Legal and General leads the list of investment management companies producing the most readable content, according to a new Report.
The 2025 Readability Report, produced by Communications and Content, measures how easy financial content is to read using a free readability checker, which gives low scores to more readable material, high scores to the less readable.
This year’s Report shows that thought leadership published by the investment management sector is more readable than in the previous six years.
With ever more information online, busy lives and constant distractions, readers quickly become overwhelmed by long sentences, obscure references and jargon, the report says. Short words and short sentences make for better readability – cutting through distraction and overwhelm.
The 2025 report shows readability within the sector has improved by 9% since 2019.
The report measures a snapshot of content from 19 companies. Top of the list – for the first time – is Legal & General with a readability score of 8.4. The report says some of their content was “unbelievably readable” and heaps praise on even their more technical materials.
The content of two other companies performs notably well: TM Natixis Investment Funds – Loomis Sayles and Premier Miton Tellworth – both scoring an average of 9.2.
The 2025 Readability Report also measures what happens when ChatGPT recreates each article. Tools like this are more common in everyday life, but do they help or hinder? Our analysis says ChatGPT can make your content 6% less readable on average. This is an AI content complexity premium.
David Butcher, managing director of Communications and Content, says: “Investment content writers smashed it this year. Once, we needed a map to find the short words and sentences that make for good readability. Now, readability might become the norm for these top-ranking companies.
“But outside of the top firms there’s work to do. Many investment groups still fall short, offering material that makes it hard for a busy reader to locate the key points, let alone understand and act on them. Hopefully good practice will trickle down from the top.
“We also found that AI can make your content more complex. That’s because it draws on the existing mass of material – which has never been that readable. It’s like cooking with out-of-date ingredients. Far better to start with fresh ideas, short words and short sentences and then see how digital tools can help you.”
Main image: matthias-heyde-8HLMLrkyLvE-unsplash
