Ease of Comprehension of Standard and Readable Automobile Insurance Policies as a Function of Reading Ability a

Abstract

Standard automobile policies which are hard to understand were compared with passages from the new readable policies. Passages were selected from policies issued by two major insurance companies. Comprehension of the passages was tested using the cloze procedure. One hundred and fifty college and high school students were divided into three reading ability groups using the comprehension section of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, Form F. The best readers could understand all passages [according to a thirty-five percent score on the cloze test). The average readers could understand the readable but not the standard passages. The poor readers could not understand any of the passages. All groups did better with the readable passages than with the standard passages.