Stride Health is incredibly honored to be a part of the White House Millennial Outreach and Engagement Summit (watch live here). In conjunction with today's summit, we want to share the successful strategies we've discovered in reaching young adults and helping them find affordable coverage.  

Reaching Millennials

43% of Stride Members are millennials (18-34). How did we reach and engage them?

We meet them where they work: Partnerships with On-Demand Platforms. Millennials view their careers differently than previous generations. 36% plan on starting their own business or becoming self-employed. 47% value flexibility above all in their careers. The desire for entrepreneurship and autonomy is driving millennial participation in the gig economy, in which one third of all millennials are independent workers. 

Stride partners with the largest gig economy platforms (like Uber, Postmates, Care.com, and Taskrabbit) to reach their millennial workforces directly. Part of that partnership includes educating their contractor base on how to find the right plan, effectively utilize subsidies, and manage their care all year-round. 

Branding that inspires and engages millennials: Stride’s ambassador program. Stride has teamed up with some of the world’s most daring adventure athletes to engage and educate active millennials about health insurance. So far Stride has collaborated with:

• Alex Honnold, world-renowned free climber
• Rich Roll, vegan Ultraman athlete (content partnership between Rich and his personal website and social channels)
• Evelyn Stevens, Olympian cyclist and three-time World Champion 

Content that educates and speaks to millennials and embraces diversity. In addition to our health recommendation engine and a team of member associates, we help millennials with understanding the most important steps in finding the right care.  Here are some examples: 

• Finding Healthcare at 26

• A Quick Guide to Buying Coverage as a Recent Graduate

• LGBTQ and Health Insurance

Insuring Millennials 

A product designed for how millennials shop and consume information.

Immediacy: Stride’s recommendation engine is mobile-first and allows you to access plan pricing and subsidy information almost immediately (in a way that’s less cumbersome compared to Healthcare.gov). 

Hand-holding at scale: The member experience team follows up with members to guide them via emails and calls to help them through the entire process. We even sit on the phone with insurance companies to solve medical billing errors or help them cancel their plan.

Simplifying the jargon: Stride’s brand is designed to cut through the jargon and mistrust of the traditional health insurance industry to take the fear out of getting their own health insurance. 

Looking forward: How to close the gap?

According to the most recent HHS statistics, 11% of millennials remain uninsured. As open enrollment nears how are we thinking about closing the gap?

Overcoming the fear of affordability. Many millennials don't know they qualify for subsidies or don't understand how to apply. That's why we're focused this open enrollment on making sure millennials understand exactly how much they qualify for and how to use tax credits so they don't let fear of high costs keep them uninsured.  

Encouraging them to comparison shop for the right plan (not just the cheapest). According to an Aflac study of insurance shopping, more people would rather clean toilets than find insurance. That's why we've completely redesigned the process of shopping for a plan with interactive tools to put each plan to the test (whether demonstrating the plans costs with scenarios like  a broken arm or diabetes) and highlight the most important pieces (like keeping your doctors and prescriptions covered). 

Utilizing their preventative care. Stride provides all members with a plan for utilizing preventative care based on their particular needs, whether its sexual health screening or massage and acupuncture. 

Helping with broader financial education around taxes and savings. One thing we learned early on is that financial and physical health are interlinked -- especially for millennials. That's why we've created a host of content around financial education and entirely new product (Stride Tax) to help on-demand workers better track tax deductions. This all goes towards better understanding income to get the most out of health subsidies.

Have ideas or feedback? We want to know: support@stridehealth.com