According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the projected life expectancy of a female born in 2019 is around 81 years, while that of a male is about 76. Although the gap has narrowed over the past twenty years or so, this still represents a difference of nearly five years.

The following chart represents the premium difference by gender for a typical 10-yr term life insurance policy with a $750,000 coverage amount.

Age	Female	Male
25	$192.50	$207.50
35	$200.00	$215.00
45	$432.50	$440.00
55	$955.00	$1,305.00
65	$2,017.50	$3,602.50

While the difference in premium is rather small at younger ages (e.g. about 7 percent at age 25), it is significantly higher at older ages. For example, the difference at age 65 is a staggering 80 percent!

As a group, young male drivers cause more automobile insurance losses than young female drivers. A few states, however, no longer allow automobile insurers to charge different rates for males and females. Similarly, over a decade ago, the Supreme Court ruled that employers using annuities to fund retirement benefits could no longer collect higher contributions from women, who were expected to live longer than men, in order to make equal annuity payments during retirement.

Should life insurance rates be made gender neutral as well? In the past two decades, the gender mortality gap has begun to close. While female longevity has risen, male life spans have increased at a faster rate, due in part to medical advances in treating conditions like heart disease, which traditionally kills more men than women. Yet even with a smaller gap between mens and womens longevity, insurance rates for women are still lower than for equally aged and healthy men.

Questions for Discussion:

* Is it ethical for life insurers to charge different rates for men and women? If it is not legal to charge different rates based on race, why should gender be different?

* Does this practice represent unreasonable discrimination (sometimes called social inequity) against males based on a factor over which they have no control?

* Given the possibility that the gap between male and female mortality may close during the next few decades, is it really fair to charge different rates to men and women for a policy that runs twenty, thirty, or more years?