Excerpt from: Reuters (click for full article)
The gender gap is about to get a little wider as the formerly egalitarian long-term care insurance market starts charging higher prices for women.
While life insurance has long been priced by sex, companies that provide long-term care insurance (LTCI), mainly used to cover healthcare expenses in old age or for severe illness, have long avoided it. But for the first time this year, they will introduce gender-based pricing, starting with policies from Genworth Financial Inc, the nation's largest seller.
The aim is to reflect actuarial realities - women live longer and prepare ahead more for their futures by buying policies. Genworth says two-thirds of its LTCI claim payouts go to female customers, and overall, women account for 57 percent of all policy sales in 2011, according to data from LIMRA, the insurance research and consulting group.
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