The Year In Review

As we wrap up our second year, we wanted to take the opportunity to look back on some of the key highlights that have made 2022 a standout success for Plain Numbers. We’d also like to thank our rapidly growing community of market-leading Partners for being a part of our mission to improve consumer outcomes.

As well as continuing work with Partners who took part in our original trials, we launched many new partnerships in 2022. Starting with the ABI’s Annual Conference in February, we welcomed ten new Partners from across the insurance and long-term savings sector, including the ABI themselves.

Alongside ABI members, we have also launched partnerships with organisations in a variety of other sectors, including building societies, statutory bodies, credit card providers, and payroll companies. 

Anna Buckle, Head of Employee Experience at innovative payroll solution provider, PayCaptain, said, “Poor numeracy is the most common consumer vulnerability, with around 20 million working adults impacted daily. We want to build a payroll solution that is easy for people to use and enables them to confidently review their pay and decide what they want to do with their hard-earned cash. We’re delighted to be alongside the FSCS, Aviva, More Than and others in the Plain Numbers community.”   

This year has seen production of our first certified documents for firms across multiple sectors, including policy summaries and renewal documents – it is gratifying to see the concrete changes that Plain Numbers Practitioners are making to their communications and for so many of them to be working on getting selected communications certified within the first few months of the partnership.   

“We're very proud to be the first organisation to have communications certified by Plain Numbers and it has been a great experience working with their team over the course of this year. Using the Plain Numbers Approach has helped us to further improve our communications and it is wonderful to see how a few simple changes can make such a positive impact towards improving customer understanding.  Of course, there is still more we can do, but by always putting the customer at the heart of our actions, we will continue to build and evolve,” said Emma Rawlinson, CEO of Atlanta Insurance. 

A key part of every partnership is the comprehensive initial training and then ongoing support we offer to selected Plain Numbers Practitioners in each organisation. Practitioners are chosen to lead the way on introducing the Plain Numbers Approach into our Partner organisations and it has been a pleasure to provide so many experienced professionals with a new perspective on customer communications over the course of the year – and then support them as they implement all they have learnt on the initial training within their organisation.   

Anne-Marie Cooklin, Head of Communications at Bupa UK, who recently completed the Plain Numbers Practitioner training said, “Insurance and financial services can be complex. Simple changes to the way we communicate numbers can make a huge difference for our customers. It's great to be able to help them, especially those who are vulnerable, understand important information we give them and make things even clearer.”  

We are constantly seeking to improve our initial training and ongoing support and as a result ask our Practitioners to a comprehensive feedback form after completing the initial training course. This year, all Practitioners who submitted feedback gave our training a score of 8/10 or above, with just under half (47%) scoring us full marks. However, whilst we are encouraged by this feedback, we are working hard to do everything we can to support implementation within Partner firms. Successful implementation will be different with each Partner and as we work with more Partners across a range of firm sizes and sectors we will have an ever growing evidence of success to draw upon to provide this bespoke support to all our Partners.  

“[the training] left me feeling confident that I can now implement these learnings within the organisation I work for” 

“great mix of people from different organisations” 

“[the training] made me think differently about customer communications, but also gave me the knowledge to affect real change” 

The wider context in which we are working also changed significantly in 2022. As long ago as 2015, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recognised numeracy as one of the key vulnerabilities that consumers deal with on a daily basis, but 2022 marked a step change in the way in which the regulatory regime sought to avoid harm for vulnerable, and all other, customers.  

In July, the FCA launched their final ‘a new Consumer Duty’ Instrument and Guidance paper. In it, the FCA sets up new standards and regulations that firms must abide by in order to fulfil their duty of care to their customers, especially those with additional vulnerabilities. It is potentially useful for firms that the FCA cited Plain Numbers as a practical step that can be used for the guidance. 

The Final non-Handbook Guidance states, “Lengthy and technical communications can confuse or overwhelm readers; firms should help consumers to navigate the information they provide, explaining relevant context and any jargon or technical terms in a simple way. Recent work, such as by Plain Numbers, has demonstrated how seemingly small changes to communications can substantially increase comprehension among consumers. We expect firms to exercise judgement to ensure they bring the most important information to the attention of consumers in an accessible way.” (Guidance, 8.13) 

It goes on to say, “Our Financial Lives Survey also found 17.7 million adults (34%) have poor or low levels of numeracy involving financial concepts. So, if a firm is developing communications in relation to a simple mass market product, for example, we expect them to take these characteristics into account and communicate information in as simple a way as possible to support understanding for these customers.” (Guidance, 8.34) 

Plain Numbers was also mentioned in the Treasury’s Financial Inclusion Report 2021-22. Coming from one of our Advisory Partners, this was a real confirmation of the benefit and social importance of the ongoing work we are engaged in with our various Implementation Partners.  

The Financial Inclusion Report 2021-22 states, “With the support of HM Treasury as an Advisory Partner, Plain Numbers are now supporting implementation of the Plain Numbers Approach across market-leading firms in industries such as insurance, pensions, credit, utilities and wider financial services… In the coming year, millions of consumers will start to see the benefits of this approach in the communications they receive.” (p.24-25) 

It’s been a fantastic year of development and growth for Plain Numbers and our Partners and we are looking forward to the big changes we can make together in 2023 and beyond. Please stay tuned for more news on new partnerships and more on how we are working with all our Partners to ensure good outcomes for all their customers – including, but absolutely not limited to, those who struggle with numbers.   

From all of us at Plain Numbers, we wish everyone a restful festive break and a productive new year!