Too hard to read
Perhaps not. If the ‘average client' has a reading capability below that of, say, a university graduate, but the complexity of the language is such that only someone with higher education might be expected to understand it, then they might fairly claim that no-matter how hard they read the document, it is not reasonable to expect them to understand it.
Unfortunately many documents are too hard to read. If the document is too hard to read, or contains confusing material, then more weight must be placed on the advice given at the time the policy is sold.
That should concern advisers as much as clients. Advisers do not currently have lengthy sections in their reports dealing with the meaning of policy wordings. They assume that the client can read the document for themselves - yet many simply cannot do that.
A well-established measurement of reading ease (Flesch) scores documents by looking at two key measures - the ratio of long words in a sentence, and the ratio of words to a sentence.
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