N.J. Admin. Code § 11:2-18.4

Current through Register Vol. 56, No. 24, December 18, 2024

Section 11:2-18.4 - Minimum readability standards

(a) The Plain Language Law provides, at N.J.S.A. 56:12-10, certain "examples of guidelines" that the Commissioner may consider in determining whether a contract complies with the Act. The readability standards in this section are in addition to the standards enumerated in the Act.

(b) A policy, Buyer's Guide, and Coverage Selection Form shall be printed in legible type style with adequate contrast between paper and ink. Captions, headings, and spacing shall be used to increase overall readability.

(c) A policy and Buyer's Guide shall be printed in not less than 10 point type, one point leading. This rule shall not apply to schedules and tables; specification or declaration pages; or applications.

(d) Applications to be signed by the applicant shall be printed in not less than 8-point type, one point leading. Provided, however, that conditions or exceptions to the main promise of the agreement contained in an application shall be printed in at least 10-point type. (See N.J.S.A. 56:12-10.b(3).)

1. The 8 point type, one point leading standard set forth in (d) above shall become operative on July 1, 1983.

(e) Policies and Buyer's Guides with 3,000 or more words, or with four or more pages, shall contain a table of contents or alphabetical index.

(f) The style, arrangement and overall appearance of the policy shall give no undue prominence to any portion of the text or to any endorsements or riders.

(g) Each section of a policy, Buyer's Guide and Coverage Selection Form shall be self-contained and independent. However, general provisions applicable to more than one section may be included in a common section.

(h) Policies shall contain only essential provisions.

(i) Policies, the Buyer's Guide and the Coverage Selection Form shall be written in everyday, conversational language with a personal style, and technical terms or words with a special meaning shall be avoided wherever possible.

(j) The text of a policy and Buyer's Guide shall achieve a score of at least 40 on the Flesch reading ease test or an equivalent score on a comparable test authorized for use by the Commissioner.

1. For the purpose of this subsection, a Flesch reading ease test score shall be measured by the following method:

i. For policy forms and Buyer's Guides containing 10,000 words or less of text, the entire form shall be analyzed. For policy forms and Buyer's Guides containing more than 10,000 words, the readability of two 200 word samples per page may be analyzed instead of the entire form. The samples shall be separated by at least 20 printed lines.

ii. The number of words and sentences in the text or sample shall be counted and the total number of words divided by the total number of sentences. The figure obtained shall be multiplied by a factor of 1.015.

iii. The total number of syllables shall be counted and divided by the total number of words. The figure obtained shall be multiplied by a factor of 84.6.

iv. The sum of the figures computed under ii and iii above subtracted from 206.835 equals the Flesch reading ease score for the policy form or Buyer's Guide.

v. In measuring the Flesch test score, the following special rules shall be observed when counting syllables, words and sentences:

(1) A syllable means a unit of spoken language consisting of one or more letters of a word as divided by an accepted dictionary. Where the dictionary shows two or more equally acceptable pronunciations of a word, the pronunciation containing fewer syllables shall be used;

(2) A contraction, hyphenated word, or numbers and letters, when separated by spaces, shall be counted as one word; and

(3) A unit of words ending with a period, semicolon, or colon, but excluding headings and captions, shall be counted as a sentence.

2. At the option of the insurer, riders, endorsements, and other forms made a part of the policy may be scored as separate forms or as part of the policy.

3. A score lower than 40 on a Flesch reading ease test may be permitted whenever the Commissioner finds a lower score is warranted by the nature of a particular policy form or type or class of policy forms.

N.J. Admin. Code § 11:2-18.4

Amended by 50 N.J.R. 1815(b), effective 8/6/2018