The amount an insurer expects to recover from responsible third parties, carried as a reduction of claims cost subject to prudence.
Where an insurer expects to recoup part of what it paid from a responsible third party, it may carry that expectation as a reduction of its claims cost, in the form of recoveries receivable. The exercise is delicate, since it books a future and uncertain income whose realization depends on identifying the responsible party, their solvency, their insurance and the outcome of proceedings. Accounting and prudential rules therefore require the recovery to be sufficiently certain in principle and capable of measurement, and supervision bears less on method than on discipline: an insurer that systematically anticipates recoveries it does not obtain flatters its technical result in a way visible only years later, in the run-off deficit. In reinsurance the question carries a further difficulty, since cessions are computed on a claims cost net of recoveries whose amount is not yet secured. The problem solved is not presenting as final a cost of which part will be repaid.
Flat rate settlement agreements between insurers, such as IRSA since 1968 in motor and IRSI since June 1, 2018 for buildings, make these estimates far more reliable: a scale based recovery can be quantified when the file is opened, whereas a common law recovery depends on proceedings whose outcome and timing are both unknown.
recours à encaisser, prévisions de récupération