Brands over time

Aviva
over time

Every year keeps its colour across every chart.│ ChatGPT, 30 Nov 2022

273 of Aviva's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, 2015 to 2026, measured sentence by sentence, 81 of them recovered from the Internet Archive. How the writing has moved over the years, how it compares with 9 other insurers, and what it sounds like in its own words.

Pages measured
273
Years covered
2015–26
Archived before ChatGPT
81
Blog · press
145 · 128

01 · Homepage

One capture a year

Aviva's homepage from 2003 to 2026, closest to 1 July, from the Internet Archive. Pick a year or press play. Each headline is quoted from its capture and links to the archived copy.

2026aviva.co.uk11 Jul 2026
Aviva homepage, 11 Jul 2026

Screenshot of Aviva’s homepage (aviva.co.uk) as archived by the Internet Archive on 11 Jul 2026. © Aviva or its licensors. Shown for comparison and review; not endorsed by Aviva.

Homepage

2026

“Defaqto 5 Star car, home and travel insurance”

Page title

Insurance, Savings, Investments, Retirement and Health - Aviva

Open on the Internet Archive
  1. 2009Happy's Price Checker
  2. 2012Shop around and get more of what matters to you at retirement
  3. 2016Manage your policy online and view customer discounts
  4. 2020Critical illness cover
  5. 2023Pensions and Investments
  6. 2026Defaqto 5 Star car, home and travel insurance

21 captures. Screenshots are rendered from the archive and can pull in images archived later than the page itself; dates come from the capture. Years without a capture are greyed out in the strip.

02 · Measures by year

How the writing moved

Every year’s pages, averaged. Pick a measure. Hatched bars rest on fewer than 10 pages: context, not a finding. The page count sits under each year.

Sentence lengthAverage words per sentence.
6
12
18
Insurance avg 13.6
10.4
9.2
6.2
9.2
10.3
14.0
16.4
14.2
12.3
12.2
11.9
10.3
ChatGPT · Nov 2022
20156 pp
20164 pp
20173 pp
201815 pp
201910 pp
202027 pp
202134 pp
202245 pp
202336 pp
202441 pp
202531 pp
202620 pp
10 or more pagesFewer than 10 pages: context, not a findingSector averageChatGPT released
Show as a table
YearSentence lengthPages
201510.46
20169.24
20176.23
20189.215
201910.310
202014.027
202116.434
202214.245
202312.336
202412.241
202511.931
202610.320

Years with pages: 2015 (6), 2016 (4), 2017 (3), 2018 (15), 2019 (10), 2020 (27), 2021 (34), 2022 (45), 2023 (36), 2024 (41), 2025 (31), 2026 (20). Dates come from page metadata, structured data, the URL, or the month a page was first archived (a latest possible date).

03 · Before and after

2019 to Nov 2022 against 2024 to 2026

The same measures on 112 pages from before ChatGPT launched and 92 pages from 2024 on. A change here is a change in style. It does not show how any page was written: people used every one of these words and shapes long before 2022, and SGR-011 found most of the shift across brands was a trend already under way.

Measure2019 to Nov 2022 · 112 pp2024 to 2026 · 92 ppChange
Sentence length
14.511.7−19%
Sentence rhythm
0.780.86+10%
Contractions
19.117.8−7%
"You"
59%61%+1 pts
"We"
38%34%−4 pts
Questions
5.25.3+1%
Exclamations
0.060.05−16%
Long words
24%28%+4 pts
Em dashes
3.393.60+6%
AI-associated words
0.781.07+37%
AI-era marketing words
0.580.71+22%
Quieter LLM-favoured words
1.731.70−2%
AI-associated sentence shapes
0.140.29+99%
Page length
9611,199+25%

Each row is scaled to its own larger value, so rows compare within themselves, not with each other. Before = 2019 to Nov 2022 (112 pages); after = 2024 to 2026 (92 pages). Method: SGR-011.

04 · Against its sector

Aviva among insurers

Each dot is one brand’s mean across all its measured pages; the tick is the sector average. Only brands with 10 or more measured pages are shown or counted. Select a dot to open that brand.

  1. Em dashes

    45% more than its sector

    3.17 against a sector average of 2.18; 2nd highest of 10.

  2. "We"

    25% more than its sector

    35% against a sector average of 28%; 4th highest of 10.

  3. Questions

    17% more than its sector

    5.1 against a sector average of 4.3; 2nd highest of 10.

Sentence length3rd lowest of 10
Aviva 12.7
10.517.1
ContractionsMid-table, 5th of 10
Aviva 18.8
9.625.3
"You"4th lowest of 10
Aviva 61%
43%88%
"We"4th highest of 10
Aviva 35%
10%52%
Questions2nd highest of 10
Aviva 5.1
2.75.8
Long words4th highest of 10
Aviva 26%
19%29%
Em dashes2nd highest of 10
Aviva 3.17
1.263.84
AI-associated words3rd highest of 10
Aviva 0.76
0.161.23
ExclamationsLowest of 10
Aviva 0.04
0.041.11
Page length3rd highest of 10
Aviva 1,091
8411,707

Pages measured: Aviva 273 · Direct Line 191 · Admiral 238 · LV= 305 · AXA 186 · Hastings Direct 146 · esure 133 · Legal & General 286 · Zurich 149 · Bupa 142. Measures and method: SGR-010; the brand list and sectors come from SGR-009.

05 · Vocabulary

Words Aviva uses more than its peers

The words this brand reaches for more often than the rest of its sector. This is subject matter more than voice.

life298.4 vs 59.5
insurance471.3 vs 158.6
cover184.0 vs 48.0
illness58.9 vs 11.5
critical52.7 vs 9.2
funeral34.8 vs 1.3
term40.2 vs 8.0
protection48.1 vs 12.3
lump23.1 vs 2.7
income43.3 vs 12.8
risk59.5 vs 21.4
AvivaSector peers

Uses per 10,000 words, ranked by weighted log-odds (Monroe et al. 2008) across 273 pages. Checked for product names and page furniture.

06 · In its own words

What it sounded like

Openings of real pages, quoted word for word, oldest first. Each links to the page, or to the Internet Archive’s copy when it has gone.

201517 Nov · PressArchived copy
“In response to customer feedback, Aviva, the UK’s largest commercial insurer, has launched a winter bulletin to help businesses take practical steps to prepare for the coming winter months.”
Risk Management Bulletin - Winter 2015 - 17 November 2015
20187 Feb · BlogArchived copy
“Everyone plans for the future – whether it’s something for the weekend, a holiday in the sun or a family Christmas. But what about beyond that? Can anyone plan 50 years ahead? Actually, we can.”
Life Protection Product Options
201917 May · BlogArchived copy
“Life is full of the things you love – your family, your home, and the other things that make you happy. But we don’t always know what’s around the corner.”
Understanding Our Life Insurance Plan
202017 Dec · BlogArchived copy
“If you’re taking steps to live a more sustainable life, and make greener choices where you can, it’s natural to want your final goodbye to stay true to that.”
How to plan an eco-friendly funeral
202319 Apr · Blog
“We exist to be there for you when it matters. And paying claims is a vital part of that. Whether it’s a shoulder to lean on or a strong hand to hold, we’re here for you when you need us most.”
Paying out when you need it
202416 Apr · Blog
“It’s a confronting job, but getting it done can be a big relief and a weight off for the future.”
Writing a will

07 · Every page

All 285 pages, by year

The full list behind every number above, with links to the live page or the archived copy. 273 count towards the measures; the rest were not measured (11 mostly short lines (lists, tables, link pages) rather than prose, 1 under 150 words of text). Pages with no reliable date count in the overall numbers but in no year.

202620 pages
202531 pages
202441 pages
202336 pages
202245 pages
202134 pages
202027 pages
201910 pages
201815 pages
20173 pages
20164 pages
20156 pages
In the overall numbers, no year1 page
Not measured12 pages

08 · Method

How this was measured

The pages

Aviva's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, fetched from the live site in 2026 and from the Internet Archive for 2015 to November 2022. Homepages are shown as captures; product and help pages are not measured.

The measures

Code counts from ScriptGrain’s writing instruments: sentence length and rhythm, contractions, pronouns, punctuation, long words, and three published lists of AI-associated words. No AI model reads or judges any page.

What it cannot say

These measures describe style. They cannot tell who or what wrote a page, and nothing here says or implies that any brand used AI to write.

Sample sizes

Every number carries its page count. Years under 10 pages, and before-and-after comparisons with under 10 pages on a side, are shown as context only.

Sentence length
Average words per sentence.
Sentence rhythm
How much sentence length varies (standard deviation over mean). Higher reads less even.
Contractions
Contractions (we're, you'll, it's) per 1,000 words. A rough gauge of how conversational the writing is.
"You"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "you": how much the writing addresses the reader.
"We"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "we": how much the writing talks about the organisation.
Questions
Question marks per 1,000 words.
Exclamations
Exclamation marks per 1,000 words.
Long words
Share of words with seven or more letters.
Em dashes
Em dashes per 1,000 words.
AI-associated words
Words from SGR-007's three AI-associated lists, per 1,000 words. These are style markers that people used long before ChatGPT; a higher rate says nothing about who or what wrote the page.
AI-era marketing words
Marketing words that became more common in AI-era copy (seamless, elevate, unlock...), per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Quieter LLM-favoured words
Everyday words language models are known to over-use, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
AI-associated sentence shapes
Sentence patterns such as "not just X, but Y", found by ScriptGrain's cliche checker, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Page length
Average words per page.

Studies: SGR-009: Do brands in the same sector sound the same? · SGR-010: How UK brands write · SGR-011: Did brand writing change after ChatGPT?.