Bond Market Update

The valuation of long-term insurance policy benefits will shift to a current-market valuation basis for large public companies in 2023, with restated liability figures generally required as of the two prior year-ends.

Current market discount rates will be based on an “upper-medium grade” fixed income yield, which is broadly interpreted to mean A-grade corporate bonds.

In valuing future policy benefits, the new FASB rules further specify that insurers reflect the duration characteristics of the liabilities and use valuation rates that maximize reference to observable bond data.

Constructing an Appropriate A-Grade Bond Portfolio

Adhering to these new standards will generally require an assessment of relevant bond yields across the full range of maturities. The most direct way to reflect market rates will be to develop a complete yield curve from a portfolio of A-grade bonds, applying year-by-year rates developed from that curve to discount future policy benefits.
Constructing a curve from market data requires addressing a number of technical and methodology considerations, including:

  • range of credit ratings by different rating agencies
  • minimum issue size to ensure credible bond trading/pricing
  • inclusion/exclusion/adjustments for bonds with call features and other embedded options
  • inclusion/exclusion of private placement, quasi-government and less broadly-traded bonds
  • relative quality/appropriateness of pricing sources and timing for end-of-day price measures
  • potential curve-fitting approaches, with varying emphasis on tightness of data-fit vs. smoothness
  • extrapolation of long-end rates, beyond the range of credible bond data (a critical factor since payments for many insurance products extend well past 30 years).

Ensuring acceptance by auditors will require that the yield curve be comprehensively documented, consistently applied, and develop results closely reflective of current capital markets and market changes across time.

For more information, please contact Jerry Mingione.