Colorado § 10-4-633.5 - Automobile insurance policies - plain language required - rules.

§ 10-4-633.5. Automobile insurance policies - plain language required - rules.

(1) (a) An insurer issuing or renewing automobile insurance policies subject to this part 6 shall not issue or renew a policy unless the text of the policy form does not exceed the tenth-grade level, as measured by the Flesch-Kincaid grade level formula, or does not score less than fifty as measured by the Flesch reading ease formula.

(b) In conjunction with the report submitted to the commissioner pursuant to section 10-4-633, the insurer shall report the readability scores prior to the issuance or renewal of a policy or the use of the policy form.

(2) The policy form shall contain an index or table of contents if the policy is more than three pages in length or if the text of the policy exceeds three thousand words. The index, table of contents, and text of the policy form shall be printed in not less than ten-point type.

(3) For purposes of subsections (1) and (2) of this section, the following shall apply:

(a) (I) A contraction, hyphenated word, or numbers and letters, when separated by spaces, shall count 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 pronunciations containing fewer syllables may be used.

(b) "Text" includes 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; and specification pages, schedules, or tables; and

(II) Any policy language that is drafted to conform to the requirements of any federal law or regulation; any policy language required by any collectively bargained agreement; any medical terminology; any words that are defined in the policy; and any policy language required by law or regulation if the insurer identifies the language or terminology excepted and certifies in writing that the language or terminology is entitled to be excepted.

(4) The commissioner shall promulgate rules regarding the electronic dissemination of newly issued or renewed policy forms or endorsements.

(5) (a) The requirements of this section shall not apply to commercial automobile insurance coverage.

(b) For the purpose of this subsection (5), "commercial automobile insurance coverage" means any insurance coverage provided to an insured, regardless of the number of vehicles or entities covered, under a commercial automobile, garage, motor carrier, or truckers coverage policy form and rated using either a commercial manual or rating rule.

Source: L. 2010: Entire section added, (HB 10-1166), ch. 143, p. 486, § 1, effective January 1, 2012. L. 2013: IP(3) amended, (HB 13-1300), ch. 316, p. 1664, § 13, effective August 7.