As a publicly listed company, UNIQA is obligated ...
As a publicly listed company, UNIQA is obligated to prepare its consolidated
financial statements according to internationally accepted accounting
principles. In accordance with Section 245a of the Austrian Business Code,
the company has prepared the consolidated financial statements exclusively
in agreement with the International Financial Reporting Standards
(IFRS) as applied within the European Union. This means that these consolidated
financial statements and the group management report do not
follow the accounting principles according to the Insurance Supervisory
Act but rather the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and
the International Accounting Standards (IAS) in the versions applicable to
this reporting period. IFRS 8 “Operating Segments” as issued in November
2006 was applied for the first time in the 1st quarter of 2008. This means
that the main business fields described in the primary segment reporting
– property and casualty insurance, health insurance and life insurance –
were used for reporting according to IFRS 8. No early application of other
modified standards was performed.
Since 2005, UNIQA Versicherungen AG has applied IFRS 4 published in
2004 for insurance policies. This standard demands that the methods of
accounting and valuation be largely unaltered with regard to the technical
items.
The present Group financial statements were therefore prepared, as is previous
years, in compliance with IFRS 4 and in accordance with the regulations
of the US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US-GAAP). For
balancing the accounts and evaluation of the insurance-specific entries of
life insurance with profit participation, FAS 120 was observed; FAS 60 was
applied for specific items in the health, property and casualty insurance and
FAS 113 in the area of reinsurance. Unit-linked life insurance, for which the
policyholder bears the investment risk, is stated according to FAS 97.
The financial instruments were balanced in accordance with IFRS 39 including
the information required by IAS 7, as most recently amended in
October 2008. In addition to the presentation of securities under “Held to
maturity”, “Available for sale”, “At fair value through profit or loss” and
“Derivative financial instruments (held for trading)”, additional disclosures
for securities available for sale are reported in the following investment
categories, which were utilised for the internal risk reports:
- Shares in affiliated companies
- Shares
- Equity funds
- Debenture bonds not capital guaranteed
- Other variable-yield securities
- Participating interests and other investments
- Fixed interest securities
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