Stymied on how best to improve the accounting for insurance contracts, the Financial Accounting Standards Board is asking U.S. stakeholders to have a look at an international proposal to see if it’s the right way to go in the United States.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued a discussion paper that summarizes a proposal by the International Accounting Standards Board to overhaul insurance accounting guidance in International Financial Reporting Standards. FASB is looking for feedback on whether the board should follow a similar approach or choose a different direction for U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

Although the project is not part of the two boards’ priority agenda to converge U.S. and international accounting rules, FASB still wants to produce something that brings GAAP closer to IFRS. Yet after more than 20 discussions between FASB and IASB since late 2008, FASB doesn’t entirely agree that the approach IASB is taking is right for U.S. GAAP. “The boards reached common decisions in many of the areas, but different conclusions in some of the others,” said FASB member Marc Siegel in a podcast.

The discussion paper includes a 30-page table comparing existing GAAP, IASB’s proposed approach, and FASB’s preliminary views on 34 separate issues. Most notably, FASB is stumped on how best to approach short-duration vs. long-duration insurance contracts, and it is particularly looking for feedback on that point.

FASB is looking for views on whether it should adopt a comprehensive standard such as IASB is proposing and whether the cost of an IASB-like standard would be justified by the improvement it would produce in GAAP. FASB also asks for opinions on whether the board should scrap a comprehensive new standard and instead pursue more targeted improvements to U.S. GAAP.

FASB members are agreed that insurance accounting needs some new definitions and parameters to focus not exclusively on insurance products, but on any kind of contract that is intended to transfer significant insurance risk. The goal is to assure all such contracts are accounted for in a similar way, said Siegel. “It could include transactions by companies that are not normally thought of as insurance companies,” he said.

FASB and IASB will hold joint roundtables in December in Tokyo, London, and Norwalk, Conn., to hear more ideas.