
Company Overview
Meg Mueller is Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer at Lotus Fertility, a company at the intersection of financial and family planning, Lotus Fertility Insurance is the next-gen life insurance solution for proactive fertility health management.
Their flagship product, Fertility Protectâ„¢, is a white-label life insurance rider covering treatments like IVF and egg freezing. Partnering with Lotus empowers carriers to differentiate their offerings and rapidly meet growing demand. Our streamlined implementation minimizes carrier burden, while our data-driven approach ensures comprehensive, cost-effective benefits. Learn more at www.insuredbylotus.com.
Can you tell us a little about your background before starting your company?
Over the course of more than a decade at State Farm, I worked in both agency leadership and led modernization initiatives, focusing on driving organizational transformation and operational excellence. Alongside my corporate work, I volunteered as Co-Managing Director for the Circle of Intrapreneurs, a global organization empowering employees in large corporations to achieve both business success and social impact. In this role, I nurtured a community of purpose-driven intrapreneurs, helping organizations align commercial objectives with positive societal outcomes. This experience inspired me to found Whistle, an innovation consulting firm specializing in custom innovation programs and leadership development for organizations and nonprofits.
My dedication to social innovation also led me to serve as an advisor to the World Economic Forum, contributing to the design of the Uplink Corporate Social Innovation Challenge. Additionally, I partnered with Meta to facilitate a global hackathon, bringing together diverse teams to address pressing challenges through innovative solutions. My background extends to the startup ecosystem as well, where I worked with an IoT startup and advised LinkedIn Pulse on strategic platform engagement.
How did you start your company? What were the first steps you took to get it off the ground and how did you identify the need for your product/service in the market?
I was thrilled to join Cally Myhrum as a co-founder of Lotus Fertility, which was founded in 2024 with the mission to expand access to affordable fertility care through our flagship product, Fertility ProtectTM.
The genesis of Lotus came from Cally’s personal experience with looking into freezing her eggs. At the same time, she was dealing with significant out-of-pocket expenses related to her own fertility care that weren’t covered by her employer-sponsored health insurance. This experience made her question why fertility care isn’t considered part of overall healthcare and why there wasn’t a supplemental fertility insurance product available. She found it curious that the insurance industry had developed products like pet insurance but not fertility insurance.
Cally’s background in human-centered design and strategic thinking led her to believe that the business model for fertility insurance already existed – it just hadn’t been applied to fertility yet. This curiosity evolved into a “deep conviction” that there was no good reason for this gap in the market, and that it was primarily due to “long-standing misconceptions and misunderstandings about fertility.” When we met, the synergy between our backgrounds was immediate and we both shared a vision to restore insurance to its noble purpose and to build a company we would be proud to work for.
The first major steps in getting Lotus Fertility off the ground were participating in XchangePGH at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, during which we built and conducted customer surveys. This was followed by our acceptance into the Global Insurance Accelerator (GIA). This experience proved invaluable: it enabled us to refine our business model with a focus on innovative fertility insurance coverage, while also facilitating connections with insurance industry experts, regulators, and potential partners. We also forged an alliance with Magee-Womens Research Institute, a global leader in reproductive health, that helped inform our products’ benefit design.
From the outset, our strategy has centered on research, collaboration, and leveraging our complementary strengths to build solutions that make a meaningful difference for individuals facing fertility challenges.
What innovations or unique features set your company apart from others in the industry?
Lotus Fertility distinguishes itself through a groundbreaking approach to fertility insurance that fundamentally reimagines how financial protection for fertility care is structured and delivered. Unlike traditional health insurance models that treat fertility reactively, Lotus has pioneered a proactive fertility protection model built on a life insurance foundation. By integrating fertility benefits as a distinct but integrated component alongside the death benefit, we’ve created a portable solution that empowers individuals to take control of their fertility journey with education, early intervention, and true financial protection for their future families.
What truly sets Lotus apart is our proprietary actuarial risk model and underwriting engine, developed in partnership with leading fertility scientists, creates a sustainable insurance framework for a previously uninsurable risk. Our white-label solution enables insurance carriers to embed fertility protection into their existing distribution channels. This B2B approach makes it exceptionally easy for carriers to offer fertility coverage.
Perhaps most distinctively, Lotus addresses a significant market gap by creating portable coverage that individuals own regardless of employment changes. This portability is crucial in today’s dynamic job market where people typically change employers every few years, ensuring continuous fertility protection throughout life transitions.
Finally, our holistic approach integrating fertility coaching, mental health support, and educational resources positions fertility protection as part of comprehensive financial planning rather than merely a healthcare expense. This perspective shift helps normalize fertility care as an essential component of life planning, particularly resonating with younger demographics experiencing widespread fertility anxiety.
What has been the most effective strategy for scaling your business?
 Our complementary leadership dynamic has been our foundation. Cally brings strategic vision and big-picture thinking, and I excel at execution and integration. Our strategic partnerships have accelerated our timeline dramatically. Bringing in specialized expertise at the right moments has been crucial as they help us navigate complex regulatory and technical challenges while keeping our core team lean and focused. Building a company is a marathon, not a sprint, and having the right scaling strategies makes all the difference.
Looking ahead, what are your goals for the future of your company?
Our goal is to make fertility protection as common and accessible as life insurance with Fertility Protectâ„¢. We’re addressing the $9 billion gap in the US fertility protection market by creating a comprehensive insurance solution that provides financial protection for family building.
Beyond just creating a successful business, we aim to revolutionize how people approach fertility planning by making it proactive rather than reactive. We want to reduce fertility-related claims through education and early intervention. Ultimately, we want to build a company that helps millions of people achieve their dreams of building families without facing financial devastation.
Most importantly, Cally and I are focused on building a company with integrity and purpose. As we grow, maintaining our values and the human element of what we do will remain central to our identity. It’s about creating a successful business while also making a meaningful difference in people’s lives.