comment letter GASB ED 5 121103

Deutsches Rechnungslegungs Standards ® Der Standardisierungsrat German Accounting Standards Committee e. V. DRSC • Charlottenstr. 59 • 10117 Berlin Telefon +49 30 206412-12 Telefax +49 30 206412-15 Sir David Tweedie E-Mail info@drsc.de Chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board Berlin, 12 November 2003 30 Cannon Street London EC4M 6XH United Kingdom Dear Sir David ED 5 Insurance Contracts Phase I We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the draft International Financial Re-porting Standard Insurance Contracts Phase I. We are in strong agreement with the objective of developing high quality International Accounting Standards that will im-prove financial reporting worldwide. Financial statements based on different account-ing standards are not useful for users acting worldwide. It has become more difficult to explain the divergent results reported under different accounting standards. There-fore we support the convergence project as a top priority item on the agendas of both the IASB and national standard setters. We also appreciate that the Board provides a pragmatic solution by dividing the insurance project into two phases. We assure our fully committed cooperation in developing a long term solution that will enable the insurance industry to provide financial information that both adequately reflects the enterprise’s financial position and is reliable and relevant to the investor. ...