KEY AUDIT ISSUES IN INSURANCE COMPANIES: AN APPLICATION IN BIST

Abstract

Insurance companies are required to have their financial statements audited by independent auditors in order to inform the public correctly. Independent auditors convey the opinion they have reached as a result of the audit activity to the information users with a report we call the audit report. However, the current structure of the audit report was insufficient to meet the information needs of financial statement users. In order to meet this demand of information users, the need for the audit report to contain more information has emerged. Key audit matters are an arrangement to meet this demand. For listed companies, it has become mandatory to disclose key audit matters in the audit report since 2017. In this study, the key audit issues in the independent audit reports of the insurance companies included in the Borsa Istanbul 100 index for a total of 5 years for the years.  As a result of the research, it was determined that insurance companies included a total of 9 different key audit issues in their audit reports between 2017-2021. In addition, it has been determined that "estimation of incurred but unreported compensation costs" is one of the key audit issues that auditors use most in their audit reports. This key audit matter has been addressed by actuaries testing the provision for compensation calculated  by the enterprise.