Ariz. Admin. Code § R20-6-213 - Life and Disability Insurance Policy Language Simplification

A. Definitions. The following definitions apply in this Section:

1. "Company" or "insurer" means any life or disability insurance company, benefit insurer, benefit stock insurer, prepaid dental plan organizations, health care service organizations, and all similar type organizations.

2. "Director" means the Director of Insurance of Arizona.

3. "Policy" or "policy form" means any policy, contract, plan or agreement of life or disability insurance, including credit life insurance and credit disability insurance, delivered or issued for delivery in the state by any company subject to this rule; and any certificate issued under a group insurance policy delivered or issued for delivery in this state.

B. Applicability.

1. This Section and R20-6-212 apply to all life and disability insurance policies delivered or issued for delivery in this state by any company but do not apply to:

a. Any policy that is a security subject to federal jurisdiction;

b. Any group policy covering a group of 1,000 or more lives at date of issue, other than a group credit life insurance policy or a group credit disability insurance policy however, this shall not exempt any certificate issued under a group policy delivered or issued for delivery in this state; or

c. Any group annuity contract that serves as a funding vehicle for pension, profit-sharing, or deferred compensation plans;

2. Except as provided in R20-6-210, no other rule of this state setting language simplification standards shall apply to any policy forms.

C. Minimum policy language simplification standards.

1. Except as stated in subsection (B), an insurer shall not deliver or issue for delivery a policy form that has not been approved by the Director unless:

a. The text achieves a minimum score of 40 on the Flesch reading ease test or an equivalent score on any other comparable test as provided in subsection (3);

b. It is printed, except for specification pages, schedules, and tables, in no less than 10 point type, one point leaded;

c. The style, arrangement and overall appearance of the policy do not give undue prominence to any portion of the text of the policy or to any endorsements or riders; and

d. The policy, if the policy has more than 3,000 words printed on three or fewer pages of text or if the policy has more than three pages regardless of the number of words, contains a table of contents or an index of the principal sections of the policy.

2. An insurer shall measure a Flesch reading ease test score as follows:

a. For policy forms containing 10,000 words or less of text, an insurer shall analyze the entire form. For policy forms containing more than 10,000 words, an insurer may analyze the readability of two, 200-word samples per page instead of the entire form. The insurer shall separate the samples by at least 20 printed lines.

b. The insurer shall count the number of words and sentences in the text, then divide the total number of words by the total number of sentences, then multiply that figure by a factor of 1.015.

c. The insurer shall count and divide the total number of syllables by the total number of words, then multiply that figure by a factor of 84.6.

d. The sum of the figures computed under subsections (b) and (c) subtracted from 206.835 equals the Flesch reading ease score for the policy form.

e. For subsections (b), (c), and (d), the insurer shall use the following procedures:

i. A contraction, hyphenated word, or numbers and letters, when separated by spaces, shall be counted as one word;

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

iii. A syllable means a unit of spoken language consisting of one or more letters of a word as divided by an accepted dictionary. If the dictionary shows two or more equally acceptable pronunciations of a word, the pronunciation containing fewer syllables may be used.

f. The term "text" as used in this subsection shall include all printed matter except the following:

i. The name and address of the insurer, the name, number or title of the policy, the table of contents or index, captions and subcaptions, specification pages, schedules or tables; and

ii. Policy language that is drafted to conform to the requirements of a federal law, regulation, or agency interpretation, policy language required by a collectively bargained agreement, medical terminology, words defined in the policy, and policy language required by law or regulation, if the insurer identifies the language or terminology excepted by this subsection and certifies, in writing, that the language or terminology is entitled to be excepted by this subsection.

3. Any other reading test may be approved by the Director for use as an alternative to the Flesch reading test if it is comparable in result to the Flesch reading ease test.

4. Filings subject to this subsection shall be accompanied by a certificate signed by an officer of the insurer stating that the filing meets the minimum reading ease score on the test used or stating that the score is lower than the minimum required but should be approved under subsection (G) of this Section. To confirm the accuracy of any certification, the Director may require the submission of further information to verify the certification in question.

5. At the option of the insurer, riders, endorsements, applications and other forms made a part of the policy may be scored as separate forms or as part of the policy with which they may be used.

D. The Director may authorize a lower score than the Flesch reading ease score required in subsection (C)(1)(a) if a lower score:

1. Provides a more accurate reflection of readability of a policy form;

2. Is warranted by the nature of a particular policy form or type or class of policy forms; or

3. Is caused by certain policy language drafted to conform to the requirements of any state statute, rule, or agency interpretation of law.

Notes

Ariz. Admin. Code § R20-6-213

Adopted effective November 21, 1977 (Supp. 77-6). Amended effective March 27, 1978 (Supp. 78-2). Amended subsection (E), deleted subsection (F) and added new subsections (F) and (G) effective December 3, 1986 (Supp. 86-6). R20-6-213 recodified from R4-14-213 (Supp. 95-1). Former R20-6-213 renumbered to R20-6-211; new R20-6-213 renumbered from R20-6-216 and amended by final rulemaking at 13 A.A.R. 2061, effective August 4, 2007 (Supp. 07-2). Corrected error in R20-6-213(D) that referenced subsection (E)(1)(a), which was relabeled as (C)(1)(a) in Supp. 07-2 (Supp. 08-1).