This Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center (EBPAQC) primer provides a basic understanding of insurance company products offered to employee benefit plans.
This document:
provides a general overview of insurance company products
funding agreements and annuities
general account products, including guaranteed interest contracts (GICs), deposit administration contracts (DA), and immediate participant contract (IPG)
separate account products, including variable separate accounts, fixed return separate accounts, guaranteed separate accounts, separate account GICs
trust-account based products (synthetic GIC/wrap contracts)
trusteeship and custodianship
identifying the various products
allocated vs. unallocated contracts
reporting
references to the relevant accounting and auditing professional literature