In this episode, I sit down with Laura McDonald, co-founder of Flora Fertility, the first individually owned insurance solution for fertility and women's health. Laura is a bestselling author, former financial media personality, and the founder of Canada's largest financial media company focused on women and wealth, which she built, scaled, and sold. Now she is tackling one of the most urgent and under-discussed financial crises facing the next generation: the cost of fertility care.
We talk about why 72% of Gen Z women are already thinking about fertility anxiety before they are even trying to conceive, why the current group benefits model is failing most employees, how Flora Fertility is changing that with individually owned coverage starting at $15 a month, and what HR leaders and parents can actually do right now.
If you manage Gen Z employees, have a young adult daughter, or are a young woman thinking about your own options, this conversation will change the way you look at reproductive health as a financial planning issue.
What you'll learn in this episode:
- Why Gen Z women are thinking about fertility earlier than any generation before them
- The data behind the fertility financial crisis (and why the existing employer model isn't solving it)
- How Flora Fertility works and why individual ownership changes everything
- Why the average Gen Z employee's 12-job career makes employer-tied benefits a broken model
- What HR leaders should be doing right now, and what parents can do too
CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction and guest bio
01:04 Laura's origin story: from financial media to fertility insurance
07:20 Why Gen Z women are thinking about fertility by age 23: the data
10:24 Tess's theory on how Gen Z women approach life differently than Gen X
12:41 Laura's own daughters and the reality of Gen Z's mindset around family
14:35 Birth rates, delayed motherhood, and what the data actually shows
16:31 Why women are finally being honest about what parenthood really looks like
19:18 The conversation parents need to be having with their 22-24 year old daughters
20:34 How Flora Fertility works: pricing, coverage, and the set-it-and-forget-it model
23:23 The financial reality: 80% of people pay for IVF on credit cards
25:32 How financial stress directly affects fertility outcomes
26:06 Why Fortune 500 fertility benefits are not the solution most people think they are
31:12 Emotional intelligence, pet insurance, and why Flora resonates differently
33:37 How Flora is earning trust with a generation skeptical of insurance
37:54 Why Flora may be the first financial product Gen Z women ever actually buy
40:25 The gig economy, 12 jobs, and why benefits have to travel with you
41:45 What HR leaders should be doing right now
43:55 Parents as policyholders: gifting coverage to adult children
Follow for weekly episodes, and be sure to visit tessbrigham.com to learn more about Tess's work as a licensed therapist and certified coach.
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