Why Don’t Women Have Life Insurance?

Kritika recently lost her job due to the pandemic. She has the responsibility of her family. She was continuously searching job sites but had no luck. She then became an insurance agent.

After gathering knowledge about various policies and plans, she realized that women don’t buy insurance policies. Kritika found out that women think it’s unnecessary to buy insurance, and the reasons for that are as follows;

What is happening?

Over the years, the number of insurance buyers all over the world has increased multiple folds. But the number of women policy buyers has not increased proportionately.

Many people, especially women, avoid buying a life insurance policy mainly because they believe it to be unnecessary or they don’t understand its importance.

Women are not able to understand the repercussions of this decision until they face the demise of a family member and its significant impact on others.

Knowledge factor

One of the most significant reasons why life insurance for women has a lower penetration in the world is that most women have minimal or zero knowledge about the risk of not having insurance cover.

Women prefer to be self-insured rather than buying an insurance policy. Women don’t research the risk factors involved for people with no insurance covers.

Due to this pandemic risk of an untimely demise has increased multiple folds and that’s why acquiring knowledge about the importance of buying insurance policy has also increased significantly.

Variety

Today, insurance companies offer a variety of life insurance policies. However, the availability of such a wide variety of insurance plans and policies tends to confuse the buyers, making it quite difficult for them to choose the right plan.

There are life insurance policies that only cover the death risk. While there are policies that cover the benefit of both insurance protection and investment.

Sufficiency

Most women avoid buying life insurance policies because they believe the insurance offered by their employer is sufficient. What they don’t know is that the group insurance provides very limited coverage, which may not be enough to cover their family’s needs.

Further, if they quit their organization, the policy ceases to exist and then there will be no insurance left. That is why it is advisable to buy personal life insurance for women.

Putting it off for later

Most women put off buying a life insurance policy because they believe that they can buy it later in life when they get old. What they don’t understand is buying insurance policies early in life will only be more beneficial than buying them when you are old.

Buying an insurance policy when you are young, healthy, and strong can prove to be a good decision since insurers tend to offer higher coverage at lower premiums to young and healthy individuals as compared to the old ones.

Expense

People from all walks of life, especially women, strongly believe that insurance policies are expensive. This is a general notion among women because they are either misinformed or have no knowledge about the same.

They also feel that adding an unnecessary expense would do them no good.

The truth is that a term life insurance plan is quite affordable. There are policies whose premiums go as low as Rs 500 per month as well.

Coverage Gap

It has been seen that women’s life insurance policy holds much less value than that of men, meaning women feel that if something were to happen to them the family won’t be affected as substantially as it would, with the demise of a male member of the household.

Men are the primary earners of the house, which has led most people to believe that an insurance policy is needed for the primary owner of the house and the other members don’t hold such significance.

Household Roles

It has become a social norm that a stay-at-home parent who doesn’t earn any income, actually believes their contribution holds no important value in the household.

They feel that if something were to happen to them, someone else could easily take their place and take care of the house.

Household roles tend to be less evenly split, like finances, pet care, which is why also it is seen that women believe that they don’t need life insurance policies. They think that men are the breadwinner of the house and so they need insurance policies because their demise would have a much larger impact.

Single Policy

Most households seem to have a single policyholder. Even if housework is divided between both parents equally, then also the family members believe that even if one parent is insured, it is more than enough.

Parents think that buying an insurance policy for both of them is not necessary. The insurance premium paid by young people is much less than the premium paid by people nearing their 40s.

Societal Roles

Over the centuries, people have treated women as incompetent and unnecessary for the survival of mankind. In many situations, women are considered to be weak and that is why it is considered foolish to get an insurance policy for them since men are the ones who protect them and that’s why men are insured more.

Most of the time men of the house handle finances. Even society does not feel that there is any need for women to be insured. Participation of women in work outside the house has been considerably less, which is why also it is felt that they don’t need life insurance.

Conclusion

Women are the second gender of this society and that is why their decision-making power is low. People have a very dominant role to play in women’s decision-making.

Women need to understand that their life is as important as that of men and buying life insurance for themselves is crucial in today’s unsafe world.

Also, there are a lot of policies available which do not cost as much as others and women can easily buy them after due consideration, according to their needs.