Trust And Respect Are Key For Women Clients

Additionally, a longer life span often means a wife will take care of her ailing husband before he dies, potentially leaving her with no one to fill the role of caregiver for her should the need arise and also potentially draining the savings meant for her to survive on. So, women, both married and single, tend to be interested in long term care insurance.

Because many women have these concerns, when an agent meets with a couple, it is a mistake to assume the husband is the spouse to be focused on, says Nilufer Ahmed, scientist, LIMRA, Windsor, Conn.

"In many households, producers first make the contact through the husband," she says. "It might be better to make the approach through the wife."

Agents working with married couples should listen to both and make time to answer questions, Ahmed says. "A woman tends to think her household does not have enough life insurance, and she would like to have more, but her opinions are not asked."

This can be a costly mistake by agents, particularly those with affluent women clients, according to the results of a recent survey of affluent women by Nationwide Financial, Columbus, Ohio. When it comes to attracting and retaining affluent women clients, the survey results suggest trust and respect are key.

In Success and Security: A Womans Perspective 2002, women report high levels of trust for their predominately male investment professionals (87% have male advisors), yet one in five say they have experienced different treatment from investment professionals because they are women.

Women reported they were most likely to switch investment advisors if they werent treated with respect. They would also be likely to switch investment professionals if they felt an advisor didnt understand their needs or take the time to educate them about their investments, without assuming they know nothing.

In fact, one woman who took part in the survey said she stopped working with a financial professional who kept asking her husband for their documents, even after he repeatedly said it was the wife who maintained them.

The lesson here, Ahmed says, is that agents should not assume women are less interested than men in financial products.

"They are interested in their own lives; they are afraid for themselves," she says. "At every single womens conference Ive been to, the one fear they have is outliving their assets because they realize they might live a very long time and not in the best health."

Results of another recent study support the idea that failing health in ones later years is a real concern among women.

Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, Minneapolis, commissioned Volkart May & Associates, Minneapolis, to field a consumer survey designed to measure attitudes toward long term care among Americans between 40 and 70.

The study shows that men are twice as likely as women to think the government will pay for long term care, regardless of their level of wealth. Men are also twice as likely to be confused by LTC options, the study says.

Seventy percent of Americans are somewhat or very concerned about the possibility of needing long term care, according to the study. But, women are more likely (by 11%) to be concerned.

Again, industry experts point to an awareness of a need as the reason for womens interest in and knowledge of a protection product.

Chuck Kavitsky, president of Allianz, suspects this is because traditionally, the responsibility of caring for older, sick relatives has gone to the woman in the household. "Because of this, they say, This could be difficult if I dont have this planned. "

LTC insurance is perceived by women in much the same way life insurance was before two-income families became the norm, Kavitsky says. "It was the woman who realized the disaster would end up in her lap."

So, agents working with married couples should be ready to understand the womans point of view, he says.