The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) is proposing new changes to prudential reporting for general insurers.

The regulator has released a consultation package with proposed changes that will align prudential reporting with statutory reporting.

APRA says it will deliver important benefits by simplifying reporting by general insurers, giving it more effective information for assessing insurer performance and improving communication between the regulator and insurers on their performance.

The consultation package contains a discussion paper that outlines the changes proposed by APRA, together with draft prudential standards, reporting forms and instruction guides that include the planned changes.

APRA Executive Member John Trowbridge says the proposed changes will reduce the reporting burden that currently causes general insurers to prepare full accounts on two different bases.

“Instead, insurers’ statutory accounts will form the basis of reporting to APRA and, with certain supplementary information, will enable APRA to maintain substantially the same capital framework.

“The changes will allow improved performance analysis and a clearer view of profitability for APRA at a level of detail previously not available through the APRA returns.”

APRA says it is seeking submissions from industry and interested stakeholders on the proposed changes by February 12. It is also requesting general insurers to complete a quantitative impact study as part of the consultation to test the practicality of the proposals and to assess the possible need for any capital recalibrations.

It expects that the final prudential standards and reporting standards will be released with an effective date of July 1 next year.