• by December 27, 2001

Women and Insurance, a joint project between Simmons Market Research Bureau and MarketResearch.com was released last week and as it turns out, marketers have a great deal of catching up to do when marketing financial services to women.

Men's participation in the financial services industry far out-weighs that of women. However, women have made major strides toward achieving parity of financial compensation, putting them in a position to soon surpass men in their need for financial services. Women and Finance predicts that women will comprise 59% of total college graduates and control 60% of the wealth in the United States by the year 2010.

“Now is the time for the financial services industry to turn their attention to the female market sector,” states Evan Goldfarb, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Simmons Market Research Bureau. “Generation X and Generation Y women represent new breeds of consumers, careerists, and investors. Capturing their loyalty early means creating a lifelong consumer.”

“Even though women continue to become increasingly powerful as consumers and investors, a huge gender gap still exists within the financial services industry,” states Meg Hargreaves, Vice President of Research and Publishing at MarketResearch.com. “Women and Banking found that only 56% of women hold savings accounts, while Women and Loans showed that 32.2% of women age 25-34 have a first mortgage, compared with only 29.9% of men in the same age bracket. And now Women and Insurance tells us that women are under-represented in the three main types of insurance coverage: medical, auto and homeowner. “Clearly, there is an enormous opportunity for marketers in the financial services industry to tap into the female market sector.”