FASB Draft Rule Excludes Insurers

The Financial Accounting Standards Boards says its new draft guidance for mergers involving not-for-profit organizations does not apply to mutual insurers.

FASB, Norwalk, Conn., is proposing that not-for-profit organizations eliminate the "pooling of interests" approach to organization combinations and instead treat all mergers and acquisitions as acquisitions.

For the purposes of the draft guidance, organizations that fall outside the definition of "not-for-profit organization" include "all investor-owned entities and entities that provide dividends, lower costs, or other economic benefits directly and proportionately to their owners, members, or participants, such as mutual insurance companies, credit unions, farm and rural electric cooperatives, and employee benefit plans," FASB says in the draft guidance.