The $40 safety net – how this fertility insurance is changing the game for Gen-Zers

Let’s be real, so many fertility conversations focus on those who are already trying to get pregnant. But what if you’re not there yet, but you know you might want to protect your options for the future?

The best fertility insurance for individuals (but make it Gen Z)

TRB Founder Eloise sat down with Laura McDonald, Co-Founder of FLORA Fertility — the first individual fertility insurance built for the next generation — to talk about how this $40-a-month safety net is making fertility planning more accessible, affordable, and actually… kinda cool.

Watch as we dive into:

• What individual fertility insurance actually means (and why you probably haven’t heard of it yet).

• How FLORA is shaking up traditional health insurance.

• Who it’s for, and why Gen Z is leading the charge in planning ahead.

• How it fits perfectly with modern priorities around career, flexibility, and freedom.

• Why thinking about fertility before you’re ready to start trying can seriously pay off.

• What this “$40 safety net” really looks like in everyday life.

• Laura’s advice for taking control of your fertility journey on your terms.

The key takeaway? Don’t wait for permission to plan your future. Because now, thanks to FLORA Fertility, you don’t have to.

Whether you’re just curious, not ready yet, or all about that future-proofing energy, this convo is one to bookmark.

Want to know more about the best fertility insurance for individuals, or find out if you’re a fit for FLORA Fertility? Head to their website.

Want to hear more from FLORA Fertility? Read this next: Individual Fertility Insurance + 5 Boring/Crucial Tick-Offs

Transcript

Eloise Edington

Hi everybody, welcome. I am about to go live with Laura McDonald, who is one of the co-founders of Flora Fertility. Flora Fertility is fertility insurance for Gen Zers, and we’re going to be discussing how you can insure and have a safety net for your fertility for $40. So she will be joining any second. I’d love you to have your questions ready, and it’s great to be live. It’s been a while, so I’m really looking forward to this conversation. It’s such an innovative opportunity that they offer to people who want to look ahead and secure their future fertility. So, I’m just waiting for her to join now, and then we will be able to get going. If you have any questions for her whilst we’re live, please don’t hesitate to answer them. Love to know if you’ve heard about Flora Fertility and what you know so far. 

Welcome Laura!

Laura McDonald

How are you, Eloise? It’s so nice to see you.

Eloise Edington

So nice to see you, and we were together last week, weren’t we? At ASRM in Texas, USA, for an annual fertility conference. I’d love for you to introduce yourself. I’ve just given a little overview of Flora Fertility, but please do start by introducing yourself.

Laura McDonald

OK. Well, first of all, I have to say, before I introduce myself, it was my first ASRM conference, and Eloise and I have only connected via email. And so had to kind of find each other in a room, and I saw this beautiful woman with this beautiful headband, and I thought, “That is Eloise.” So, I was so happy. I was truly so happy to have you there with me for that first conference. We had a couple fun nights.

Eloise Edington

We did.

Laura McDonald

No, thank you for having me. I’m Laura McDonald, the co-founder of Flora Fertility. We have spent the past, you know, we can go into what we’re doing, but it’s the first personally owned private fertility coverage on the market. We think it’s so important for women in particular and families to own their reproductive health outcomes, and we’re really here to make that happen.

Eloise Edington

Absolutely. So, a $40 safety net. I want to ask you all about it because it is a game-changer for Gen Z. So, what is individual fertility insurance, and why has it not existed until now?

Laura McDonald

Yeah, it is definitely brand new. So there’s a bit of education that needs to happen around it. Well, just to give you a bit of genesis around this, myself and my co-founder, Dr. Christy Lane, we have seven children between us. Yet, our kids range between the ages of four and 20. So, I have that Gen Z generation: 20-year-olds, 18-year-olds, and so forth. Your timeline is never what you think it’ll be, or your journey, your path.

A few years ago, we were both thinking about, “How do people afford fertility treatment?” Christy, because she had been through it. Myself, I was seeing a close family member go through it, and it just depletes — you’re either using debt or credit cards, or it depletes savings that you have that you should be using, saving, and needing when you actually have your kids.

We looked at the existing landscape, and to fund fertility treatment, you either have loans and financing. Maybe better than a credit card, but you’re still paying interest. You’re still paying in full. And then on the insurance side, we’ve seen a fair amount of momentum, which is great news in the past five years or so. But, it’s either been group benefits through typically Fortune 500 companies, which is great if you work for a big company, but nobody wants to be tied to that company forever, and more people are moving jobs, gig economy, and so forth.

On the insurance side, the only products that really were available to individuals were more money-back guarantees around IVF. Those certainly have a place, but when you look at the grand scheme, it doesn’t necessarily make it more affordable and accessible.

We said, “What if we built a private sort of coverage and think of it almost like critical illness or even pet insurance — as odd as that sounds — that you could buy at an earlier age, would be very affordable, and it would protect your future risk.” We’re seeing that in women, even as early as 23, 70% of them are thinking about fertility, they’re looking into it.

Essentially, we had to spend many years building up risk models. We have incredible reinsurers backing the products, but for as little as $15/month, you can have $50,000 of coverage available to you down the road, if you need treatment. It’s really changing the game in how we fund fertility treatment for the next generation.

Eloise Edington

I agree, because you insure your health generally. So why would you not want to insure your fertility, especially as we know there’s more and more awareness about challenges people are facing throughout many years of late 20s through to 40s?

Laura McDonald

Yes, 100%. Not even do we insure our health, we insure our phone, our iPad, we’re insuring so many things. Why are we not looking at this? For many, it’s become the third biggest expense, even for parents. Why would you not insure that for your young adult kids? You’re saving for education, you’re saving for retirement, and then fertility is that next biggest expense many people will face, even as many as one in five.

I think you talked about that. You mentioned fertility awareness. It’s so interesting to me because 20-some years ago, people weren’t talking about it, and they are now. But that’s in many cases because we didn’t have that many kids who were even born from reproductive treatments back then. The oldest IVF baby is in their 40s, and now we’re having this new generation reaching adulthood because they were born, because their parents went through fertility treatment. They’re very aware, on top of the fact that they’re waiting to have kids in their 30s in many cases.

Eloise Edington

I mean having children sort of almost of that generation, is that something that you would advocate and want them to do for themselves?

Laura McDonald

100%, absolutely. My daughters, I have three daughters and a son — my daughter’s on the older side. A lot of what we build takes into account what they’re thinking about, what resonates with them. In many cases, you can’t even afford a home in your 20s, let alone build a family, let alone settle down with somebody. We’re often hearing from women as young as 21, 22, 23: “Should I be freezing my eggs? Should I be worried about my fertility?” As they reach into their later 20s and 30s, it certainly becomes even more prevalent.

Eloise Edington

Absolutely. For people who say, “Well, how does this differ from my regular health insurance?” What’s your response to that?

Laura McDonald

Most health insurance plans simply don’t have the coverage that you need. Sixty to 80% of people actually have no coverage. If you are fortunate to have some degree through a workplace plan or maybe the state you reside in offers some degree of coverage, think of FLORA as an add-on to that that can’t be taken away from you. It’s in your name. For example, life insurance that you own versus owned by your employer or attached to your mortgage. Owned by you. No matter what happens, political whims or employer has to cut back, you’re let go, it’s in your name. If you need coverage down the road and we’re able to issue that policy to you, you have up to $50,000 to cover that treatment.

Eloise Edington

This is a good question. Can people access this before they’ve done fertility testing or after? How does that side of things work? As an example, someone who might not yet be diagnosed, or maybe diagnosed with PCOS or endometriosis in their 20s, are they able to take this insurance out?

Laura McDonald

It’s part of the underwriting process. First, we look at age. To buy a policy, you have to be between the age of 20 to 34. We will be expanding that age, but right now, 20 to 34. If you do get a policy, you can use it up to 45. But, that’s your eligibility to apply. Then there’s some knockout questions. If you are currently in the process of undergoing fertility treatment or have been diagnosed as infertile, I would love to support you, but from an insurance perspective, we can’t. We will be looking at other solutions down the road, but we can’t.

In terms of underlying medical conditions that might contribute to infertility, like PCOS, diabetes, dysmenorrhea, many cases we can underwrite you. A good percentage of people get straight through processing. If you don’t really have any degree of underlying risk, it’s mostly age and being proactive, you’ll get a policy issued within 10 minutes online. If we need to send you through medical underwriting, we will, with a lot of sensitivity, ask about those underlying conditions, get to have a better understanding of it. And in up to 80% plus of cases we’ve seen, we have been able to issue a policy. PCOS, we can underwrite. Endometriosis, we have to look into a bit further. Again, diabetes, some degree of other conditions, absolutely. It just really depends on the individual.

The last criteria we look at is lifestyle.That won’t lead to decline, but we want to understand your baseline. There are certain variables known to affect fertility related to lifestyle. That’s more so once you become a policyholder, can we engage with you to improve some of those metrics, so we can increase your chances of conceiving.

Eloise Edington

OK. Someone just said, “What a great idea.” It is a great idea. And it’s one of those lightbulb moments where you think, “How does this not exist?”

Laura McDonald

100%. We hear that all the time that it does not exist. First of all, insurance — I have to tie in, I’m a bit of an insurance geek, I never thought I’d love it so much. But I think, insurance at its best, it’s community, right? It’s people coming together to fund one another’s risk. We can look at it in that sense. You might never need to use it, but the fact that you never used it meant that another person did. So, really look at it in that perspective. The reason it didn’t exist is that we had to bring together incredible amount of expertise, data sets, and IP to build these novel risk models. Insurance companies are used to life insurance and critical illness — they have mortality tables. When you’re building a new insurance product, I can’t emphasize enough the hurdles that you have to get through for clients and regulatory. But we’ve been able to do that, and we have incredible risk partners who are taking on that security around paying out future claims. 

We are so grateful and excited to fully bring this to the U.S. as our first market and then expand to other countries from there.

Eloise Edington

And that was my question. You mentioned who would be eligible from an age perspective and criteria, I guess. Geographically, you’re in the U.S. and then expanding.

Laura McDonald

U.S. first. Each market is a bit different in terms of who your partners might be and how the product is structured, but we are basically licensed across the U.S. for distribution. I should say, “You can go to heyflora.com, you can apply for a policy.” I’m going to say this is still in beta sandbox mode. If you’re experiencing any kinks in the process, reach out to us. We’re learning from this. We’ve issued policies, bound them, but we’re still in these early stages of issuing policies. For us, likely Canada is our secondary market, and then overseas from there. I’m based in Canada, though the U.S. is our first market. 

Eloise Edington

You mentioned for some Gen Zers, obviously, finances can be tight, and the cost of living, etc. So for those who think it’s a cost per month, what would you say? My thoughts are maybe it’s one less coffee a week, something like that, to know that you’re putting that money towards something that you could need as a security blanket in the future. 

Laura McDonald

Absolutely. We’ve tried to be very thoughtful around the cost and how we built the model. For example, on the lowest end, it might be as little as $15/month. Now, that’s typically for someone around 20 years old. We know their disposable income is very little, or it might be parents buying it on their behalf. The reason you buy it younger is you probably have less stringent underwriting, and your life insurance, you’re locking in that cost for the policy. The average policy is around $30–$40/month. You can go as high as $70 if you’re in your 30s. But, $30–$40/month, I mean, we are spending on a yoga class in many cases costs $20 to $30. A pricey coffee $10. Lashes, nails, everything we spend on as a monthly expense costs so much. So we would say, absolutely, this is an investment in yourself. 

And beyond that, when you buy a FLORA policy, immediately you’re enrolled in a community we have called the Gen F Society. There, we are partnered with amazing providers of women’s health like UVA, Dame & Day, and Birdie, and they provide exclusive discounts on their products that you couldn’t get elsewhere. Free products in many cases, and those offerings will expand over time. So our goal is that you get value from day one, and hopefully, you don’t have to go through fertility treatment. That is very challenging to go through. But if you do, you know you’re covered. So, we’re really looking at merging that community and value from day one with capital down the road, if you need to undergo treatment.

Eloise Edington

I think you’ve also mentioned something that is definitely worth highlighting. This is a generation where Gen Zers are writing their own narratives when it comes to timelines, so potentially settling down at a later date. Like you said, career, family, fertility, it doesn’t necessarily come in a certain order anymore. Those timelines shift depending on where you’re at, and we know people are starting to have children later and fertility issues are on the increase because of many factors, but that being one of them. So this is a way for people to keep building their career and lifestyle they want in their own time, with some reassurance that they have options, should they need it.

Laura McDonald

Absolutely. Actually, we went into a very initial brand, let’s say a couple of years ago, and we went through a whole rebrand. We worked with an incredible agency called Daughter, and we did a ton of research with our waitlist users, it’s a demographic we’re targeting. The concept that we came up with there was a number of them with this plus sign; obviously, that’s a positive pregnancy test. It’s more that you are and will be so many things in life, and motherhood isn’t just one of them or is maybe just one of them. We’re here to help you live and love on your own timeline. One loves, multiple loves, live wherever in the world, multiple careers, before you decide if you want to build a family. Actually, I brought this to show some of our merch. This is a crumpled-up version, but we have this bag, this little tote bag.

Eloise Edington

Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s backwards. 

Laura McDonald

It’s so cute, it’s “Maybe, Baby.” It’s really this concept of maybe you want a baby down the road? Maybe you don’t? We often don’t know, but you want optionality around that. Yes, create your own timeline, rewrite your timeline. It’s a very different world than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago.

Eloise Edington

And, what about egg freezing?

Laura McDonald

That’s such a good question. Egg freezing, while we support it, we think it has a lot of value and place; we cannot cover elective egg freezing. The reason for that is, if you were to buy, just from a purely mathematical, actuarial perspective, our premiums would have to be really, really high to cover that. 

If you were to buy a policy for $20/month, and then immediately everybody engages in $15,000, your reserves would be completely depleted for those treatments down the road. We’re looking at ways of incorporating it at some point. But what we want to say about egg freezing is this. It’s getting a lot of attention as a way to ensure your future fertility. I had this young woman come up to me, and she said, “I’m in my 20s, and I’m seeing all these ads and reports that I should freezing my eggs. I really don’t know what to do. It’s kind of scary, it’s invasive, it’s expensive.” And she said, “What you made me realize is that I actually just need to ensure the insurance policy for my future fertility.” 

We kind of look at it as this. If you’re in your 20s, in many cases, maybe you don’t need to undergo egg freezing right away. If you choose to? Absolutely. Think of FLORA as an alternate to that. Very affordable, you’re not investing $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, you’re investing $20-$30/month. If you decide to undergo egg freezing, good news. If you have a FLORA policy and you decide you need to use those eggs in the future, you’ll be covered. And, if you’ve already frozen your eggs, I would suggest you should absolutely apply for a FLORA policy if you’re still within that timeframe, because your risk to us is probably still one that we can offer you a policy. If you need to use those eggs in the future, you will have that treatment covered.

That’s how we’re addressing egg freezing right now. Will our coverage expand over time to possibly try to include it? We hope so. But at this point, purely elected egg freezing is not covered. 

Eloise Edington

Where did the name FLORA Fertility come from?

Laura McDonald

Such a good question. We were actually called Franka for a long time; that was our working title based off of our beautiful little girl who was born through fertility treatment, who was the inspiration for the product. When we decided to incorporate and fully move forward to establish a website, it was close to home for that name. So we thought, “What would reflect Franka, but be a different name?” FLORA, of course, represents spring, blooming, and growth. Both growth of families, babies, and a company. That’s where FLORA came to be.

Eloise Edington

So lovely to hear that. It reminds me of springtime as well, and the same sentiments. So, for people who might be on the fence, not knowing whether now might be a good time to think about future fertility, even if they’re not actively trying to conceive at this moment, what would you advise?

Laura McDonald

With any insurance policy, you always want to apply when you’re in a good position of risk, if you will. It’s going to be the most affordable, and the most likely you’ll be able to secure a policy if you’re just being proactive about it. So that’s again why if you decide to apply for a FLORA policy at a younger age — whether for you, you’re 22 or 27 — you’re going to lock in a lower policy fee for the duration.

But I would say really think about investing in your future. You can stop the policy any time if you decide it’s no longer a fit for you. You just stop paying the premiums, and the coverage ends. But invest in your future. Rewrite your timeline. Know that a huge percentage of us will experience fertility challenges. It just is what it is. And we will have your back. We will have you protected. And as the product grows, ideally, we’ll be increasing coverage, partnering with clinics who can provide preferred access. Join a community that’s really supporting women’s health and reproductive health, and we can grow together in that space. 

Eloise Edington

Amazing. And any advice that you would give to Gen Zers when it comes to protecting fertility? If they’re not ready for a family right now, is there any kind of key takeaways that you’d like people to think about or explore?

Laura McDonald

Such a good question, I have to think that through. Just when I talk to my own daughters, one I want them to focus on try to take some worries away. Focus on being the healthiest you you can. Focus on living your life, living your dreams. 

I’m a big proponent of insurance and really owning your reproductive health outcomes. You haven’t really been able to do that before. I strongly believe that private coverage makes a lot of sense for people. We’re seeing so many people that are joining companies to access fertility benefits, and they might actually use that coverage for egg freezing and then they have none left or the company lets them go.

We’re seeing a ton of layoffs and people having a hard time finding jobs. I would want my kids to take whatever jobs are meaningful to them, to go build businesses, to move around jobs. The average person will have 12 jobs in their lifetime. Don’t have your fertility outcomes or reproductive health entirely tied to your employer. It’s amazing if they can support it, and actually FLORA does work with employers who help pay for the premiums, but it’s still in your name. So, there is that avenue. But take it into your own hands. It’s the least you can do for yourself.

Eloise Edington

I love that advice. I think that’s a key thing here. People being able to use this insurance for them personally and take it where they go, rather than losing it if they leave a job or are let go, like you mentioned.

Laura McDonald

Absolutely.

Eloise Edington

I strongly advise people to read more about this, ask questions, head to our link in bio, find out more about FLORA Fertility. Laura would be very happy to answer any questions that you have. Feel free to DM us, message FLORA, and we can put you in touch, you can find out more information. This could be viable for so many people, like you mentioned, and a great opportunity — even ahead of potentially starting to try to conceive.

Is there anything else you’d like to cover or you think we should mention?

Laura McDonald

You know what. Just know that we have built this with so much passion and purpose and wanting to help. As the co-founder, along with my team and Dr. Christie, my co-founder, we welcome you reaching out. If this resonates with you and you see some application for either your work or your community, reach out to me on LinkedIn. We’re here to learn, get feedback, and we would love to support the next generation of parents. Have open communication with us. We are excited to serve you and expand our offering and to help that next generation moving forward.

Eloise Edington

That’s amazing. Likewise, at The Ribbon Box, we’re here to give people options and resources. This is exactly that. It’s so innovative, really, really exciting for what’s to come. Thank you for everything you’re doing for the community. We look forward to hearing more as it develops into more countries. 

Laura McDonald

Thank you. Thank you, Eloise. And of course, such a fan of everything you’re doing. Thank you for having me today. 

Eloise Edington

Lovely to chat with you. Thanks to all those who are watching. See you soon. Thanks. Bye-bye.