At Youi, we like to keep it simple. Whether it’s on the phone or online, we’ve always been committed to making things clear and easy to understand. And now, it seems that it’s not just our customers who appreciate our straight-talking style.
Plain Language Contracts, an organisation that assesses the credibility and clarity of insurance contracts and other correspondence, has awarded both our Car Insurance and Home Insurance Product Disclosure Statements (PDS) their top Gold Certified Standard.
As you can imagine, we’re pretty chuffed with this recognition. It reinforces the pride we take and effort we make in simplifying things for our customers wherever possible.
What the assessment involves
When conducting these assessments, at least three independent reviewers score documents based on 32 different criteria, including:
- Is it clear what the document is, who it’s intended for, and who it’s been issued by?
- Use of language and syntax. For example, is it written with an active voice and in the present tense? Does it use short sentences containing a single main point?
- Are related terms located together, or if not, are they easy to identify and navigate to?
- Does the document use icons, charts, images, colour, etc. that make it easier to understand?
- Does the document contain industry jargon or ambiguous terms?
Documents are measured against these criteria and then rated as Not-Certified, Certified or, for higher scoring documents, Gold Certified. With both our Car and Home PDSs coming out with gold, the reviewers obviously liked what they saw.
What the certification means
From our customers’ point of view, nothing will change. We’ll keep doing what we’re doing; continuing our commitment to clarity, and making things easy to understand. If anything, the Gold Certifications just give us a boost to strengthen that commitment further. We’ll also be adding the Plain Language Gold Certified trust mark to various pages and documents on our website.
According to the Insurance Council of Australia’s Guide on best practice disclosure, PDSs are often seen as too detailed and inaccessible, with over two thirds of consumers claiming they don’t understand all the details.
So it’s nice to know, through our use of plain language, we’re proactively doing something to improve this, and making the often complex world of insurance that bit simpler.
