MLC Life head of group claims Tamara Bailey has urged the industry to do more to address women’s insurance needs.

Speaking at an industry forum last week, she said underinsured women have significant financial challenges compared with men: they are already paid less than men; and they are also doing the bulk of unpaid carer work. 

She told insuranceNEWS.com.au MLC is exploring ways to improve the take-up of group insurance among women.

“We’ve started a gender equity forum. We’ve got a number of [other] forums in place that are designed to empower women,” Ms Bailey said.

She says the gender equity forum in group insurance aims to “specifically target insurance and super to see what we can contribute. At the moment, we’re breaking this problem down into multiple different challenge areas, and we’re undertaking research to see what are the tangible solutions that we can put in place.”

Ms Bailey says the forum includes employees from across the MLC business, such as claims, product and customer experience.

“We think this is a multifaceted response that we’re going to have that will likely include reviews of product, wellness initiatives … we think this is an area where there’s a lot of opportunity, and a lot of different types of opportunities to implement and influence.”

Ms Bailey says there is a “great opportunity to reconsider benefits design” in group insurance.

“Is the standard [total and permanent disability product] the best opportunity for supporting women? Women are over-represented in short-term disabilities rather than TPD ... So there’s really a question about, could we consider other benefit designs and then how we price them?” 

Ms Bailey says underinsurance of women must be addressed for a range of reasons. 

“We really need to find a solution for this. One of the things that always strikes me is that the cost of recovery if someone does suffer a disability is the same. 

“It doesn't matter if you’re male, female, non-binary. It costs you the same amount to recover. And if women have lower insurance coverage, they end up being disadvantaged because there’s a bigger proportion that’s taken out [of their pockets] when they have to then pay for their recovery.”