Content
About the statistics
Definitions
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Name and topic
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Name: Life and non-life insurance companies, accounts
Topic: Banking and financial markets
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Next release
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Responsible division
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Division for Financial Markets Statistics
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Definitions of the main concepts and variables
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Balance sheet: The balance sheet shows assets, liabilities and equity at the end of accounting period.
Profitt and loss account: The profit and loss account shows income, costs and expenses over the course of the accounting period.
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Standard classifications
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We have four types of classification: instrument, sector, industry and type.
- Financial instruments and physical capital
- Liabilities, claims and other assets in the balance sheet of the financial institutions are divides into two main groups with a view to providing major uniform groups such as bank lending, funding and deposits.
- Debtor and creditor industry
- Borrowers and lenders are classified according to institutional sector classification, based on national accounts rules.
- Debtor and creditor industry
- Based on the rules in the industry standard, the individual financial instruments are grouped according to the debtor's or creditor's industry affiliation.
- Types of income and expenses
- Including interest income and expenses, are based on national accounts rules.
Administrative information
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Regional level
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Only at the national level.
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Frequency and timeliness
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Annual and quarterly.
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International reporting
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Eurostat
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Microdata
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Publication-ready data are stored in a FAME-database
Background
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Background and purpose
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The purpose is to provide statistics for the national accounts, financial sector balances and census of foreign assets and liabilities, and publish current credit market statistics. Accounting statistics for life and non-life insurance companies was first published in NOS Credit Market Statistics 1912. From 1998 the accounts statistics was based up on new electronic reports, which have more details than the former manual reports. Among others it gives the possibility to divide between capital assets and short-term assets, and it also contains quarterly profit and loss accounts.
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Users and applications
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The statistics are included in national accounts, financial sector balances, balance of payments and statistics on Norway's foreign assets and liabilities. Other major users are the Central Bank of Norway, the Financial Supervisory authority, Ministry of Finance and the media.
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Equal treatment of users
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Not relevant
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Coherence with other statistics
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The statistics are based on the guidelines in the national accounts standards System of National Accounts from (SNA) and the IMF Manual on Monetary and Financial Statistics.
Statistics from the financial institutions are used in the national accounts, financial sector accounts, the balance of payments and in the Norwegian statistics of foreign debt and receivables.
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Legal authority
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Statistics Act Section 3-2 (state lending institutions), Act on the Supervision on Credit Institutions, Insurance Companies and Securities Trading, etc., Sections 1 and 4 (insurance companies).
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EEA reference
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Council Directive 674/91
Council Regulation (EC) no. 2223/96
Council Regulation (EC) 410/98
Council Regulation (EC) no. 1392/2007
Council Regulation (EC) no. 2056/2002
Council Regulation (EC) no. 1606/2002
Council Regulation (EC) no. 297/2008
Commission Regulation 1225/1999
Commission Regulation 1227/1999
Commission Regulation 1228/1999
Production
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Population
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The population is all life and non-life insurance companies in Norway, including foreign branches in Norway. According to the Standard Industrial Classification this covers industries 65.110, 65.120 and 65.200.
The statistical unit forming the basis for the accounting reports is the enterprise.
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Data sources and sampling
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The statistics are based on accounting data from the enterprises.
The sample is defined on the basis of a number of financial corporations licensed by the Financial Supervisory authority (the statistics are in principle based on total censuses).
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Collection of data, editing and estimations
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The Financial Supervisory authority and Statistics Norway cooperate in the collection of accounting information.
The data is controlled by the Banking, Insurance and Securities Commission and Statistics Norway.
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Seasonal adjustment
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Not relevant
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Confidentiality
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Not relevant
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Comparability over time and space
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The accounting statistics for the life and non-life insurance companies is based on current accounting regulations for life and non-life insurance companies. Breaches may therefore occur in connection with changes in accounting legislation and in the regulations applicable to the life and non-life insurance companies. Structural changes like new companies, mergers and spin-offs, with portfolio movements as one consequence, may also lead to breaches in the time series.
International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) The new accounting standard IFRS is an example of a change that will cause breaches in the time series in the periods to come. In 2008 all reporting companies must, in one way or another, report according to the IFRS standard, and data may then be fully comparable again. However, the IFRS standard will lead to larger fluctuations in the data because of the more extensive use of fair value in the accounting. The comparison of the reported data with the companies' official accounts is also challenging because the IFRS standard does not require a specific presentation of the accounts, as the traditional Norwegian accounting standard does.
Accuracy and reliability
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Sources of error and uncertainty
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Errors and discrepancies can occur in the accounting data. These discrepancies can have a number of sources:
- Errors in the reporting institutions' accounts
- Errors in the transfer of data from the institution's primary accounts to recipients
- Different accounting and evaluation principles
- Different accounting dates for transactions
- Insufficient data from the reporting parties
- Processing errors
Due to large amounts of data and a dynamic control and revision system, published data will be regarded as preliminary until next years data for the same period is published. This means that data for the current year may be revised without this being marked in the preceeding publishing. Large and important revision however, will be commented upon in the publishing of Today's Statistics.
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Revision
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Not relevant