Kevin Thompson, CEO of 9i Capital Group: “Health insurance is unnecessarily convoluted and needs to be made simpler”

Older Gen Z adults are outsourcing one of adulthood’s most confusing tasks: choosing a health insurance plan. And according to reporting from Newsweek, they’re doing it by asking artificial intelligence to sort through the jargon, trade-offs and fine print.

The approach may look rather modern, but the motivations behind it are old and familiar. The system is hard to understand.

How AI is deciding healthcare

A recent Justworks and Harris Poll survey found that almost two thirds of “zillennials” – yes, that’s what we’re calling them – would prefer AI assistance when selecting coverage. Many are choosing plans for the first time and, as the data shows, most don’t feel prepared.

More than half of Gen Z respondents said they know little about how to compare policies, while just less than half admitted they don’t put much thought into the choice at all.

Reasons to use AI for healthcare

Before you jump to conclusions, this behaviour is said not to be laziness, it’s exasperation. Experts told Newsweek that low health literacy is widespread, even among well-educated Americans. Policies come wrapped in dense terminology and inconsistent rules, making the stakes of a wrong choice difficult to grasp. AI, by contrast, can quickly break down premiums, copays and coverage scenarios in plain language.

But Kevin Thompson, CEO of 9i Capital Group, argues that the reliance on AI is a symptom of a deeper flaw.

“This is equivalent to the ‘easy button’ we used to see on those Staples commercials,” he says. “Health insurance is unnecessarily convoluted and needs to be made simpler for not only the Gen Z population, but for all individuals.”

The risk, he believes, is that AI may guide users toward plans that don’t actually meet their needs because they don’t know what details to provide in the first place. For Thompson, the solution isn’t more sophisticated tools. It’s simpler, more transparent insurance – for everyone, not just Gen Z.

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