Certua Life has partnered with employee benefits platform Heka to offer individual life insurance through its Surely brand. Employees at companies using Heka can now arrange cover through the benefits platform, with policies starting from £5 a month for qualifying customers.
Surely is Certua Life’s partner-distributed life insurance brand. The product is designed to let employees select individual cover and review it at renewal as their circumstances change.
The partnership comes as the UK continues to face a substantial protection gap. The FCA’s Pure Protection Market Study interim report, published in January 2026, found that 72% of identified protection needs were uninsured.
Certua Group built a platform for embedding financial services, connecting insurers and reinsurers on one side with distributors on the other, developing data-driven products and new approaches to customer experience along the way.
We saw the industry from every angle: products that took years to launch or change, outdated systems, fragmented supply chains, layers of friction at every point in an extraordinarily convoluted value chain.
The regulator said many consumers aren’t aware of their protection needs or aren’t prompted to consider insurance. Changes such as buying a home or starting a family can also alter the amount of life cover a person requires.
The FCA’s Pure Protection Market Study found that 72% of protection needs are unmet and 58% of adults hold no protection product at all. The gap is enormous, and the old distribution model can’t close it.
80% of life insurance policies in the UK are sold through intermediaries that most people don’t have. That’s why 24 mn adults have no cover, not because they don’t need it, but because the existing model was never designed to reach them.
But digital platforms already reach these customers every day. Fintechs, payroll providers, mortgage platforms, wealth managers. Embedded distribution puts life insurance where people already are, inside the services they already trust.
Certua Life said Surely was designed around periodic reassessment rather than leaving cover unchanged after purchase. Through Heka, members will encounter the product inside an employee benefits platform they already use for health and financial wellbeing services.
Tom Williams, CEO and Founder of Certua Life, said many people who need life insurance aren’t offered appropriate cover. He said the Heka partnership gives employees another route to arrange protection without leaving their existing benefits platform.
“From today, they can protect the people they love in the same place, with cover shaped around their own lives and built to change as their needs do,” Williams said. Certua Life is also onboarding additional distribution partners.
Heka CEO and Founder Alex Hind said the life insurance offering fits the platform’s approach to personalised employee benefits. He said financial wellbeing has become a larger consideration for employers and employees choosing benefits.
Hind also pointed to the ability to revisit life cover as personal circumstances change. Heka applies a similar personalised approach across benefits including mental health, fitness, nutrition and financial services.
Certua Life describes itself as the first new protection-focused UK life insurer authorised in nearly two decades. The privately funded insurer is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by both the PRA and Financial Conduct Authority.
Surely is available only through approved partners rather than direct distribution. The structure allows employee benefits providers and other companies to offer life insurance without creating their own insurance brand or underwriting operation.
Heka provides employees with access to providers across health, wellbeing and financial services. The company said 98.5% of bookings made through its platform relate to preventative health services rather than treatment.
The advertised £5 monthly starting price applies to a 30-year-old non-smoker with no medical conditions purchasing £100,000 of life cover. Actual premiums will depend on the applicant and selected level of protection.
