What is statutory requirements in life insurance?

Standards set by the various state regulatory authorities that determine how financial statements must be prepared for regulators. The states are responsible for making certain that insurers will remain solvent and have enough set aside in reserves to pay future claims. To this end, they have devised statutory-accountingprinciples that govern insurance company reporting. These requirements differ from generally-accepted-accounting-principles-gaap. Among other things, statutory requirements include the setting of statutory-reservesand the immediate expensing of the cost of acquiring new business, rather than allowing insurers to spread the exposure over the life of the policy. See also state-supervision-and-regulation