1. Overview
1.1. Purpose
The XBRL-US Domain Working Group is leading the development of this XBRL US GAAP Insurance (US-GAAP-INS) Taxonomy for the purpose of expressing insurance-type financial statements according to US GAAP/FASB and other related/relevant accounting standards.
This US-GAAP-INS Taxonomy is designed to facilitate the creation of XBRL instance documents that reflect business and financial reporting for Insurance companies according to the Financial Accounting Standards Board and other generally accepted accounting principles. The purpose of the US-GAAP-INS Taxonomy is to provide a framework for the consistent creation of XBRL documents for financial reporting purposes by private and public sector entities. The purpose of this and other taxonomies produced using XBRL is to supply a framework that will facilitate data exchange among software applications used by companies and individuals as well as other financial information stakeholders, such as lenders, investors, auditors, attorneys, and regulators.
The authority for this US-GAAP-INS Taxonomy is based upon US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The development of the taxonomy is based upon input from accounting firms, technology companies and other domain experts in the field of financial reporting. In addition, the specific content of the taxonomy is based upon standards identified by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and other related standards organizations.
The particular disclosures in this US-GAAP-INS Taxonomy model are:
1. Required by particular Insurance Companies
2. Typically represented in AICPA model financial statements, checklists and guidance materials as provided from each of the major international accounting firms.
3. Found in common reporting practice, or
4. Flow logically from items 1-3, for example, sub-totals and totals.
1.2. Taxonomy Status
The US-GAAP-INS Taxonomy is an Approved Public Working Draft. Its
content and structure have been reviewed by both accounting and technical teams
that comprise XBRL-US and XBRL International. It is intended that the
US-GAAP-INS Taxonomy will comply with the Financial Reporting Taxonomy
Architecture 1.0 (FRTA) and XBRL Specification Version 2.1.
The XBRL-US Domain Working Group intends to have this taxonomy reach the
status of a approved taxonomy under the XBRL Taxonomy Approval Process (TAP)
2004. XBRL Taxonomies can exist in two states insofar as XBRL International TAP
is concerned:
- Acknowledged – A royalty-free taxonomy that
the creators have asked XBRL International to list at XBRL.org; XBRL
International confirms only that the taxonomy is compliant with the XBRL
specification and is available free of royalties. This classification
indicates to the business user the degree of endorsement by XBRL
International.
- Approved – A taxonomy which is technically
compliant with XBRL, is available on royalty free terms, follows best
practices prescribed by XBRL International (e.g. FRTA) and either has been
developed by XBRL International itself or that has followed a public review
process similar to XBRL International's own.
1.3.
Scope of Taxonomy
This US-GAAP-INS Taxonomy is released in conjunction with the Accountants Report (USFR-AR), Management’s Discussion & Analysis (USFR-MDA), Primary Terms (USFR-PT), Financial Services Terms (USFR-FST), Management Report (USFR-MR), and SEC Officers Certification (USFR-SEC-CERT). Together, these taxonomies deliver the ability to report core financial statements, Notes to the Financial Statements, Accountants Report and other related content that certain private and public sector entities report, typically in annual, semi-annual or quarterly financial disclosures. These taxonomies are all part of the US Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework, an XBRL taxonomy framework that enables reusability of components and provides the foundation for creating new industry taxonomies (such as Insurance, Banks and Savings Institutions, etc.) going forward.
Taken together, these taxonomies will meet
the reporting needs of companies that meet three criteria, viz (i) they report
under FASB standards, (ii) are in the broad category of “insurance” industries
and (iii) have relatively common reporting elements in their financial
statements. In practice, these three criteria are less likely to hold for all
companies. Additional taxonomies are
likely to be required. These taxonomies
are likely to identify the particular needs of:
- National
jurisdictions for those companies that
require a non-US GAAP standard as the core financial standards setting
foundation and may include supplementary reporting requirements or prevent
use of available options by local accounting standards setters as well as
stock exchanges etc.
- National
industry or
common practice, for example, tax or credit reporting.
- An individual company
These
extension taxonomies will either extend the US-GAAP-INS Taxonomy to meet
the particular reporting requirements of that industry, country or company and/or restrict by limiting the use of
particular US-GAAP-INS Taxonomy elements.
The
inter-relationships of the various taxonomies are show in Figure 1:
Figure 1: Interrelationship of Taxonomies and Instance Document
2.
Overview of Taxonomy
2.1. Taxonomy Development
The US-GAAP-INS Taxonomy has evolved over the last three years, through an iterative process of review and comparison against industry practice. In order to create the taxonomy the following techniques have been employed:
1 Comparison to disclosure checklists of the major accounting firms;
2 Comparison of companies listed in the Russell 3000;
3 Creation of instance documents using the US-GAAP-INS taxonomy;
4 Reconciliation to authoritative literature;
5 Review by various industry participants including the individuals listed in the "editors of the taxonomy"; and
6
Periods of Internal and Public review.
2.2.
Taxonomy Structure
The US-GAAP-INS Taxonomy contains over 1,600 unique, individually identified pieces of information related to financial reporting. Most of these 1,600 elements are contained in the up-stream taxonomies and are “imported” or “included” in the US-GAAP-INS taxonomy. The XML Schema files at the heart of the US-GAAP-INS taxonomy provide a straightforward listing of the elements in the taxonomy. The US-GAAP-INS linkbases provide the other information necessary to interpret (e.g. Label and Reference linkbases) taxonomy elements or place a given taxonomy element in context of other taxonomy elements (e.g. Calculation and Presentation linkbases).
The application of a metaphor assists in understanding taxonomies. The US-GAAP-INS Taxonomy is organized using a financial statement metaphor. This organization is used because it is understood by most accountants who use it to organize their audit working papers; to put the notes to the financial statements in order and in a variety of other uses. This metaphor is also familiar to the users of financial statements.
However, this metaphor and organization somewhat limits an understanding of the power behind an XBRL taxonomy. A taxonomy has multiple “dimensions”. Relationships can be expressed in terms of definitions, calculations, links to labels in one or more languages, links to one or more references, etc. The metaphor used expresses only one such relationship.
The
US-GAAP-INS Taxonomy is divided logically into sections that correspond to
typical US GAAP financial statement components. While there is no true concept
of “sections” in the Taxonomy, their purpose is to group similar concepts
together and facilitate navigation within the Taxonomy.
2.3.
Label Languages
Currently, labels for taxonomy elements are provided in English. In the future, taxonomy labels could be expressed in additional languages as required.
2.4.
References
This Taxonomy provides references to FASB and other relevant standards. Figure 3 shows an example of the reference elements are used in this taxonomy, using “FASB 142, sub paragraph 23” to illustrate how a reference is matched to these elements:
Figure 3: Reference Naming Structure
|
Name: |
FASB |
|
Number: |
142 |
|
Paragraph: |
|
|
Subparagraph: |
23 |
|
Clause: |
|
Authoritative reference
information used throughout the taxonomy relies on a series of acronyms. The following list provides an overview of
the acronyms used commonly throughout the authoritative references:
- Accounting Research Bulletin (ARB)
- AICPA Opinion and Interpretation
- Industry Audit and Accounting Guide (AAG)
- Statement of Position (SOP)
- Practice Bulletin (PB)
- AICPA Accounting Interpretation (AIN)
- AICPA Accounting Principles Board Statement
- AICPA Issues Papers
- AICPA Technical Practice Aids (TPA)
FASB
- Accounting Principles Board Opinion (APB)
- Statement of Financial Accounting Standard (FAS)
- FASB Interpretation (FIN)
- FASB Technical Bulletin (FTB)
- Emerging Issues Taskforce (EITF)
- Implementation Guide (Q&A)
- FASB Staff Position (FSP)
- Current Text (CT)
- Accounting Principles Board Statements (APS)
- FASB Financial Accounting Concepts (CON)
SEC
- Regulation S-X (SX)
- Article 9 (ART 9)
- Article 4 (ART 4)
- Regulation S-K (SK)
- Regulation S-B (SB)
- Regulation S-T (ST)
- Staff Accounting Bulletins (SAB)
- Regulation T (Reg T)
- Staff Position (SP)
- Financial Reporting Release (FRR)
- Staff Legal Bulletin (SLB)
- SEC Industry Guide
OTS
- Federal Regulation (FR)
3. Reviewing This Taxonomy
There are a number of approaches to reviewing the taxonomy both from an accounting and technical XBRL perspective. For more information on reviewing taxonomies, reviewers should read the Reviewer’s Guide to Financial Reporting Taxonomies 1.0 as published by XBRL-US.
4. Sample Instance Documents
Sample instance documents have been provided for each industry taxonomy, which may be useful in helping you understand how the taxonomy works and is intended to be used. If you are confused by something in the taxonomy, look for that information in the sample instance documents to see if the context helps explain the taxonomy content.
5. Updates and Changes
5.1.
Updates to this Taxonomy
This taxonomy will be updated with revisions for errors and new features within the following guidelines:
· Since financial statements created using a taxonomy must be available indefinitely, the taxonomy must be available indefinitely. All updates will take the form of new versions of the taxonomy with a different date. For example, the taxonomy http://www.xbrl.org/us/fr/gaap/ins/2005-02-28/us-gaap-ins-2005-02-28.xsd will never change. New versions will be issued under a different name, such as http://www.xbrl.org/us/fr/gaap/ins/2004-12-31/US-GAAP-INS-2004-12-31.xsd. This will ensure that any taxonomy created will be available indefinitely.
- It is anticipated that this taxonomy will be updated as required to incorporate changes in generally accepted accounting principles and business reporting norms.
5.2.
Comments and Feedback
Comments and feedback on either accounting
concepts within the taxonomy or technical aspects of the US Financial Reporting
Taxonomy Framework are welcome, particularly ideas to improve this taxonomy. If
you have a comment or feedback or wish to report an error, email comments to Brad Homer (bhomer@aicpa.org).
Detailed responses will not be provided for
every comment submitted, however a summary of which feedback has been
incorporated will be provided.