GN18: Advisory note on company US opinions, including the paper on reinsurance bad debts

Issued December 1999. Amended December 2002 and October 2005

See the Board for Actuarial Standards website for the current version of GN18.

This note has been prepared by the General Insurance Board to supplement the guidance note on company US opinions (GN18).

Since GN18 was first issued there have been a considerable number of changes in the scope and wording of US opinions. The current requirements including specimen statements of actuarial opinion are set out in GN18.

A paper has been prepared to assist actuaries in dealing with some technical aspects related to these developments. Actuaries providing company US statements of actuarial opinion should have regard to the contents of this paper, where relevant.

The paper is:

Reinsurance bad debt provisions for general insurance companies.
January 2000. Amended December 2002 and October 2005  Authors: Richard Bulmer et al [pdf, 740 kb]

This paper was amended in October 2005 and includes a supplementary note at pages 46 - 50. The supplementary note contains updates to three tables in the original note. The updated tables in the Appendices to this supplementary guidance note are:

• Default rates and times to default produced by Standard and Poor's (see Appendix F of the Advisory Note) New appendix 1 (page 48)
• Default probabilities - Moody's (see Appendix G of the Advisory Note) New Appendix 2 (page 49)
• Examples of paid recovery percentages (see Appendix I of the Advisory Note) New appendix 3 (page 50)

These tables are included in this Supplementary Advisory Note with the permission of Standard & Poor's, Moody's and PricewaterhouseCoopers respectively.

Copies of papers are available from the General Insurance Board Secretary, Peter Stirling: peter.stirling@actuaries.org.uk; tel: 020 7632 2177. The General Insurance Board may amend paper from time to time but will ensure that any changes are publicised to the profession.

The General Insurance Board has withdrawn the note regarding Millennium and other date related risks as being no longer relevant.