For the month of March, we’re looking into women’s history in the insurance industry. Women have played crucial roles going all the way back to the 17th century, despite it being a system that was not designed to include us. When women began entering the industry, they had limited access to financial protection, professional opportunity and any kind of leadership roles. But they remained present and persistent.
For much of the 19th and early 20th century, women faced significant barriers both as policyholders and professionals. Life insurance was built around the idea of a male breadwinner, completely ignoring women’s economic contributions. Married women needed their husbands permission to purchase policies, were often charged higher premiums, or denied coverage altogether. Slowly but surely, women worked together to enter and ultimately reshape the industry.
The earliest record of a woman purchasing insurance is from 1869 when Susan B. Anthony took out a life insurance policy. At a time when women had very limited financial and legal autonomy, it now marks the growing belief that women deserved control over their own economic security.
Shortly after in 1870, Nancy H. Adsit became one of the first known women to work in the industry. She took over her husband's insurance agency after his death and successfully ran the business, challenging cultural norms and assumptions about women's ability to lead and manage financial enterprises.
By the late 19th century, women began creating institutions to serve one another. In 1892, Bina West Miller founded the Woman’s Benefit Association, later known as the Woman’s Life Insurance Society. It was first in the United States to offer life insurance specifically for women, recognizing needs that mainstream insurers largely ignored.
In the early 1900s the insurance industry was expanding, and became early adopters of women in the office place, filling clerical and administrative roles. These roles were more respectable, stable and offered better pay than factory work, however- they were blocked from the ability to advance. Early female agents were seen as temporary, and frequently mocked in trade publications.
Despite this, women continued to pursue careers and advance however they could. During this turn of the century we begin to see some important early pioneers emerging. Edna Blanchard Lewis began her career as an agent and then went on to establish the Women’s Insurance Department, a brokerage that employed only women. Georgia Emery led the women’s department at Massachusetts Life Insurance Company. By targeting female clients, which was a largely untapped market, she advanced quickly and became known as the “Dean of American Business Women”.
Many cultural shifts began expanding the female presence in the workplace.
In the 1920s following the Women's Suffrage Movement, companies slowly started expanding policies for women and hiring more female employees, with citizenship and legal status the role as policyholder and professional was more legitimized. During WWII, when the men in the workplace were drafted, women began to fill their places in underwriting, accounting and administrative roles. Women were able to prove their capability across the industry. However, when the men returned from war, most women were pushed back into their lower-level roles.
In 1947, Mildred McAfee Horton became the first woman to serve on the board of a major insurance company, New York Life. Her appointment to this position marked a slow but important shift toward women’s inclusion in executive leadership.
Virginia Mae Brown Viola G. Turner
The 1960s brought further breakthroughs. In 1961, Virginia Mae Brown became the first woman insurance commissioner in the United States, expanding women's influence into regulation and public policy. Around the same time, Viola G. Turner became the first woman vice president at NC Mutual, a major win for not only women in business but also women of color. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on sex, laying the groundwork for broader structural change. In the decades that followed, women challenged gender-based underwriting and pricing practices that charged higher premiums or restricted coverage.
By the 1970s and 1980s, women were earning top sales honors and gaining membership in the elite organizations, like the Million Dollar Round Table, finally being recognized as high-performing professionals, rather than support staff.
Today, women serve as CEOs, commissioners, founders and advocates across the insurance industry. Professional networks and advocacy organizations continue a long tradition of women supporting one another, advancing and then reaching down to pull each other up. While much progress has been made, modern challenges like pay equity, leadership gaps and representation have deep historical roots, and much room for improvement. Insurance has long represented more than financial protection; for women, it has been a tool for independence, stability and self-determination.
We honor the women who challenged norms, built institutions, and opened doors. Their legacy continues to shape the industry today, reminding us that meaningful progress is rarely linear- but always worth pursuing.
Sources:
https://www.newyorklife.com/newsroom/womens-history-suffrage-to-gender-equality
https://ahgp.org/women/women_lecturers.html
https://miwf.org/celebrating-women/michigan-womens-hall-of-fame/bina-west-miller/
https://archive.org/details/vocationsfortra01perkgoog/page/n216/mode/2up
https://miwf.org/celebrating-women/michigan-womens-hall-of-fame/georgia-emery/
https://www.newyorklife.com/newsroom/first-female-director
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-mn-2755-story.html
https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/turner-viola-mitchell-1900-1988/