Women and Term Life Insurance

Today is +International Women’s Day 2013!

An article on CNN.com today states in 2011, for the first time in history, women held more than 10% of board seats globally. In the U.S., that number is 12.6% for women in these power positions. The top industries for women executives are retail, media, insurance, healthcare and banking.

Women and Term Life Insurance

Despite the advances women have made in the workplace over the last half century, we still see an underwhelming number of women with term life insurance policies. Some current estimates peg the number as small as 1 in 3 working women who own some form of life insurance policy.

It seems despite the low cost of term life insurance and the ease of applying, many women have not yet made the connection between their family’s financial security and the possibility of their premature death. In 2008, Prudential Financial found that while 80% of women said they understood life insurance very well, a whopping 44% had not even discussed the topic with their spouse.

Alarming Statistics

• 56% of working women who do have life insurance are not sure if they have enough.

• A mere 7% of households with one working spouse and one stay-at-home spouse have life insurance on both spouses.

As we discussed in a blog entry last fall titled Term Life Insurance:  Gender Wars!, 63% percent of all life insurance policies purchased through QuickQuote have been for men. However, on a positive note that trend has improved somewhat since 2009. One reason is life insurance companies such as Prudential and American General Life have implemented successful educational programs specifically for women. And awareness among women has improved, as seen in this great video with Laura Lyons Cole, CFP. Watch as she discusses the importance of life insurance for women.

We are hopeful the programs will persist, and more women will protect their families with term life insurance!