This Sunday heralds a moment steeped in gratitude and reflection. It is a day we carve out of our busy lives to honor the figures who form a bedrock of our families: the mothers.
Mothers hold all kinds of roles—financial providers, nurturers, confidants, culinary maestros, or work-school-sports logistics wizards. Their contributions to families and to society truly know no bounds.
It is within this context of boundless dedication that a concerning reality emerges: women are underinsured.
According to the 2024 Insurance Barometer Study from LIMRA and Life Happens, only 46% of women in the United States have life insurance. In fact, 54 million women say they need or need more life insurance.
Thankfully, women financial professionals are stepping into the gap to make sure other women have access to the financial protection they need. Financial professional Janice Brodin Emrich of Woodland Hills, Calif., has seen it first-hand.
“Women play such a huge role in the financial security of their households,” Brodin Emrich said. “I often tell women that they … are the ones managing a lot of things at home. I call them the CEO of the household. And so even if there is a non-working spouse, we still take that into consideration with financial planning, because there’s still a monetary value of everything that they do.”
Another huge challenge? Mothers are juggling so many urgent responsibilities, they sometimes can’t find time to plan for the future.
“I think part of it is because we do, as a gender, have so many things we’re taking care of,” said Natasha Donaldson, financial professional from Bluffton, S.C. “There are these multiple tracks of simultaneous task taking, you know, that we’re taking care of, that are running all at the same time, that a lot of times we don’t have time to pause and slow down and think about, ‘Okay, what does long time planning look like, and what do we need to do for the future?’”
Many Mother’s Day gifts will be shared this Sunday. But the most important gift of all for mothers might be the gift of time: time for them to learn, plan and strategize on how to protect their future — and their family’s future.
“Women need to understand the products that we’re using and the reasons why, and as much as possible, percentages as we can actually teach them,” said Alfa Pinango, financial professional from Orlando, Fla. “And if women understand, ‘Hey, this is what I’m doing and this is the reason why I’m doing it,’ they’re fully bought into their plan.”
Susan K. Neely was President and CEO of the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), the nation’s leading trade association determined to help families live better lives by achieving financial security and certainty. As president and CEO, Neely drove public policy and advocacy on behalf of ACLI’s member companies that represent 93 percent of industry assets and serve 90 million families. She is CEO Emeritus through December, 2024.
