Middle-income Hispanic consumers who answer surveys in Spanish may have different attitudes about life insurance than middle-income Hispanic consumers who answer in English.
Researchers at LIMRA International, Windsor, Conn., present that conclusion in a report on a survey of 301 adult U.S. Hispanic residents conducted for Genworth Financial Inc., Richmond, Va.
The participants called themselves Hispanic, were 25 to 54 years old, and had children. They also had been in the United States at least 5 years, were living in a metropolitan area, and had household income of at least $50,000 along with a banking and checking account.
The researchers found that survey participants who answered in Spanish had more traditional views about many topics. They were likely to assume that they would take care of aged parents and more likely to assume that children would take care of them.
Only 22% of the Spanish- or the English-language participants knew how expensive term life insurance is, but the Spanish speakers were about twice as likely to think that term life insurance is too expensive, the LIMRA researchers report.
Most of the Spanish-language and English-language participants said they liked the idea of meeting with an insurance agent face to face to buy life insurance, but the Spanish speakers were much more interested in buying life insurance through banks.
About 84% of the Spanish-language participants said they preferred to meet with life insurance agents in their banks, while only 53% of the English-language participants preferred to meet with life agents in banks, the researchers report.
The researchers also discovered startling differences in basic attitudes toward life insurance.
About 7% of the Spanish-language participants strongly agreed with the statement that, "Buying life insurance will increase the chance that I'll die sooner," compared with just 3% of the English-language participants.
About 24% of the Spanish-language participants agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, "If I bought life insurance, I would be afraid someone would try to kill me for the money," compared with 6% of the English-language participants.
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