By Julie Wernau |
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC has told Old Republic International Corp.,
based in Chicago and among the nation’s 50 largest publicly held
insurance organizations, that it will no longer act as its accounting
firm after a dispute about the way the company chose to report income it
received, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission.

Old Republic disclosed that in the two most recent
fiscal years, the two companies have disagreed about how to report
income that came from mortgages that reinsurers backed out on and the
fees they paid Old Republic to leave the deal.

Those reinsurers paid Old Republic approximately $82 million, which the company thought should be reported and spread out over the life of the original contract terms.

PricewaterhouseCoopers wanted that income reported immediately, which would have meant
also paying taxes on it in a single year.

As a result of the disagreement, PricewaterhouseCoopers could not complete its review of the company’s financial statement and its third quarter earnings report wasn’t considered complete or timely.

Old Republic later consulted with the SEC, which agreed with PricewaterhouseCoopers and Old Republic restated its quarterly financial statements accordingly, according to the filing.