Colorado Bill Aims to Make Insurance Policies More Readable

The Colorado House is considering a bill that would require automobile insurance policies, health benefit plans, limited benefit health insurance, dental plans, and long-term care plans that are issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2011, to be written at or below the 10th-grade reading level. HB 1166 also would require the text of the policies and plans to be written in 12-point type or larger and to contain an index or table of contents if they are longer than three pages or 3,000 words.

Current law does not require any readability level.

Lawmakers told the Associated Press that newspapers are typically written for an eighth grade level and they believe that readability standard should apply to insurance policies as well, although the grade level may be open to debate.