Women & Insurance:
The Perfect Combination

March is Women’s History Month, a time to celebrate and honor women. At Combined Insurance, we want to help you understand how women and insurance work together. Whether they’re making healthcare decisions for the family, purchasing insurance coverage, or selling policies to customers in the community, women make up a significant portion of the insurance marketplace.

Women as insurance consumers

In 2021, females made up 50.8% of the US population[1]. That’s hardly a “niche” market!

While each person is an individual with different needs and habits, it can be helpful to look at statistics that both challenge assumptions and help put gender differences into context:

• Women drive 70-80% of all consumer purchasing[2]
• Women utilize more health care than men and make approximately 80% of health care decisions for their families[3]
• 10% of women under 65 do not have health insurance[4]

Women increasingly hold larger financial power as both head of families and business owners. They make key decisions for insurance purchases, especially as more and more women own their own businesses.

The US currently has more than a million women owned businesses that employ more than 10 million people[5]. However, many insurance companies still target men as their main audience. Insurance companies are starting to adapt to find ways to market better to women including developing medical cover and hospital cash insurance specifically for women’s healthcare[6].

Overall, women, like their male counterparts, have a varying degree of “room” in their budgets to afford coverage and have unique outlooks on their financial prospects. While assessing her family’s or her own personal supplemental insurance coverage needs, a woman may need more or less education on what types of plans are available or more or less personal support while making decisions.

Women as insurance professionals

Unlike education or nursing, for instance, the financial services and insurance industry is traditionally thought of as a “man’s business.” In fact, the image of an insurance agent is probably a middle-aged man in a suit carrying a briefcase. This is changing—and it’s changing fast.

Let’s turn to some statistics on gender diversity in the industry:

• Companies with higher gender diversity pulled 34% of their revenues from innovative products and services, while their competitors with less diversity only saw 25% in innovation revenues[7]
• In 2020, there were 1.6 million women employed in the insurance sector, accounting for 58.6% of the workers compared to in 2015, women only accounted for 47% of all workers[8].

The percentage of women varies widely by occupation[9]

• 50.1% of insurance sales agents
• 60.4% of claims adjusters, appraisers, examiners, and investigators
• 79.2% of insurance claims and policy clerks
• 58.0% of underwriters
• Less than 1% of actuaries

Across almost all industries in the US, there’s rising interest in the number of women in business ownership and executive-level positions. According to the American Census, the number of women-owned businesses rose .6% between 2017 and 2018. In 2018, more than 19.9% of firms that employ people are owned by women[10]. Self-employed insurance sales agents and insurance agency or brokerage owners most certainly fall within this category.

Women and insurance are a powerful combination.

Find out about career opportunities at Combined Insurance!

 

Sources:

1- U.S. Census Bureau quickfacts: United States. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2, 2022, from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/LFE046219

2- Nelson, A. (2019, July 17). Women drive majority of consumer purchasing and it's time to meet their needs. Retrieved March 2, 2022, from https://www.inc.com/amy-nelson/women-drive-majority-of-consumer-purchasing-its-time-to-meet-their-needs.html

3- E;, M. (n.d.). Women as health care decision-makers: Implications for health care coverage in the United States. Retrieved March 2, 2022, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25418222/#:~:text=Women%20in%20the%20United%20States,for%20themselves%20and%20their%20families.

4- FastStats - Womens Health. (2022, February 01). Retrieved March 2, 2022, from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/womens-health.htm

5- Women as insurance decision-makers. (2022, January 20). Retrieved March 2, 2022, from https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/topics-and-risk-dialogues/economy-and-insurance-outlook/expertise-publication-woman-as-insurance-decision-makers.html

6- Women as insurance decision-makers. (2022, January 20). Retrieved March 2, 2022, from https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/topics-and-risk-dialogues/economy-and-insurance-outlook/expertise-publication-woman-as-insurance-decision-makers.html

7- Purviance, S. (2021, June 01). Making D&I part of your core business will dictate future success. Retrieved March 2, 2022, from https://www.propertycasualty360.com/2021/06/01/making-di-part-of-your-core-business-will-dictate-future-success/?slreturn=20220128121608

8- Facts + statistics: Careers and employment. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2, 2022, from https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-careers-and-employment#:~:text=Women%20in%20insurance,-Women%20have%20comprised&text=In%202020%2C%20there%20were%201.6,workers%20in%20the%20insurance%20industry.

9- Facts + statistics: Careers and employment. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2, 2022, from https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-careers-and-employment#:~:text=Women%20in%20insurance,-Women%20have%20comprised&text=In%202020%2C%20there%20were%201.6,workers%20in%20the%20insurance%20industry.

10- Bureau, U. (2021, October 08). Number of women-owned employer firms increased 0.6% from 2017 to 2018. Retrieved March 2, 2022, from https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/03/women-business-ownership-in-america-on-rise.html