Women buying more life insurance

The number of women in the UK buying life insurance has doubled in the last six years, LifeSearch has found.

The company revealed that in 1999 only one in five of its customers were female, but figures for 2004 and 2005 show that now twice as many of its customers are women.

LifeSearch policy adviser, Linda Tyson commented: "We attribute this increase to the growing awareness of the importance of protecting the financial stability of the family. More and more women are either the main or the only breadwinner and are realising the importance of protecting their incomes."

And women receive an added boost when applying for cover; they pay less in premiums than men.

LifeSearch pointed out that women’s higher average life expectancy means a discount on the cost of cover.

The average life expectancy of a baby girl, born in 2002, is 81 years. A boy born in the same year has a life expectancy of 76 years.

This life expectancy difference means that women can save up to £425 a year on the cost of premiums, compared with what a man of a similar age would pay.

But it is not all good news for the UK’s females, as some women can pay more for insurance products such as income protection and critical illness cover, LifeSearch points out.

And this could be a problem, as LifeSearch’s senior technical adviser Kevin Carr highlighted that these products can be a more effective way of looking after loved ones or paying the mortgage in times of trouble.

He explained: “Income based products such as family income benefit and income protection can often be the best way to protect a family’s financial future.

But despite the benefits, this type of protection is often ignored or difficult to find, Mr Carr added.

“While many think the public are spoilt for choice when it comes to shopping around for protection products, in truth hardly any banks, building societies, supermarkets or web-sites offer these products or write them under trust, preferring instead to deliberately limit the customer’s options and make the choice seem overly simple,” he warned.