Their motivation is often different to that of a man, and life events, having children or the loss of a loved one, drives women to think more about their own finances whereas, for their male counterparts, it is usually financial events such as new jobs or salary increases.
“May we be them…”
Look around our sector. Would you say it is overrun by women? It has much improved over the past few years, but we still have a long way to go before we can say that our industry is truly gender diverse and represents a good cross-section of society.
The refreshing thing is that we are starting to see younger women join our sector. I have seen this across all roles in the protection industry, from admin to marketing and right through to fully qualified advisers.
This is helping to highlight different sections of society that we can support, along with fresh ideas on how to get our message across. My LinkedIn feed is increasingly becoming more female and fun and I, for one, am here for it.
I have seen so many female advisers embrace social media to get the protection message spread as far as they can, tackling not just the issue of covering more women but also more young people.
Female advisers will understand first-hand why their customers need the cover and can focus in on certain demographics, like working mums or low-income families, to target those that need it most.
Having more female advisers also means that, as an industry, we will be able to get through the underwriting requirements a lot quicker and slicker with first-hand knowledge of the circumstances and experiences that customer may have had.
They will be able to take the soft facts that a customer has given them and turn it in to a proposal that not only fits their needs, but with an insurer that compliments them.
Looking at some of the products and propositions we already have can start to enhance our conversations with potential customers, starting with income protection. There is no one, of working age in employment, that should not have it.
As a young woman in her first job, even though I was still living at home, I still had a car, a mobile phone and a holiday habit to pay for. The bank of mum and dad cannot continue to pay out indefinitely if you are off work due to accident, sickness, illness, or injury.
Even renting my first apartment and then buying my first home meant I needed an even bigger financial safety net, so I understood income protection was non-negotiable.
