VisibleThread report finds Top US Health Insurance Websites need resuscitation due to poor content clarity

Business Wire

Only 2 of the 90 top Health Insurance Companies achieved the minimum target readability score

BALTIMORE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- VisibleThread, today announced findings from its website clarity review of the top health insurance companies – The VisibleThread Website Index, Top US Health Insurance Companies. As part of the company’s ongoing research into use of clear language, VisibleThread measured the largest US Health Insurance websites for clarity.

The companies with the overall best scores were: HealthPartners, Fallon Community Health Plan, Blue Cross Blue Shield of MI and Anthem. To view the ranked list of health insurance companies, including leaders and losers in each category, view the full report at: http://info.visiblethread.com/us-top-health-insurance-companies-website-clarity-index

The analysis measured up to 100 pages on each website, across these dimensions:

Readability: How readable is the content?
Passive Language: Active Language communicates clearly. What proportion of sentences are passive?
Long Sentences: What proportion of all sentences are too long?
Word Complexity Density: Density rating is the proportion of complex words relative to total word count

Why is this report relevant?

There is a growing movement for all website content to be clear and concise. The purpose of this paper is to explore how well health insurance companies communicate through the copy on their websites.

In a Health Literacy report, the Institute of Medicine found discrepancies between what people read and what they understand. They state: “Even highly skilled individuals may find the [healthcare] systems too complicated to understand, especially when these individuals are more vulnerable due to poor health”. They provide four main reasons why health information is difficult to understand:

Complexity of information presentation;
Use of unfamiliar scientific and medical jargon;
Demands of navigating the healthcare system, including locating providers and services and filling out forms
Difficulty that people of all literacy levels have in understanding information when confronted with their own or a loved one’s stressful or unfamiliar situation.

“Even with highly technical content, simple content tweaks can make a difference. Clarity will not only improve communications between parties in the healthcare cycle, but it may increase a company’s bottom line. This report shows a positive correlation between health insurance companies with higher net revenue and increased levels of website clarity”, said Fergal McGovern, CEO, VisibleThread.

About VisibleThread

VisibleThread’s solutions help organizations test & audit their written content for risk and content quality, with dramatically less cost. Customers include; Boeing, Intel, Accenture and Fannie Mae. Our software instantly finds brand compliance, poor readability and language risk issues within documents and entire websites. Customers produce better quality, more engaging content. Unlike consumer-grade analysis tools, VisibleThread processes hundreds of documents and web pages in minutes. Marketing, Sales and Risk/Contracts Teams in leading global organizations use VisibleThread.

Visit www.visiblethread.com for more information.