6 Things Every Rep Should Know About Women

The probability that a woman will spend time in a nursing home is also high. In the United States today, 1.5 million people over the age of 65 are living in nursing homes. According to the Forum on Aging, 70% of these people are women.

Whenever possible, women should buy disability insurance and long term care insurance.

4. Women do eventually die, and they may not be very well protected against death.

Only a small fraction of the growing earning power of women is protected against death, leaving millions of families exposed to the potential loss of income.

Financial representatives should review their female clients life insurance coverage annually and remind women of the importance of reviewing their coverage in mid-year if there are any material changes in income, work status or family situation that could affect coverage needs.

5. A married woman should think about her husbands disability insurance as well as his life insurance.

A study by LIMRA International, Windsor, Conn., found that many widows started feeling financial pressure months before their husbands died.

Although some husbands died unexpectedly, more died from “long illnesses,” and 37% of the widows surveyed experienced “significantly lower” household income in the year before their husbands deaths. More of the widows42%said they were forced to withdraw money from savings to pay their husbands medical bills.

Disability insurance, life insurance and life insurance policies with accelerated death benefit provisions can help families cope with these sorts of financial hits and fill in the many gaps left by Social Security disability benefits and employer-sponsored disability plans.

6. The greatest estate tax burden often falls on the estate of the second spouse to die.

Statistically, this is more likely to be the woman. An unlimited marital deduction permits spouses to transfer assets to one another without federal gift or estate tax consequences. This tax benefit is offered because these assets will be taxed at the death of the surviving spouse, or the “second-to-die.”

There are several planning tools available to help reduce taxes and other costs that typically fall to the “second-to-die.” A marital deduction trust establishes a separate living trust for each spouse and helps to use both spouses applicable credits, each of which can shelter from federal estate tax up to a certain amount. A second option is survivorship life insurance, which can be used to plan for estate taxes and other costs that cannot be eliminated when the widow or widower dies.

John H. Curry, CLU, ChFC, AEP, MSFS, CSA, is a senior associate at North Florida Financial Corp., Tallahassee, Fla., an agency affiliated with Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, New York. He can be reached at [email protected].

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, February 18, 2005. Copyright 2005 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.