人壽保險業財務報告窗飾行為之實證研究

Abstract

在2006年台灣實施第三十四號會計公報後，台灣的公司被要求必須在財報上揭露「一般金融商品」及「衍生性金融商品」的分類及價值衡量。受此公報影響最大的產業莫過於投資許多商品的保險業，因此我們針對保險業研究，探討保險公司是否會藉由金融商品的分類以及金融商品投資的損益來美化窗飾財務報表。我們發現資產報酬率確實和保險公司的盈餘操縱行為呈現高度相關性，而股東權益報酬率則會影響保險公司對於金融投資商品的分類。另外我們還發現公司的財務槓桿和盈餘操縱行為呈現顯著的負向關係，以及資產流動比率對於公司金融資產分類有顯著影響，而對於盈餘操縱行為則有顯著正向關係。和過去文獻相比，我們提供一個不一樣的直觀角度來探討保險公司的金融商品分類行為以及盈餘操縱行為，提供會計制度的立法者從不同面向來設立規範，也為社會大眾提供評斷保險公司的基礎。

After the implementation of Statement of Financial Accounting Standard NO.34 (SFAS NO.34) in Taiwan in 2006, the companies have to disclose the securities investment information in the statement of financial reportings. The securities investment could mainly be divided into three categories: available-for-sale, for trading, and held to maturity. The insurance industry holds a large amount of securities investment, and is especially more affected by the SFAS NO.34 significantly than other industries. We develop several proxies to measure the characteristics of insurance companies which are more inclined to do earning management and gains trading through classification of securities investment. We find the insurance companies with higher return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) will tend to do more gains trading and classify more securities investment to for-trading category. We also find the leverage ratio plays an important role when insurance companies engage in gains trading, and the leverage ratio is negatively correlated with gains trading. On the other hand, the current ratio is also an important factor for insurance companies to engage in gains trading and classify the securities investment. Our research offers a different method to explore the window dressing behavior of insurance industry and further offer some suggestions for the accounting setter to take into account for the accounting standard setting in the future.