Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 16, 1994                   TAG: 9411160096
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SHE'S TAKING SHENANDOAH INTO THE WOMEN'S MARKET

In her eight years with Shenandoah Life Insurance Co., Cynthia Light was never approached about buying her own company's product - not during her years as a single career woman, nor as a newly married wife.

"I had a sense, being a woman, that we were not doing as much as we could," she said.

So, earlier this year, when Roanoke-based Shenandoah was looking for new niches and target markets for individual policies, Light, its manager of marketing development and service, didn't have to look far for a new strategy.

Shenandoah Life may have lagged behind what's now seen as a rich market for insurance sales. Light said her research showed that women held only 36 percent of its individual policies, although they accounted for 38 percent of policyholders in the life insurance industry as a whole. She had no figures to cover group plans, which might be more evenly balanced between men and women.

Selling life insurance to women traditionally has been "an afterthought" for an agent, such as suggesting insurance for a wife while selling a policy to her husband, Light said. So she thinks women represent an opportunity for growth for what some consider a mature industry.

While married women need insurance, she pointed out, single career women have an even greater need to protect their income.

Even though other insurance companies have sold more to women than has Shenandoah Life, Light said, only a few of them have developed materials specifically targeted to women's insurance needs.

Light has developed a package of materials with help from Shenandoah's advertising agency, The Packett Group of Roanoke. The marketing pieces emphasize "the things agents need to know about what women want."

Women, for instance, are especially "turned off by pressure sales." So are men, Light said, and pressure sales are largely a thing of the past, but women react more negatively to the practice than do men.

Shenandoah agents, therefore, are urged to work with female clients to develop cash flow, net worth and other financial projections, then have the client formulate her own financial goals. Light said the customer, not the agent, must decide the amount and type of life insurance or annuity she needs.

The materials also include pieces the agents can deliver to clients personally or mail to prospects.

One flier, for instance, said "he" is a manager earning $50,000, while "she" is a manager with an income of $35,000. Light said those figures are based on U.S. Department of Labor statistics about income disparity between men and women.

The message Shenandoah hopes the flier will deliver, Light said, is that "she might have to plan smarter and better" to overcome the disparity because she has fewer dollars with which to work.

Another flier emphasizes that women can expect on average to live seven years longer than men do. That stresses the importance of planning for a longer retirement through annuities.

A lot of women delay marriage, they can expect to outlive their husbands when they do, and some women never marry. Women can expect to live alone longer than did their mothers or grandmothers.

That makes single women - not just the wives of male prospects - a great untapped market for Shenandoah's life and annuity policies, Light said.

It is too early to assess the impact of the new materials, Light said, but agents who have received the package report that the fliers are making a good impression, especially the one about the disparate incomes.