Fertility coverage has quietly become one of the perks companies brag about.

It shows up in job listings next to unlimited PTO, gets its own line in recruiter emails, lands in LinkedIn posts about "building a workplace that supports families." And that attention is earned, because fertility treatment is expensive, and a company helping to cover it is a good thing.

But a benefit that lives inside a job comes with fine print, and it's worth reading before you build a plan around it. There are two lines in particular most of us never think to check.

The first: how much is covered depends on where you work

Employer-provided fertility benefits are often far less than the headlines suggest. 

Among large employers that offer health benefits, about one in four (27%) cover IVF. At the larger companies, those with 5,000+ employees, that jumps to 53%. The reality is that the larger the employer, the better the odds of having fertility benefits. This leaves everyone at a smaller company, a startup, or a non-profit far less likely to have it at all.

And without coverage, the gap isn't small. A single round of IVF commonly runs $15,000 to $25,000 out of pocket, IUI lands closer to $1,500 to $2,000, and freezing your eggs tends to fall around $10,000 to $20,000 before yearly storage. Most people need more than one round, too. And "covered" rarely means "all of it." 

Plans routinely come with dollar caps, limits on how many cycles they'll pay for, and eligibility rules you have to clear before anything kicks in.

The second: benefits last as long as the job does

This is the line that catches people off guard. The benefit isn't owned by you. It’s owned by your job. 

The typical American has been with their employer just 3.9 years, and for workers aged 25 to 34 (squarely the window when a lot of us start thinking about a family) it's only 2.7 years. Gen Z in particular are likely to have more than 10 jobs in their lifetime, compared to previous generations averaging 1-3.

So you change companies for a better role, go freelance, get caught in layoffs, or move across state lines, and the coverage simply stops. State laws don't catch the fall either. Only fifteen states require insurers to cover IVF, those rules end at the state border, and they don't apply to self-funded plans – the kind run directly by the employer, which is how about 61% of people with workplace insurance are covered. 

A plan that stays when the job doesn't

This is the gap FLORA was built to close. FLORA is the first individually owned fertility insurance in the US, which means the plan belongs to you, not your employer. It holds steady through a new job, a freelance stretch, a move, or a quiet patch between roles, covering the fertility care you actually need. 

None of this makes your work benefit a bad thing, it's a genuine head start and more companies are adding real coverage every year. It just isn't the finish line yet.

So two small moves go a long way: Pull up your plan and actually read what it covers, the caps, the cycle limits, the eligibility rules, so you're never finding out mid-decision. And if you'd like coverage that doesn't clock out the day you do, ask your company about FLORA – the more of us who raise a hand, the faster that "yet" disappears.