Audit services
Current market challenges
Company boards and regulators demand quality audits that are compliant with all relevant standards, and which are based on deep industry experience. They expect their auditor to provide market insights as part of a professional and personalised service.
Our clients operate in fast-changing and increasingly complex environments – the need to improve process efficiency through cloud computing and greater use of AI, regulatory and tax challenge, accounting standard change, responding to the climate emergency are some of the areas of focus for our clients’ finance, risk, and IT teams.
At the same time, companies grapple with the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic on their operations and their underwriting and reserving. Through these changes, they require auditors who quickly understand this environment and can respond with agility.
How we can help
The audit of financial institutions has been a strategic focus of the firm for many years and we have been successful in executing our growth strategy. Mazars offers a world-class audit experience with deep knowledge of the insurance sector. We have recently built on our strong brand in insurance to secure many high-profile UK subsidiaries of international groups. This enables us to feel the pulse of the market and benchmark our clients’ processes and results.
- Our audit approach is built on understanding the risks facing our clients, both internally within the business and within the market.
- We organise our audits to be compliant with auditing standards; within that framework, however, we work collaboratively and sensitively with clients – we plan our audits in a manner that reflects clients’ financial reporting and organisational structures, based on our understanding of their business and internal control processes.
We manage our audits as projects – we consider key issues, such as management judgements, accounting for unusual transactions and changes in financial reporting requirements, early in the process, to ensure that all known matters are settled and agreed upon early in the process. We develop communication plans so that all stakeholders are informed about the outcomes of our work at the right time and level of detail.
We have around 100 dedicated insurance auditors in the UK, including over 9 partners. Our specialists are integrated into our audit teams. Actuarial, IT and tax experts understand our client’s issues, allowing them to audit efficiently and provide insightful comments on our clients’ systems and reporting.