Duncan Cleat
Sales Director
Duncan is an Investment Solutions Specialist at Clearwater Analytics. In his role Duncan works across the investment industry to build client partnerships and ensure Clearwater’s technology solves pervasive industry challenges. In his previous role Duncan headed Clearwater’s Edinburgh-based Investment Management team of client servicing professionals, working with firms to transform their operations, data management, accounting, and client reporting. Duncan has experience in developing world-class client servicing partnerships utilising SaaS technology. Duncan is a Chartered Accountant has a BSc with Honours in Mathematics from The University of Edinburgh.
Clearwater speaks to investment accounting teams every day—from accountants and treasurers to ALM managers—about their upcoming challenges, and we know insurers need to stay prepared for both internal and regulatory changes. It is more important than ever for insurers to avoid spending time collecting, validating, and correcting data, which is why we spoke to over 20 insurers in Belgium and the Netherlands to hear about their increasing challenges and how to solve them. According to those discussions, here are the three most important reporting needs for Belgian and Dutch insurers.
1. A Multi-Basis Accounting Solution
A large number of insurance companies in the Netherlands and Belgium report under two or more accounting bases: Dutch GAAP, Belgian GAAP, or IFRS, which can cause difficulties with reporting, especially under tight deadlines. An automated investment accounting system can work within multiple bases, program accounting rules, and aggregate data points like original cost, market value, book value, amortization, and unrealized gains and losses, reducing errors at period-end and simplifying reconciliation. These data points are maintained under different accounting bases without difficult Excel work, saving hours of time.
2. One Consolidated Platform
Many insurance companies have two separate providers—one for Solvency II and one for accounting data. Working with multiple data providers can result in differences between formats, accuracy, and data points, which can be time-consuming to manually reconcile. But with Solvency II filing deadlines tightening over the next two years, insurers are moving to platforms that complete filings within days, rather than weeks. Using data from a single consolidated platform enables insurers to meet strict deadlines and simplify reporting. The data is consistent, validated by third parties, and reconciled daily for increased accuracy and consistency.
3. Accurate and Timely Data
Dutch and Belgian accountants, treasurers, and ALM managers often rely on custody banks, asset managers, or manually building reports, which is time-consuming and can lead to errors at period-end. Data often arrives in different formats, leaving insurers vulnerable to reconciliation errors and forcing teams to spend hours on reporting. Automated investment accounting solutions provide daily reconciliation so insurers know their data is accurate and timely every day. Insurers using one platform receive consistent and validated data to ensure their portfolios are as accurate and up-to-date as possible.
Finding a consolidated solution that reports on multiple accounting bases and provides accurate and timely data is more important than ever. Learn more about what insurers are doing to improve their data quality with our white paper, The Evolution of Software.