Although the feminist ideal is that women should be treated exactly the same as men, in some situations this still hasn’t caught on – and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Case in point: in the field of life insurance, it’s well known that women have lower life insurance premiums than men. The main reason that premiums are lower for women is due to the statistical fact that women, on average, live longer than men. Since the average woman lives five years longer than the average man, insurance companies are willing to give women lower rates because there is a greater chance that the woman will die only after her policy has lapsed; thus, the insurance company will get to keep all of the money that the woman has paid over the years without ever paying out to her beneficiaries.
Women live longer than men because women tend to develop cardiovascular problems later on in life than men do. There are several theories as to why this happens, including the fact that men smoke more than women, eat more foods with high cholesterol and don’t deal with their stress as well as women do. In addition to cardiovascular disease, men’s mortality rates are lower than women’s due to the fact that men are prone to doing far more stupid and dangerous things than women are, especially in their teens and twenties, which leads to a higher and earlier death rate.
Another reason why women can usually get lower life insurance premiums has to do with the amount of coverage provided by the life insurance policy. If a married couple consisting of a male breadwinner and female homemaker decides to purchase life insurance policies for themselves, the male breadwinner will require a larger life insurance policy than the female homemaker, thus resulting in more expensive premiums for the male and lower premiums for the female.
That said, when purchasing life insurance for a female homemaker, don’t underestimate her value. Although these women are not wage earners in the traditional sense, the work they do is invaluable. Think about this: a stay-at-home mother provides many services, such as driving children around and caring for them, buying and cooking food, washing clothes and cleaning the house. A stay-at-home mother does these things for free, but how much would it cost to pay someone to do them for her instead? You’d be surprised at how quickly the money can add up; some suggest that the average stay-at-home mother’s contribution to the household can be valued at nearly $60,000. If you are a stay-at-home mother looking to purchase life insurance, take a good hard look at all the things you do for your family before deciding on how much coverage you need.
Dave Stephenson is a writer based in Toronto. He works for the website Life Cover, which is a provider of life insurance in Canada.
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