Certua Life has launched as the first new protection-focused life insurer to be authorised in the UK in nearly two decades, entering a market where most adults still lack formal financial protection.
The London-based startup combines a UK life insurance licence with technology designed to embed life cover into third-party digital services, such as baking apps, savings platforms, employee benefits portals and wealth management tools. Certua Life is positioning itself as the insurer sitting behind existing customer journeys run by partners.
The move is notable in a sector where new fully fledged life insurers are rare, and where recent activity has centred on consolidation, run‑off and bulk annuities rather than new retail protection capacity.
Certua Life is explicitly targeting the UK’s long‑standing protection gap.
According to the FCA’s Pure Protection Market Study Interim Report, published in January, 58% of UK adults hold no protection product and 72% of protection needs remain unmet, while more than 80% of sales still go through intermediaries. Against that backdrop, more than half of adults effectively have no financial safety net if they die or fall seriously ill. Certua Life argued this is not due to a lack of need but to distribution models that were “never built to reach them”, relying heavily on advice‑led channels that many consumers never access.
These findings sit alongside the Consumer Duty, which is pushing life offices and intermediaries to show that products represent fair value, are distributed appropriately and deliver better outcomes. In the protection space, that includes closer scrutiny of commission structures, product design, lapses and the extent to which firms are serving underserved segments.
Tom Williams (pictured), CEO and founder of Certua Life, said the protection gap reflected structural shortcomings in how life insurance is distributed.
“More than half of UK adults have no financial protection for the people who depend on them. Not because they don’t need it, but because the system was never designed to reach them. That’s not a problem legacy insurers can solve," Williams said. "Someone managing their money on their phone should be able to protect the people who depend on it in the same moment. We built an insurer to make that possible. It’s time for something new.”
The strategy will be watched closely by established life insurers and intermediaries.
The UK protection market remains concentrated among a relatively small group of carriers, with advisers, aggregators and specialist distributors still responsible for the bulk of new business. Embedded models such as Certua Life’s could expand the overall market by reaching customers who would never seek advice, but they may also divert some lower‑ticket, transactional business away from traditional channels.
For incumbents, the appearance of a newly authorised competitor built around API‑driven distribution adds pressure to modernise legacy systems, streamline underwriting and reassess how they partner with digital brands seeking to embed protection into broader financial offerings. Regulators and reinsurers, meanwhile, are likely to focus on how newer underwriting and distribution approaches manage risk, evidence fair value under the Consumer Duty and accommodate vulnerable customers within predominantly digital journeys.
