Independent Auditor's Report
Key Audit Matters
Key audit matters are those matters that, in our professional judgment, were of most significance in our audit of the financial statements of the Company for the year ended 31 December 2022. These matters were addressed in the context of our audit of the financial statements as a whole, and in forming our opinion thereon, and we do not provide a separate opinion on these matters.
i) Valuation of technical reserves
The estimation of liabilities arising from insurance contracts such as unearned premiums reserve, claims under settlement reserve, incurred but not reported claims reserve and unallocated loss adjustment expenses reserve as disclosed in Note 13 to the financial statements, involves a significant degree of judgement. These liabilities are based on the pattern of risk distributions over coverage period, the best-estimated ultimate cost of all claims incurred but not settled at a given date, whether reported or not, together with the related claims handling costs and persistency (including consideration of policyholder behavior). Actuarial computations have been used to determine these reserves. Underlying these computations are a number of explicit or implicit assumptions relating to the expected settlement amount and settlement patterns of claims. Since the determination of such a reserve requires the expertise of an external valuation expert who incorporates significant assumptions, judgements and estimations, the valuation of these liabilities was significant to our audit.
We assessed management’s calculations of the technical reserves by performing the following procedures:
• Understood the governance process in place to determine the insurance contract liabilities;
• Tested the underlying Company data to source documentation on sample basis;
• Evaluated competence, capabilities and objectivity of management’s actuarial specialist;
• Using our actuarial specialist team members, we applied our industry knowledge and experience, and compared the methodology, models and assumptions used against recognised actuarial practices; and
• Using our actuarial specialist team members, we checked the mathematical accuracy of the methodology applied on selected classes of business, particularly focusing on the largest and most uncertain reserves.
ii) Revenue recognition
Gross premiums comprise the total premium receivable for the whole period of cover by contracts entered into during the accounting period, and are recognised on the date on which the policy commences. At the end of each year, a proportion of net retained premiums is provided for as an unearned premium reserve to cover portions of risk that have not expired at the reporting date. The reserve is required to be calculated in accordance with the requirements of the UAE Insurance Law relating to insurance companies.
We assessed management’s calculation of gross premiums amounting to AED 281,251,947 and net unearned premium reserve amounting to AED 53,752,818 (Note 13) by performing audit procedures, which included among others:
• We assessed whether the Company’s revenue recognition policies complied with IFRS and tested the implementation of those policies. Specifically, we considered whether the premium on policies are accounted for on the date of inception of policies, by testing a sample of revenue items to policy contracts.
• We evaluated and tested the operating effectiveness of the internal controls over the recording of revenue in the correct period.
• We compared the unearned premium reserve balance as per the financial statements to the reserve balance computed by the Company’s actuary.
• We recalculated the unearned premium reserve based on the earning period of policy contracts existing as of 31 December 2022.
• We tested written policies on a sample basis where revenue was recorded close to year end and subsequent to year end, and evaluated whether these were recorded in the appropriate accounting period.
