Comparethemarket.com.au has supported moves to simplify product disclosure statements after a survey by the company found many consumers were skimming through the documents.

Reading a travel insurance policy’s terms and conditions can take 79 minutes, or the same length of time as watching a rugby match, the group says.

Numbers crunched by the comparator also show home and contents policies can take 85 minutes, which it compares with “going to a gym class and still having time for a smoothie”.

“Expecting customers to spend more than an hour in some cases reading through the fine print of a policy is unrealistic,” spokesman Abigail Koch said. “It’s not surprising that many people, even those with the best intentions, give up or are put off by the length of the fine print.”

The “fine print” in product disclosure statements is actually normal-sized type that is a regulatory requirement. But they contain “industry jargon” that makes documents more difficult to understand, Comparethemarket says.

The company has supported moves by the Senate Economics References Committee to introduce standardised definitions for key general insurance terms and improve product disclosure statements.

Comparethemarket.com.au says its survey of 1155 adults shows 56% skim terms and conditions at best, 20% don’t look at them at all, and 3% say they would spend a full half-hour reading documents cover-to-cover before signing.

About 86% would be more likely to read them if they are shorter and easier to understand, according to the group.

“The majority of Australians are putting themselves in serious financial danger by failing to fully understand what they’re signing up to,” Ms Koch said.

Car insurance policies, with an average word count of 11,609 and an average 44 pages, are estimated to take 46 minutes to read, Comparethemarket says.