International Women's Day 2025: What women want
Catherine Trimble
Head of intermediary distribution for protection
In the second of our articles focusing on International Women’s Day, Catherine Trimble looks at what women want from advisers and how can we help them see the value of protection.
In the last article, I focused on the facts that despite women still having concerns around their financial stability, they still don’t always prioritise protection and don’t proactively seek out financial advice in the area.
So that leads to my next question, when we are advising women around their financial needs, what do they actually want?
Advice
Women do value advice, according to Scottish Widows research, almost half (49%) of women prefer to speak to someone by phone or face to face when managing their finances. Interestingly, women aged under 35 are more likely to want this than those between 35 and 54.
Women want financial advisers to focus this tailoring on areas which are most important to them such as information on likely costs, relevant statistics about claims and payouts which relate to them and personalised information based on their circumstances e.g. features and benefits which suit their goals and aspirations.
What would you like offered by a financial adviser?
45%
Personalised information to help me know how much cover (£) and terms (years) I might need based on my circumstances (mortgage, rent, children, debts etc).
36%
Don't know.
32%
Information about additional benefits I could be entitled to if I bought protection from them (e.g. access to digital medical services, access to wellbeing/mental health support etc).
25%
Sharing helpful information on likely costs by age group.
25%
Helpful statistics about claims in general and the total value paid out to beneficiaries.
19%
Showing me how I could reduce my non-essential spending to cover the costs of the protection plan (e.g, for the same price as a cup of coffee everyday).
2%
Other reason.
Almost 1 in 5 (18%) women don’t see the value in income protection – advisers can help with this
“Show me how I could reduce my non-essential spending to cover the costs of a protection plan”
The easiest way the value of income protection can be shown is to compare the cost against other everyday expenses:
“Share helpful information on likely costs and personalised information to help me know how much cover.”
Women also want personalised information and costs based on their needs and age, provider tools can support you with this as well as platforms and best advice tools but it’s important to that once you provide an idea of costs, you should also ensure they understand the full value of protection to them as an individual and to their family at the same time. We need to help women see the value of protection beyond the financial payout.
“Information about additional benefits I could be entitled to if I bought protection from an adviser”
Focusing on the added value protection products to bring a client and their family health and wellbeing helps see the value of protection from the start of the policy and creates a tangible benchmark. Take time to explain all the additional benefits available and how to access them, if they start to use the benefits, they will be more likely to remain covered.
When asked, 7 out every 10 women (69%) were not aware of the GP services, Mental Health support, dedicated nurse services, counselling or bereavement support offered with protection policies.
But they are important to them. Women put more value on added value benefits in general than men and 32% would like information about additional value services.
|
Service |
Men % |
Women % |
Difference % |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Service GP |
Men % 60 |
Women % 68 |
Difference % +8 |
|
Service MH support |
Men % 46 |
Women % 59 |
Difference % +13 |
|
Service Nurse services |
Men % 56 |
Women % 63 |
Difference % +7 |
|
Service Counselling |
Men % 42 |
Women % 56 |
Difference % +14 |
|
Service Bereavement support |
Men % 40 |
Women % 50 |
Difference % +10 |
Summary
It’s important to understand and recognise there’s an income protection gap between men and women but more importantly, we need to accelerate action to reduce it. Knowledge is power and, by sharing our knowledge, we can #accelerateaction to empower women which, in turn, increases their financial resilience.
Helping women see insurance for what it is, assurance that if something bad happens, their life doesn’t completely fall apart and there is some money to focus on what is really important.