Evolutionary Awards – YuLife

Category: Evolution in Employee Benefits and Advice

Describe your evolution:

YuLife is a tech-driven financial services brand on a mission to inspire life and turn financial products into a force for good. By harnessing the power of technology and the latest behavioural science, YuLife’s insurance model focuses on employee wellbeing and risk prevention, incentivising healthy daily behaviour to drive positive lifestyle outcomes. YuLife has quickly become a highly-valued employee benefit, providing the safety net of insurance alongside a highly engaging wellbeing experience that fosters a healthier, happier and more motivated team. Founded in 2016 in the UK, the company expanded to the SA market in 2023 and has been going from strength to strength ever since.

A major issue for companies is that on average, 77% of employees do not engage with company health and wellbeing programmes.But YuLife is changing that. Our holistic product and wellbeing suite uses gamification and behavioural science to incentivise and reward users for engaging in healthy activities. Employees are rewarded for taking part in simple daily wellbeing challenges — from cycling, walking to meditation —and they can redeem those rewards for real-life vouchers to their favourite stores or as donations to charitable organisations.

To enhance engagement and promote healthy competition, YuLife offers a company step and Yudoku (our version of Sudoku) leaderboard as well as duels, where colleagues can challenge each other for bragging rights or wager YuCoin.

Employees also get access to the ‘wellbeing hub’ within the YuLife app which provides them with access to a Virtual GP, EAP and free will-writing service. Companies can add all of their own employee initiatives to the hub too – so all their company benefits are in one place.

And to complete the value proposition employees can see exactly what financial protection their employer has provided for them, as well as the ability to edit or change beneficiaries in the app.

This tangible, rewarding approach is revolutionising the world of benefits, workplace wellbeing and the narrative around insurance as a whole. Instead of just feeling the support of your insurance policy only on the bad days, YuLifers feel the benefits of their insurance on a day-to-day basis. Plus, the data shows that 67% of employees live healthier lives as a result of using YuLife

YuLife South Africa has also implemented cutting-edge technology to bring brokers and clients unrivalled service and a great customer experience.This includes an automated admin system, an underwriting bot, enhanced SLAs and real-time updates. We have taken into account the servicing pain points within the industry and have optimised business processes to ensure a seamless customer experience. Members also get access to an HR portal which enables them to accurately track and report on their people’s engagement and enables them to make a data-backed business case on the importance of employee wellbeing. YuLife also differentiates from the market in its robust onboarding process that generates continuous engagement and touchpoints with members through our support chat — 100% powered by real humans.

Since initially launching in the UK market, we’ve seen an incredible take-up and glowing reviews from YuLifers around the world. YuLife has evolved and impacted several markets to date from South Africa, the US and Japan while being backed by the 9th largest insurance company globally and 2nd largest Japanese Insurer (Dia-ichi Life). YuLife has been valued at £800m and received $206 million dollars in the latest round of funding — and as a result, has been named the 8th fastest-growing tech company in the 2023 Deloitte Technology Top 50. We’ve also been named one of the Insurtech 100 globally in 2023 by Fintech Global and ranked 17 in the top 50 of the Insurtech 50 by BusinessCloud.

But this is only the beginning for YuLife, and we are determined to revolutionise an industry that once used to be about selling a begrudging product that’s a simple “must-have” — into a win-win wellbeing solution that people value and use on both the good days and the bad.

Describe the impact your evolution has had in response to its identified challenges and targeted outcomes.

Since launching YuLife and garnering over 1 million employees around the world, we’ve seen incredible results in both engagement and the health and wellbeing of users. For example, we’ve seen:

40x more engagement v.s. traditional insurance
An engaged user base where 1 in 3 members engage daily
11x the monthly engagement compared to traditional wellbeing apps
2.7x increase in Virtual GP and Employee Assistance Programmes usage

We have the highest app engagement in wellness and insurance of any Insuretech globally. We have a 60% download rate and a 50% monthly active user average engagement with global clients.

Since using YuLife, employees report feeling 85% more productive, 87% happier, and 67% are living healthier lives overall. Organisations have seen a 2x increase in meditation and 27% more steps per employee — overall helping their business achieve a 181% ROI from their wellbeing programme.

Not only does it generate a more productive workforce, but a wellbeing tool that’s engaging, fun and easy to use helps create a better working world and has a knock-on effect towards reducing chronic illness and mental health conditions.

In just 4 months of using YuLife, our friends at Bruntwood reported a 10% increase in their overall well being score, a 5% increase in active days, and a 10% increase in mental wellbeing. But the impact isn’t just prominent in the data — employees are raving about how much it’s changed their lives and how they feel about their companies, and was rated the UK’s #1 employee benefits app. One reviewer of the YuLife app expressed how: “YuLife has changed my outlook on exercise. Since March I’ve lost over a stone in weight. I do 20k steps a day now, I barely did 2k before. I’m feeling happier, healthier and really great about myself. I’m focusing more on what I eat and how that can impact me. Honestly, YuLife has been life-changing. I’ve also got over 70k YuCoin and used the Garmin discount to get a watch.”

Our new approach to engaging with insurance has been hailed a success across the market, with one employee Rachel Holborn from what3words claiming: “YuLife is so much more than just Life Insurance. It’s really brought wellbeing to the forefront of our culture. And it’s something that we talk about a lot more.”

Above all, it’s making people feel even more connected to their workplace and inspiring people to live their best lives.

Supporting Documentation >