Insurance

Serving Insurance Companies

The challenges insurance companies experience go beyond just compliance. We can help you gain more control over taxes with less stress and maximum savings. Our CPAs and business advisors are dedicated to the insurance industry and understand how important it is to stay in compliance and make informed business decisions.

We provide financial and operational audits, tax and consulting to our insurance clients. Understanding your organization's challenges and opportunities is important to us, and we'll work with you throughout the year, so you always have an advocate by your side.

Some of the professional services we provide for insurance companies include audit and assurance, business valuation, cybersecurity, fraud and forensics, tax advisory and tech consulting.

Insurance Company Audit

When engaging an accounting firm to provide audit, tax and business advisory services, you should look for professionals who have experience with both statutory and GAAP accounting. These professionals should also know the ins and outs of reinsurance, actuaries and loss reserving, and investments, in addition to confidently being able to guide you through regulatory requirements.

We've worked with insurance companies for more than 60 years, and our team is knowledgeable and experienced with the unique aspects of auditing an insurance company. We focus on providing value beyond traditional assurance services, too. We view these services as an opportunity to help you improve your organization’s financial performance and profitability while strengthening your business and administrative practices.

Captive & Alternative Risk Management

Our knowledgeable team can provide affordable solutions to control risk exposure and minimize costs. Captives, risk retention groups and other alternative risk management solutions are opportunities for companies in various industries to be engaged in effectively controlling their risk exposure and minimizing costs related to their insurance coverage.

With that in mind, your organization needs experienced, insurance-savvy accountants and advisors who not only know your business but the industry, too. Professionals can help you with your tax and audit compliance needs, as well as help you navigate regulations in establishing new captive insurance companies and working with your chosen management company or connecting you to reputable captive managers.

Our professionals are licensed as approved captive auditors with several U.S. insurance departments and Puerto Rico. We offer virtual audit and tax experience for certain micro-captives and tailor our approach to your needs on larger pure, association, protected cell or risk retention groups. When you work with us, you can expect exceptional service in a timely, efficient manner that provides you a competitive solution.

Employee Benefit Plan Audits

Retirement and employee benefit plans are often a vital component to providing a well-rounded benefits package for your employees. However, benefit plans come with many types of compliance and regulatory issues. Failing to address these issues in a timely manner can mean big headaches down the road.

It’s important to have a team on your side that is specifically trained in employee benefit and retirement plans. Audit and advisory services can be beneficial to all filers and their plan types.

You can expect quality service when you work with us and we’ve established a reputation of providing superior work. We belong to the AICPA EBP Audit Quality Center and adhere to the membership requirements of training and inspection. Further, as auditor of over 800 plans (part of the top 15 nationally), our experienced staff have seen typical plan compliance missteps and we can guide you through the correction process.

Audits are required for plans with 100 or more participants. View a table of the 2018 employee benefit plan contributions.

Internal Audit

Reduce risk and improve operational performance in your insurance company with an internal audit. By strategically evaluating and managing risk, it can decrease your stress and improve:

• Effective business and operational controls
• Compliance monitoring
• Strategic planning
• New business opportunities

Internal audit is a vital component of governance and strategic risk management in the insurance industry. It provides an additional element to risk assessment across your organization, facilitates improved processes and controls, address regulatory or other compliance issues, and ensure processes are efficient through the COSO framework.

Our internal audit professionals bring strong process, procedure, internal control and risk management experience to your organization. We bridge these skills with specialized insight related to risk and compliance and specific industry knowledge, to help your organization reduce risk and improve operational efficiency.

Service Organization Control (SOC)

Ensure that your controls are appropriately designed and effective with a Service Organization Control (SOC) report. You are trusted to handle important data, and you want to assure your clients that data is protected, and the information you provide them is accurate and complete. A SOC report is an independent examination of your internal controls that helps assess and address risks. These reports can only be conducted by independent certified public accounting firms. By following guidelines established by the AICPA, SOC reports can provide confidence in your internal controls and help develop best practices.

Eide Bailly’s SOC team includes experienced Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) and Certified Information Systems Auditors (CISAs) who specialize in identifying and accessing internal controls. We can perform examinations of both SOC 1 and SOC 2 reports. As a top 20 CPA firm in the nation, we have access to resources from a variety of industries and specialties, ensuring you have the support you need to proactively address challenges and opportunities.

Insurance Regulatory Services

It’s important that insurance companies remain financially sound and uphold their promises to policyholders. It requires focused knowledge about current laws and regulations. Our CFEs who work with insurance regulators can help you effectively regulate your domestic insurance companies by providing tailored financial and market conduct examinations and communicating those results effectively.

Our dedicated regulatory insurance team is made of up former regulators from across the U.S. whose experience gives them a great understanding of the challenges you face. They are available to help you meet accreditation standards and state specific procedures and stay in close contact with your team, making the experience as stress-free as possible.

Financial Examination

Protecting your policyholders through financial examination resources is critical. State insurance departments and divisions play an important role in the oversight of insurance companies and protection of policyholders. With limited resources, you need to consult with companies and professionals who have the experience, knowledge and appropriate SOFE qualifications to conduct financial examinations while helping you fill staffing gaps. These examinations must be performed in compliance with statutorily obligated or NAIC accreditation timeframes.

Exhibit C Examination

Efficient, effective examinations mean peace of mind for insurance regulators. Cybersecurity has been a hot topic among regulators for the last few years. Multiple hacks have put an increased focus on insurance companies safeguarding important policyholder information. It is essential to consider and include the goals of Exhibit C in your overall financial examinations. By incorporating this important aspect, your examinations will be conducted in a more efficient and effective manner.

Our team consists of former regulators and is supplemented by our insurance auditing practice. We have the knowledge, expertise and accreditations to help you achieve all of your oversight goals, including Exhibit C, in accordance with state laws and regulations and NAIC Accreditation guidelines.

Market Conduct Examination

Experience and unbiased examinations provide policyholder trust and confidence. To continually protect policyholders, insurance companies always need to follow laws and regulations, in addition to best practices. It's the responsibility of the market conduct section of state insurance departments to protect policyholders from misleading advertising, bad claims practices and confusing policy forms, among other issues.

Working with experienced professionals outside of your department can help you create more trust with your policyholders. They'll feel more confident knowing that their complaints have been investigated by an unbiased party and that their insurance companies are in compliance with the state's laws and regulations.

Former regulators make up Eide Bailly's insurance team, so you can be confident knowing we have the knowledge, experience and credentials to support you with your market conduct examination needs.

Actuarial Examinations

Protect your policyholders with an actuarial examination. Actuarial assumptions are crucial in helping companies determine what premiums they must charge to remain profitable and ensuring reserves are adequately reported. It is a common practice for insurance departments that need actuarial analysis for a Target Examination, Limited-Scope Examination, and/or routine Risk-Focused Examination to work with both internal and external actuaries.

An external review of the assumptions, methodology and conclusions reached by a company’s actuary can be helpful in providing insights into the quality and efficiencies of the examination review, and effectively communicated to state regulators for their on-going risk-focused surveillance charges.

Eide Bailly actuaries have the necessary qualifications as well as the expertise to perform full or limited scope examinations that meet or exceed accreditation requirements. Our actuaries take the time to understand the unique characteristics of a company’s reserving practices. They work alongside our dedicated regulatory team and communicate results in the format that is required by the NAIC and also understandable to financial examiners and other interested state regulators.

We Can Help

Regardless of your unique insurance industry challenges, our team of experienced advisors are dedicated to guiding you through them. Let’s get started.