Section 26-A1911. READABILITY

 

1911.1Each insurer which issues policies providing coverage for drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and mental illness for delivery in the District of Columbia shall outline such coverage in no less than ten (10) point type.

 

1911.2The policy or endorsement text shall achieve a minimum score of forty (40) on the Flesch Reading Ease Test.

 

1911.3For the purposes of this section, a Flesch Reading Ease Test shall be scored by the following method:

 

(a)For a policy or endorsement containing ten thousand (10,000) words or less of text, the entire policy or endorsement shall be analyzed. For a policy or endorsement containing more than ten thousand (10,000) words the readability of two (2) one hundred (100) word samples per page may be analyzed instead. The samples shall be separated by at least twenty (20) printed lines.

 

(b)The total number of words in the text or sample shall be divided by the total number of sentences. The figure obtained shall be multiplied by 1.015;

 

(c)The total number of syllables in the test or sample shall be divided by the total number of words. The figure obtained shall be multiplied by 84.6; and

 

(d)The sum of the figures computed under subsections (b) and (c) of this section subtracted from 206.835 equals the Flesch Reading Ease Test score.

 

1911.4For purposes of §1911.3 the following procedures shall be used:

 

(a)Contractions, hyphenated words, numbers, and letters, when separated by spaces, shall be counted as one word;-‘

 

(b)A unit of text ending with a period, semi-colon, or colon shall be counted as a sentence;

 

(c)A syllable means a unit of spoken language consisting of one (1) or more letters of words as divided by an accepted dictionary. Where the dictionary shows two (2) or more equally acceptable pronunciations of a word, the pronunciation containing fewer syllables may be used; and

 

(d)At the option of the insurer, any form made a part of the policy may be scored separately or as a part of the policy.

 

1911.5The term "text" as used in §1911.2 includes all printed matter except the following:

 

(a)The name and address;

 

(b)The name, number, or title of the policy or form;

 

(c)The table of contents or index;

 

(d)Headings and captions;

 

(e)Defined terms;

 

(f)Proper nouns;

 

(g)Declarations pages; and

 

(h)Schedules or tables.

 

source

Final Rulemaking published at 36 DCR 4922 (July 14, 1989).