internal silos and reducing duplication.The Framework has been tested and assessed during these past three years and significant ‘breakthroughs’ have been achieved. Our present paper, therefore, aims to illustrate the insurance industry trends and marks the end of the “Breakthrough Phase”.

Our benchmark has been performed on a panel of 20 corporate reports published by insurers and reinsurers in 2016, with the objective to obtain a balanced representation of the market in terms of activities, typologies of the documents and geographical location. The panel of 20 reports is split into the same 3 categories as in 2015 (integrated eports, management reports that include CSR elements and strictly financial reports).

We have based our analysis on a qualitative benchmark. Reporting practices maturity has been analyzed through an assessment matrix inspired by the International <IR> Framework, complemented with Mazars’ insights on financial and pre-financial1 reporting practices approved by the Insurance Network participants during workshops performed in 2014/2015.

All reports have been first qualitatively characterized following 60 criteria of the assessment matrix. Considering the observed characteristics of these 60 criteria, we have then applied a maturity level from 1 to 5 to allow quantitative analysis. For the purpose of the analysis we have then consolidated the 60 criteria into 15 categories using the average maturity level of each related criteria.

Integrated Reporting

This benchmark study was created to assess how the 2015 panel of companies pursued the shift towards integrated reporting, what improvements were made and which could be made in the future. Considering the relatively small size of our panel, the study does not aim to report the actual percentage of each practice but rather to identify trends and key features in reporting by current insurers and reinsurers.

Interested to find out more about the publication? Download the full study below.

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Integrated Reporting - Towards a Global Adoption