The Insurance Buying Guide: Age and Sex

From the perspective of the insurance company, your age and sex are important. This is especially true regarding gender.

A fact that most people find surprising is women become disabled more frequently than men do. Therefore, women present a higher disability risk. This is opposite to most trends in the life insurance market -- where women are usually a lower risk.

Insurance experts have various theories about why women make disability claims more often than men do. The most common: Women pay more attention to their health than men do -- and, therefore, use disability insurance more frequently. This contributes to their longer life expectancy and lower life insurance rates. They also get pregnant occasionally.

Whatever the reason, the underwriting impact remains clear: Because women pose a bigger disability risk, the disability income premiums for women are usually higher than for men.

Age is also a factor in pricing coverage, because the duration of a disability generally increases as you get older. Your body does not respond to trauma as it did when you were younger. For example, small children can experience major accidents or sicknesses and "bounce back" much more quickly than older people.

Another factor that might increase the duration of disabilities among older people is motivation. Insurance companies that do a lot of business in disability coverage claim that older people sometimes subconsciously decide to ease their way into retirement as a result of a disability. According to this scenario, a 55- or 60-year-old simply may not be as motivated to return to work following a serious disability.