Impairment of goodwill in the insurance industry: theory and practice in IAS - IFRS logic

Goodwill is one of the most important intangible assets in the financial statements of companies. Some rules that describe the recognition of this asset can be considered commonly accepted. Others depend on local accounting standards and on decisions made by management. For instance most accounting principles affirm that it is not possible to write internal goodwill in the balance sheet and that it is not necessary to amortize goodwill recognized after a business combination and that it is sufficient to apply an impairment test to this intangible. However the manner in which this impairment test is performed often reflects management decisions and local practices and this has an important effect on company returns. This paper considers these management decisions and their description in financial statements. The theoretical analysis has been supported using a sample of Italian listed insurance companies.

Il paper esamina alcune criticità insite nella valutazione dell'impairment dell'avviamento nell'ipotesi di imprese assicurative. Dopo aver brevemente esplicitato le specificità di tali imprese rispetto alle altre in relazione al tema trattato, il paper si sofferma ad analizzare le modalità valutative del value in use dell'avviamento evidenziandone alcune problematiche. Il paper è arricchito con le risultanze emerse dall'analisi di un campione di imprese assicurative quotate in riferimento al tema trattato.