Friday, November 8th, 2024
According to the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society, nearly one in six Canadians will experience some form of infertility. A Calgary-based startup called Flora Fertility is actively working to combat this reality by providing individualized fertility insurance to women aged 20 to 44 who seek coverage for diagnostics, medications, and various forms of treatment.
Flora Fertility was founded in 2023 by Laura J. McDonald and Christy Lane, who joined together to create an innovative solution to the costly avenues that currently exist to help conceive, such as in vitro fertilization (“IVF”) and intrauterine insemination (“IUI”). McDonald stated this form of innovation is necessary as most fertility insurance programs target Fortune 500 companies, resulting in many small and medium-sized businesses being unable to provide comparable benefits to gig economy workers.
Flora Fertility has endeavoured to create the first individually-owned fertility insurance policy. To do so, Flora Fertility contracts with various insurance carriers that distribute policies through channel partners such as women’s health apps, affinity organizations, or small to medium-sized business employer groups. Such policies then get uploaded to Flora Fertility’s online platform, where a unique InsurTech program called Managing General Agent (“MGA”), filters through the available policies using a proprietary underwriting engine to provide swift quoting and coverage approvals. Through this program, Flora Fertility can provide individually-owned policies that ensure individuals maintain coverage regardless of changes in employment or personal circumstances.
Earlier this month, Flora Fertility raised $1.5 million CAD in pre-seed funding led primarily by Highline Beta, along with other co-investments by Cartography Capital and Everywhere Ventures. The startup hopes to use such proceeds to build up its underwriting engine and claims platform in anticipation of its launch next year into the United States, and later Canada.
Author: Molly Podrebarac, 2024-2025 Articling Student