"Needless to say," she said, "we didn't use him."

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Why Women Buy Angelo Lewis Angelo Lewis 2372 words 1 December 2014 Best's Review BSTS English

A.M.Best Company (Best's Review) - When a broker sat down with Cindy V. Gentry

and her husband some years ago with the expectation of selling them financial products, Gentry got a firsthand lesson on the issues the industry has in selling its products to women.

Although Gentry, now chairing the board of directors of Life Happens and president of sales and marketing for Corpus Christi, Texas-based BBA Life Brokerage Agency, was the primary breadwinner of her family, the broker spent the entire time talking only to her husband.

"Needless to say," she said, "we didn't use him."

She looks back at that experience to make a point. "There's a statistic out there that says that 70% of married women leave their financial advisers after their husband dies," she said, citing a 2011 Spectrem Group study of wealthy women investors. "That represents a sizable loss of assets when you consider that half of women over age 65 outlive their husbands by 15 years," the study said. Although the latest trend for life insurers is to look overseas to supplement flagging domestic sales, there's ample evidence that the biggest underserved market in the United States is women. According to LIMRA, two-thirds of these women with incomes of at least $100,000 have life insurance versus four-fifths of same-income men. And women making $75,000 a year or more have less

coverage than same-income men (3.4 years versus 3.7), despite the fact that they are likely to live longer.

Women are good prospects for life insurance for a number of reasons. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, today's women occupy about half of all managerial and professional positions in the United States, including 37% of management jobs and 60% of accounting and auditing roles. They also make up 41% of employees with authority to make purchasing decisions.

"More women are going to school and getting their education. At higher levels of education, women represent about 50% of the students in medical schools and law schools and more are entering other professional jobs," said Nilufer Ahmed, Ph.D., LIMRA senior research director of insurance research.

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"When you look at salaries, the last report I read said that younger women are making similar salaries compared to men and in general have higher earnings ratios compared to what they had in the past. They are much more viable prospects in that sense. They have the money, they have the income and they have the need."

"It's a growing market," said Anne Long, senior vice president of NFP and president

of NFP Life. "Women control $20 trillion in assets and this amount is growing 8% a year worldwide. Why wouldn't you want to focus on women in a market that otherwise isn't growing? And life insurance is a product that solves many

problems for women. It's a perfect product to see her through her whole life span, from income replacement needs if something happens to her, right though to retirement and long-term care."

"Women are really focused on their financial concerns now and really becoming much more actively engaged than they have in the past," said Suly Salazar-Layton, director of practice management at Genworth Financial. "They've learned

lessons through their families, their mothers and their parents in general." "In the past, women were not the ones making the financial decisions," said Debbie Poley, senior marketing manager at The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company.

"They weren't part of the process; they weren't making the money. Women in the past went from being taken care of by their father to being taken care of by their husband and today that's really changed."

Products for Every Life Stage

Experts interviewed agreed that all adult women were good prospects for life insurance, but that the particular products suit them at specific life stages.

"A single mom might look at term insurance because it's more affordable," Gentry said. "She's not in a dual-income family so she has to look at her finances a little more closely. However, later in life she might look at a cash-value accumulation type of policy, or a policy that has some sort of long-term care or retirement type of rider on it."

"For all women," Salazar-Layton added, "there is an array of life insurance products that can serve different needs for different life stages. For example, combination products serve a couple of needs, including long-term care needs. Because women often end up being caregivers and care recipients, that's an important product that they need to look at while they're married. For widowed women and women in general, indexed universal life can offer a lot of flexibility for women, because it does have income that can be supplemental income at different life stages."

Poley said: "At Penn Mutual, we feel that all adult women need life insurance. But

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the list. Any women with children, of course, should have life insurance; even women without children. You'd be surprised at how many single women support family members--elderly parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. It's really

remarkable."

According to Long, many advisers have come up short in their efforts to sell life insurance to women because they assume there's no difference in how women think about and purchase products.

"This is one of the places that financial services and companies and life

insurance companies have missed the boat," she said. "There's an assumption that men and women purchase the same way, so we'll put marketing materials online and make commercials that are directed similarly to both genders." "One of the places where some male financial advisers make mistakes is they get impatient with women," said Salazar-Layton. "Women oftentimes will say, 'I need to think about it.' That doesn't mean that she's ignoring the salesperson. What happens is that women will oftentimes take the information in and go back and do research. They want to check the Internet, they want to speak to their friends, they want to look into it before making that informed decision."

To illustrate her point about the potential of this market, Salazar-Layton

frequently asks women members of her audience where they found their doctor or their financial advisers.

"They often say 'from a friend.' Then, I turn to the guys and ask them where they found their doctors and many say, 'I got the recommendation from my wife.' It comes back to women being really important influencers and that's an important piece to remember."

"There is a difference in the way women generally make decisions and also in the communication styles they prefer," Poley said. "Men have more of a linear decision-making process. They'll realize they need or want a product or service and then usually do a little research. They'll go to a trusted source to inquire about the product or service and buy it if they feel it's a good solution. Women have a little bit different decision-making process. It's more circular; they seek advice from various sources throughout the process and tend to seek the best solution. It can take time.

"In terms of communication, the advice I give is that women want someone to listen to them. An adviser should be doing a whole lot more listening than speaking when communicating with women. And they should not make assumptions. They need to dig deeper into what their underlying fears and concerns are and not be afraid to ask them the difficult questions. It's also important to follow through on what you promise with women clients. And also

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allow plenty of time. She might want to talk about other things before getting into her financial concerns, so you don't want her to feel rushed."

Get the Message Right

Aside from communication style differences, there's the issue of how print and television images are crafted.

"A lot of times, the imagery of advertising around life insurance really focuses on the man as the hero," Salazar-Layton said. "Oftentimes we'll have an image of a man on a nice boat or with his family, but he's the protective one. In many

instances, the ads are not recognizing the equal role of women and their ability to really protect the family as well. If you look at the traditional imagery, you'll see her gazing up at his face and his arm around her, protecting her. It doesn't put her in a position of power. That honestly has really disenfranchised some women."

"And, my goodness, women are tired of the pink," said Poley, who was part of a team that designed a women-centric ad campaign at her company, Penn Mutual.

"I mean, it's still out there: So many companies just [throw] a pink logo on things just to say, 'Now we target women.' And that doesn't really resonate with

women," Poley added.

"When we designed our brand, we wanted it to be vibrant and empowering. So we use colors like reds and blues and grays. And we always show images of strong independent-minded women because we want to empower them. We don't want them to feel like they're following the lead. We want them to be in control."

It's clear that the industry still has work to do in persuading more women to buy life insurance or work with financial professionals in general.

According to a 2013 national poll by wholesaleinsurance.net, 43% of adult

women have no life insurance. Among those who are insured, many are severely underinsured, carrying roughly one-fourth of the amount that would likely be needed by their life insurance policies' beneficiaries.

Indeed, women who are a family's primary breadwinner carry 31% less life insurance than their male counterparts, even as a growing number of women earn as much, if not more, than their husbands.

Despite this, there's ample evidence that the tide is slowly changing.

In 2013, according to LIMRA, 52% of permanent life insurance policies sold in the U.S. were sold to women. And a 2012 study conducted by Praxis Research

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Partners on behalf of ING U.S.--now Voya Financial--found that 58% of surveyed

women who didn't have life insurance said the economic environment made life insurance more important.

"In general, women are overlooked as prospects for this product," Long said. "More and more are becoming heads of households and controlling wealth and decision-making about wealth. I think there's a natural fit for a product that offers safety and security, and not viewing life insurance as just a death benefit

product."

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Female Life Executives on Selling

"First, be a student of working with women. There's so much out there in the media today. I would encourage advisers who are looking to expand their expertise in working with women to do a lot of reading and check out women's programs throughout the industry. Many firms and associations offer free

webinars about selling to women, marketing materials for women and research on the women's market. There's a wealth of good information out there, but nothing beats learning from your peers. Whenever possible, speak with, listen to and observe other advisers who have success in working with women. It's critical to have a general interest in helping women and to be transparent. With women, it can take a little bit longer because they tend to have less trust with our industry. But those advisers who are genuinely interested in helping women and are

willing to be transparent are going to be able to bridge that trust gap a lot more quickly."

--Debbie Poley, senior marketing manager, ThePenn Mutual Life Insurance Company

"Women who have been interviewed in focus groups don't say that they need a female adviser, but an adviser who will listen to them. Learning how to listen to women and what they want is the best practice. It's not that you have to hire a female to do it; you can learn it yourself. Women want to be heard in the

engagement and have a lot more questions than male clients will have. And don't be reluctant to try getting together women prospects in a group. They're not averse to getting together in more community-like settings in a way that you would never dare do with your male clients."

--Anne Long, NFP senior vice president and president of NFP Life

"I would certainly tell advisers to be patient and to certainly do their homework so they can explain things very easily and clearly to women. I think that's true for

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men or women. Consumers feel our products are too complicated and they don't need to be complicated."

--Cindy V. Gentry, president of sales and marketing, BBA Life Brokerage Agency "Many women really want to be involved in the decision-making. One of the

things I have seen with many of the financial professionals I've worked with in the past is that women often feel they do not get equal attention from financial

professionals and are not comfortable. For example, one of the things we've heard oftentimes from women is that advisers may be too quick to recommend a solution. For example, they might say, 'This is the kind of life insurance or

combination product you need.' And the women are thinking, 'Wait a minute, you haven't gotten to know me. We don't have a relationship established, therefore how do you really know what I need?' So women set the relationship as the foundation of the decision-making process. I have had male advisers and some old-school female advisers come back to me after training and say, 'You know what, it worked and I am getting referrals.'"

--Suly Salazar-Layton, director of practice management at Genworth Financial

by Angelo Lewis, Senior Associate Editor, Best's Review.