BOSTON - State lawmakers debated the issue of gender equality in insurance plans yesterday during a hearing on legislation that would require insurance annuity policies sold in Massachusetts to offer the same benefits to women as they would for men.
"Today in Massachusetts if a man and a woman each go into a bank and purchase an annuity, they will pay the same price. But upon retirement, women will get the lower monthly payout," said Rep. Ruth Balser, D-Newton, who sponsored legislation in the House. "This, we feel, is discrimination."
Senate President Therese Murray sponsored the Senate version of the bill.
Balser said annuities supplement income for women who often have smaller pensions because they have shorter careers to make time to raise a family.
"This gender discrimination contributes to the impoverishment of older women," she said.
Balser said the fight to make insurance in Massachusetts gender-neutral started in 1976 with the addition of the Equal Rights Amendment to the state constitution. A review followed to ensure state laws complied with the amendment, all of which passed except regulations on gender-neutral insurance.
She said the 1980s brought some progress under the Dukakis administration. Regulations were passed for gender neutral insurance, but the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that such regulations could only be approved by the Legislature.
Balser said bills have been filed in both the House and the Senate ever since to make all insurance gender neutral. None ever made it to the governor's desk.
A similar bill sponsored by Balser passed the House last year, but was not voted on in the Senate.
Balser said a new governor and support from the Senate president has raised expectations the bill may finally succeed this year. "I'm more optimistic this year," she said.
Elizabeth "Betsy" Dunn, an equal rights specialist for the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, has been an advocate for this issue throughout the years. "These bills will add a lot to the economic welfare of working women in the state," Dunn said.
But Marybeth Prescott-Mullen, an insurance broker representing the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, said the differences in annuity payments was based on actuarial tables that show women live longer then men and would receive more money over the lifetime of the annuity.
"I keep hearing mortality, and it is important for you to understand that women do live longer," Prescott-Mullen said.
She said she does not feel that this is discrimination.
"I feel that lower payouts protect women, because we could live longer. And I know that it's hard, but we have to learn to plan differently," Prescott-Mullen said.
