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<h1 class="gmail-page_header">Lost in translation: Only 13% of UK policyholders understand their insurance policies</h1>
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<span class="gmail-user">by <a href="https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/uk/authors/terry-gangcuangco-70670/">Terry Gangcuangco</a></span>
<span class="gmail-date">05 Jun 2018</span>
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<figure class="gmail-article_image"><img src="https://us.res.keymedia.com/files/image/oxford-circus-crossing-london-picture-id858220430.jpg" alt="Lost in translation: Only 13% of UK policyholders understand their insurance policies"></figure>
<p>Who
hasn’t heard of the saying ‘keep it short and simple’? Probably no-one,
yet it seems insurance policies still haven’t applied the message as a
new study finds not even a fifth of policyholders in the UK understand
them.</p>
<p>Research carried out by the University of Nottingham, in partnership
with insurance law firm Browne Jacobson, has revealed that insurance
policies are too complex to comprehend. In fact, only 13% get it. In
addition, it turns out policies require a minimum of A-level education
in order to be meaningfully understood. </p>
<p>For instance, barriers such as the extensive use of uncommon or low
frequency words and phrases hinder comprehension. Other culprits include
complex sentence and paragraph structures.</p>
<p>The good news is, wording troubles can be remedied.</p>
<p>The same study used drafting methodologies in order to significantly
improve policy readability, reducing the ‘reading age’ for the most
complex document from postgraduate level to 12 or 13 years old. This
improved the percentage from the previous 13% to a whopping 89%.</p>
<p>“To knock 10 years of education requirement off the wording was
certainly more than we expected before we undertook the research,” said
Browne Jacobson insurance partner Tim Johnson. “From the discussions we
have had across the industry there is almost universal acceptance that
the current level of complexity needs to be addressed.</p>
<p>“There is no silver bullet but we have demonstrated that through the
use of a range of drafting techniques, including the use of eye-tracking
software, we can significantly increase the number of people who can
easily read and understand the cover they have purchased.”</p>
<p>The eye-tracking technology referred to by Johnson is able to
pinpoint where the eye focuses, to identify words that receive a
significantly greater amount of attention and those that are skipped
altogether.</p>
<p>“With this data, it is possible to identify language processing
‘bottlenecks’ where participants had to stop and spend much longer than
expected trying to understand the text,” read the report. “The research
team was able to study the ‘bottlenecks’ and draw precise conclusions as
to what key words, phrases, and language constructions were
particularly difficult to understand.”</p>
<p>The linguistic research, which was funded by the Higher Education
Innovation Fund and the European Union, also found that sentences should
generally be kept as short as possible. According to the study, most
readers’ mental processing ability significantly declines once a
sentence exceeds 26 words.</p>
<p>“Drafting a perfectly worded policy document is virtually impossible,
but what our research proves is that there clearly is a lot that can be
done to improve how they are currently written,” said Dr Kay Snowley,
business development manager from the university’s Linguistic Profiling
for Professionals (LiPP) unit. “Each finding shows that with a little
alteration, over time, the overall readability and understanding of
these documents can be improved.</p>
<p>“This isn’t just helpful for the individual but is much better for
the companies issuing them. There is no benefit for there to be doubt in
people’s minds as to what and how they are covered by a policy.”</p>
<p>The report also cited literacy skills in the UK, which are predicted to decrease over time.</p>
<p>“The insurance industry has a regulatory duty to ensure the
information in policies and contracts is clear and expressed in plain
and intelligible language,” added Johnson. “Failure to do so could not
only make them harder to sell but leaves the industry vulnerable to
legal challenge from policyholders and the real possibility of further
regulatory intervention</p></div></div></article></section></div></div></div></div></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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