More Women Buy Supplemental Insurance

Purchasers of supplemental insurance products, such as disability and critical illness policies, are overwhelmingly female and middle-aged, according to a study by disability insurance provider UnumProvident.

Researchers studied the buying patterns of more than 100,000 employers that offer employees the option of adding supplemental, or ancillary, insurance products to their basic health care and retirement benefit packages. The analysis showed that 69% of disability policy purchasers and 61% of critical illness policy buyers were women. The most common age range for purchasers of supplemental products was found to be 30 to 49.

Supplemental insurance products are typically sold in integrated packages, the study found, with stand-alone sales of individual products making up just 20% of all ancillary insurance sales

Researchers noted that, while life insurance and short-term disability are the most popular supplemental insurance products, critical illness, accident, and hospital indemnity policies are growing at double-digit rates.

"We're no longer in a one-size-fits-all benefits world," said Kevin McCarthy, executive vice president of risk operations at UnumProvident. McCarthy recommended that employers use statistics on supplemental product buying patterns to "map out benefit strategies, determine specific plan designs for specific employee groups, and better determine an overall workable, sustainable, and suitable benefit plan that better meets the needs of all workers."