[INTRO MUSIC]
[On-screen text: Health Trend Talks with UnitedHealthcare]
[Video preview of the upcoming conversation]
ALISON KOSUP: Try and think a little outside the box. We’re at a place where consumer-driven healthcare is really quite saturated, works for a lot of individuals. UnitedHealthcare has fantastic solutions in that space, and we're going to continue to sort of innovate there. I would recommend that you think differently about how you can offer benefits, because legacy thoughts on some network solutions or plan designs that maybe don't work, I don't know if they're really in touch with what employees want today.
[On-screen text: Health Trend Talks with UnitedHealthcare]
[Animation, frequency waves moving]
[Craig Kurtzweil speaking on screen]
[On-screen text: Craig Kurtzweil, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, UnitedHealthcare Employer & Individual
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Welcome to Health Trend Talks with UnitedHealthcare, a video podcast series where I sit down with leaders in the industry to unpack the trends shaping employer benefit strategies. I'm Craig Kurzweil, our Chief Data and Analytics Officer for UnitedHealthcare's commercial business, and I'm joined today by Alison Kosup, our Chief Product Officer, who will share how our team is using data and market trends to drive innovation in the employer-sponsored market. Alison, thanks for joining us.
ALISON KOSUP: Thanks for having me, Craig. This is great.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Well, you and I go back a long, long time, but for the audience members that don't know you as well as I do, could you tell a little bit more about yourself and what you do for UnitedHealthcare?
[Craig Kurtzweil and Alison Kosup sitting in a recording studio set, speaking into microphones, having a conversation]
[On-screen text: Alison Kosup, Chief Product Officer, UnitedHealthcare Employer & Individual]
ALISON KOSUP: Sure, yeah. Ultimately, my team is in charge of the products we offer through UHC's employer and individual business. And really, we're ensuring that they drive real value to employers while balancing a robust consumer experience and ensure that it's simple and easy for our members to navigate.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Well, let's maybe start at the top. When you think about the direction that you take and you take with your team, you sit at the intersection of a lot of different data. So there's data we have in our claims experience around what the trends and drivers look like. You're getting a lot of data broadly from the market. I'm sure you hear a lot from our sales teams that are all talking to clients. Clients themselves are coming to you directly. How do you balance those insights and what are you leaning into right now to kind of really guide where product needs to go?
ALISON KOSUP: It’s a great question. You’ve got to kind of separate the signal from the noise, right? And right now in healthcare, the tension between the costs and affordability focused on employers and what members are looking for, which is really simplified and streamlined, is the most I've seen it in my time in the business. So, where we try to go is what is going to advance our overall initiatives with our members. And what we're trying to do is, above all, remove friction points, remove some of the abrasion that we see out there, and get to a place where the benefits feel more supported, connected, and simple for our members.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: As part of those abrasion points, you play in a space where you have to balance a few things. So you have a lot of people, clients included, want a wide variety of different products and solutions that are out there. But in order to get to what you're talking about, a consumer experience that kind of meets their unique demands, it's hard to do that with a lot of different products. So how do you balance that?
ALISON KOSUP: I think the industry for a while has put more in the plan and the benefits that's led to some real complication for people sorting it out. And as our team is looking at what to focus on, we are thinking really about our entire product portfolio and looking at what we offer from the lens of what is the primary purpose of what this serves, how does it support members and employers, and is this advancing the cause of that product? And what we're really starting with is a lens that's different than historically how we've looked at things, which is can an everyday consumer understand the goal of this product, what it's looking to do, and where it's helping their health? And when it does, we're going to go further with that product. And when it doesn't, we're going to think about changes to how we support members going forward with that offering.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: One thing that I know your team is really focused on is how do we evolve to more meet a consumer choice agenda? As you think about that and you speak to the importance of consumer choice, how does that apply to the different products that you're offering to employers today?
ALISON KOSUP: I think we envision a future where people are able to sort of personalize, tailor, and customize their offerings more, where employers allow more flexibility in choice. And we think that looks like an evolution of opportunity for my benefit offering and plan design to look differently than yours. And we really think that that's where consumers expect healthcare to evolve to.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: As you think about the Surest product, that’s one way that it's helped propel UnitedHealthcare into this consumer choice agenda, as well as just simplifying healthcare. As you think about that product, how has that helped kind of change the way you think about what products we need to roll out?
ALISON KOSUP: I think Surest really kind of redefined what people's experience of healthcare can look like. I think it showed that really how we present benefits and help employees and consumers navigate healthcare really matters and can actually, frankly, improve affordability and trend.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: As you think about affordability, which is obviously front of mind for most of the employers out there, and consumer choice, what are some other ways that those two things are shaping the product offerings that you're developing?
ALISON KOSUP: I think the tension between affordability and consumer choice is really all I sit around and think about. And I think the challenge there is, historically, we've approached them as opposing forces. And going forward, I think we're thinking about how can we provide employers real cost certainty, controls over what their expectation of their trends would look like, while providing consumers flexibility, optionality, a bigger menu to choose from. And that's really where we're focusing on it. We think that we can really make a member have a much better, more supported healthcare experience while providing employers real control over their healthcare costs.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: As you think about the goals of employers today, sometimes they're thinking beyond just the traditional benefits that they've offered historically. What does that look like in your world, and what are some of those options that we're offering employers?
ALISON KOSUP: I think there's been a rise over the past, say, 10 years of employers thinking outside of just UnitedHealthcare. We were sort of on the front end of that trend with our UHC hub offering, allowing employers real ability to customize their solutions. And what we're thinking going forward is that will expand to a consumer. You talk to any workforce, you read the literature, employees are really thinking outside of just traditional health benefits. They want their employer to support sort of well-being generally. Eighty-five percent of employees view that as important as their benefit offering. And UHC has invested in the UHC store, which allows members the ability to customize those offerings to what really matters to them. We support it through a lifestyle spending account that allows an employer to put a set of funds aside for an employee, and I can decide to invest in, say, caregiving support if that's what's important to me and where I am in my sort of life cycle, versus perhaps, nutrition or sleep or mindfulness. Today's workforce really expects a different level of support from their employer around sort of well-being.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: So you're feeling the pressure on the consumer choice part of this. Employers, I know, are feeling the same pressure. How does that guide into what sort of products and offerings you think kind of help us meet that consumer choice part of it?
ALISON KOSUP: You can't operate anywhere in industry today without looking at how much consumers are expecting from their experiences. Experiences are foundational to everything. Everything's simple and easy. You can navigate everything on your phone. You can find connections that you never saw before. Then you have AI on top of that. Those expectations were already there, and now AI has really advanced what people are expecting from the businesses and the services they receive. So, as we're thinking about these offerings, we are working to ensure that what members see and feel from UnitedHealthcare is clear, simple, differentiated, and we have the thinking that can I explain this to my neighbor? Can I explain this to my husband? That's my barometer for everything we offer. Is this clear, simple, and easy enough that I can explain this to my friends, my husband, and my neighbor? And that's how we are sort of structuring our plan designs, our portfolio of solutions, and our products going forward.
[On-screen text: Craig Kurtzweil, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, UnitedHealthcare Employer & Individual]
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: So you have the consumer choice part of this, which I think we're doing a great job leaning into those types of benefits, like Surest, but then on the employer side, they’re balancing cost. And obviously affordability is a major issue. We have high trends the last couple of years in the healthcare space. So employers are leaning into maybe some unique options when it comes to how to drive affordability. So the terms that a lot of people are using right now, we have the defined contribution approach, and we have the defined benefit approach. Before we jump into what's what in those, would you mind just kind of explaining those two different ways to go about an employer strategy?
[On-screen text: Alison Kosup, Chief Product Officer, UnitedHealthcare Employer & Individual]
ALISON KOSUP: So the employer is the sponsor of health insurance, and the U.S. here has historically offered a plan design, a defined benefit. I think this is one of the most misunderstood parts of healthcare. The plan design, the features, the coverage limits, the scope is really at the employer's discretion. That's what defined benefit means. So most employers set the plan designs, the products and services they wish to offer their employees. They are not our choosing. We obviously offer them, but we do not choose them here at UnitedHealthcare. And that is obviously very prescriptive for what works for their employees. Defined contribution is a sort of the opposite approach to that. No longer such control and reins on what the plan design will look like. Moving to a space where an employer will say, okay, I am willing to pay this amount for you, so more certainty on the cost outlie from an employer's point of view, and then the member will then pick the benefits that make sense for them. So they're really very opposite offerings when you think about it. There's a real certainty for an employer on the defined contribution side, but a lot more unknowns from the member side on what benefits will fit in there.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Are there other benefits you can see when you think about the defined contribution approach that employers would value in that given the current model they're in today?
ALISON KOSUP: They have been asking for help managing affordability trends for a long time. And we have lots of solutions that can assist there. They're just very specific. And honestly, with today's sort of multi-generational workforce, not every solution works for every individual. So the nice thing about the defined contribution approach for an employer is certainty on cost outlay and, frankly, a little less declaring what benefits make sense for their entire population.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: It’s hard for an employer to understand whether it's the plan design they're offering or even what point solutions they offer. They’re figure out how do I create a solution that impacts the most people in the employee space.
ALISON KOSUP: Right.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: But it doesn't fit everybody. Everyone has different needs. So as you think about kind of those third-party solutions, how is UnitedHealthcare uniquely situated to kind of offer that kind of choice in this type of model?
ALISON KOSUP: So I think UnitedHealthcare was on the forefront of understanding sort of the rise of these solutions. There’s a lot out there to provide clinical support for workforces. We have an offering through the UnitedHealthcare Hub that allows employers to customize what we’re calling the jargon of point solutions. So an employer can decide to offer solutions for women's health alongside solutions for perhaps diabetes care, metabolic conditions, and do it in a sort of scalable and more simplified way. This gets really complicated really fast for the employer, and our solution there makes that as simple as possible to consider product offerings that maybe sit outside of UnitedHealthcare but can work in concert with our plan designs.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Just to lean a little bit more into the affordability focus that employers have right now, are there any other products or recommendations you would make for employers to really consider at this point to drive home affordability?
ALISON KOSUP: So I think try and think a little outside the box. We’re at a place where consumer-driven healthcare is really quite saturated, works for a lot of individuals. UnitedHealthcare has fantastic solutions in that space, and we're going to continue to sort of innovate there. And you have Surest-like plan designs coming out. I would recommend that you think differently about how you can offer benefits because legacy thoughts on some network solutions or plan designs that maybe don't work, I don't know if they're really in touch with what employees want today.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Well, I have a softball to end with you on. So as you think about trends that are out there that you're evaluating, what's a trend that you're adopting in your personal life, and maybe what's another trend that you're letting go of?
ALISON KOSUP: Okay. Well, so I think I'm going to talk about the young generation slang. I have a nine and a 12-year-old boys, those are my sons, and I am trying to keep up with what's cool and how they talk, and it is fast moving and difficult. And I can safely tell you that six-seven is out. Nobody says that anymore. When I say it to try to be cool, hip, and relevant, I'm promptly told I'm an unk—
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: I have heard that one, yeah.
ALISON KOSUP: Which is an old person, or we would say boomer, I think, right? I would say I'm trying to understand the language that they're now using around what's cool. And I'm a salesperson. I've spent many, many years in sales, my husband as well. And I'm really sad to tell you this, but selling is lame. Selling is doing bad. Selling is not good, it's not cool. They say that to me all the time. And interestingly enough, doing well is cooking. So I'm going to hopefully be cooking. I hope our podcast is cooking here.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: I love that.
ALISON KOSUP: Not selling. Yeah, it's difficult. I just try to get dangerous enough, like speaking a foreign language, that I can feign relevance. That's what I'm looking for here.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: See, I think that's just bias. My kids, in the same way, think analytics aren't cool. So, I think they probably think selling is cool. So maybe we just need to change that.
ALISON KOSUP: Let’s hope, right?
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: I always try to think about those terms that my daughter says all the time, but I can't actually use them because I'm worried I'm going to get the definitions wrong and say something I do not want to say. So I just avoid it altogether.
ALISON KOSUP: Another approach, which is not a bad one. They would say that's being chopped.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Chopped.
ALISON KOSUP: Being lame, chopped.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: All right. We've gotten very uncool. All right, Alison. Thank you for spending time with us today. I know your time is incredibly valuable.
[OUTRO MUSIC]
ALISON KOSUP: It was great. Thanks for having me, Craig.
CRAIG KURTZWEIL: And thank you for listening and watching. I'm Craig Kurzweil.
[On-screen text: Health Trend Talks with UnitedHealthcare]
[Animation, frequency waves moving]
This is Health Trend Talks podcast with UnitedHealthcare. And I'll see you again next time.
[On-screen text: Avery is an AI companion that uses generative artificial intelligence to provide general information and educational assistance. Avery’s responses may be incomplete or inaccurate and should not be relied upon as error-free. Averay is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, professional advice, a benefit determination, a guarantee of coverage, a referral, or an authorization for health care services. Avery is not a substitute for the advice or judgement of your health care provider or other qualified professionals. Coverage and benefits are subject to the terms, conditions, limitations, and exclusions of your applicable health plan. Employee benefits including group health plan benefits may be taxable benefits unless they fit into specific exception categories. Please consult with your tax specialist to determine taxability of these offerings. Insurance coverage provided by or through UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company or its affiliates. Administrative services provided by United HealthCare Services, Inc. or their affiliates. B2B E1266467550 7/26 ©2026 United HealthCare Services Inc., All Rights Reserve. 26-22449908]
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