NOVES SL. SPRING 2002. INSURANCE COMPANIES AND LANGUAGE USES, ATTITUDES AND SERVICES (4)


	Sociolingüística catalana



			Insurance companies and language uses, attitudes and services, by Institut DEP and Joan Solé i Camardons

CONTINUA

c) Written communication with customers
Almost half of the insurance companies studied often or always use Catalan when writing to customers (47.2 %). However, the presence of Catalan in this type of communication is negligible since in 32 % of cases it is hardly ever or never used, and in 20.8 % it is only sometimes used.

Table 3. How often does this company use Catalan when writing to customers?

Frequency	Total	Size
Frequency	Total	Large	Medium-sized and small
Always	13.9	2.9	23.7
Often	33.3	41.2	26.3
Sometimes	20.8	26.5	15.8
Little	18.1	17.6	18.4
Never	13.9	11.8	15.8
AVERAGE	3.1	3.1	3.2
Basis	72	34	38

AVERAGE (From 1 Never, to 5 Always)

d) Models of policy
UCEAC company policies (the latter being the main tool of insurance companies) are "often or always " written in Catalan in 40.9% of companies while 39.4% "hardly ever or never" use this language.

Table 4: How often does this company use Catalan in its policies?

Frequency	Total	Size
Frequency	Total	Large	Medium-sized and small
Always	11.3	9.1	13.2
Often	29.6	36.4	23.7
Sometimes	19.7	24.2	15.8
Little	15.5	6.1	23.7
Never	23.9	24.2	23.7
AVERAGE	2.9	3.0	2.8
Basis	72	34	38

AVERAGE (1= never, 5= always)

Real observation showed that most policies had been drawn up separately in both Spanish and Catalan (43.6 %). This could be a sign that the insurance sector is adapting to the Language Policy Act. However, 4 out of 10 policies were still drawn up in Spanish alone.

Table 5. The language of policies (direct observation)

Language	Total
Separate copies (Catalan / Spanish)	43.6
Spanish only	39.7
Catalan only	14.0
Bilingual	3.9
Basis (observation of policies)	179

MULTIPLE


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