Executive SummaryPreventative AI is more than an innovation—it's a fundamental shift in how we approach wellbeing and insurance. By combining real-time biometric data, behavioural insights, and personalised nudges, YuLife’s Preventative AI helps people stay well before problems arise, rather than intervening after the fact. This whitepaper explores how the technology works, its implications for the industry, and what it means for individuals, businesses, and insurers.Preliminary modelling by YuLife and the University of Essex projects a 5 to 9% reduction in claims costs within the first year of Preventative AI usage, assuming sustained user engagement. This estimate reflects the effect of increased physical activity, improved stress management, and better uptake of early-stage interventions, all enabled by the gamified engagement model. As Dr. John Ronayne, YuLife’s Lead Data Scientist, explains, “We’ve built time-varying models with the University of Essex that show meaningful risk reduction after one year, even plateauing once users reach their capacity for physical activity, and that’s before we layer in the AI.”The Need for Preventative AITraditional underwriting relies on historical risk tables and static health assessments. But health isn’t static, and neither is risk. As chronic illness, mental health issues, and burnout rise, it’s clear that reactive approaches no longer suffice. Employers and insurers alike need smarter tools to proactively support health and wellbeing.The UK is facing a significant health and productivity crisis:Chronic Illness: As of 2024, 23% of working-age adults in the UK report having a disability that interferes with daily life, up from 16% a decade ago—a rise of 2.6 million people. (The Times)Burnout Among Young Workers: Nearly one in three UK employees aged 18–24 took time off work due to stress in 2024, with high workloads and job insecurity cited as primary causes. (The Times)Economic Impact: Poor mental health in the UK workforce costs employers an estimated £5,379 per employee annually in sectors like finance and insurance. (Financial Times)These trends not only affect individual wellbeing but also place immense pressure on the National Health Service (NHS) and the broader economy. Employers are uniquely positioned to combat these issues. By leveraging Preventative AI, they can proactively support employee health, reducing the incidence of chronic conditions and associated costs. This not only enhances workforce productivity but also contributes to alleviating the strain on public health systems. In essence, investing in employee wellbeing through technologies like Preventative AI is a strategic move that benefits individuals, businesses, and the broader economy.Understanding YuLife's Preventative AIPreventative AI is more than just another AI system bolted onto insurance; it is a rethinking of the insurance value chain from the ground up. Rather than relying on static, point-in-time data, YuLife’s Preventative AI offers a dynamic, evolving picture of each user’s health and behaviour. It works by constantly analysing biometric data and behavioural patterns to identify risks early, deliver timely nudges, and recommend meaningful interventions. In doing so, it empowers people to take proactive steps toward better health while enabling businesses and insurers to support them more intelligently.As Sammy Rubin, YuLife CEO, explains: “Preventative AI embodies a much-needed shift from reactive to proactive insurance. Our ultimate goal is to go beyond just helping people when things go wrong and help them stay well in the first place.”This commitment to wellbeing as a daily practice is at the heart of YuLife’s philosophy. Rather than siloing health support into isolated check-ins or annual reviews, Preventative AI makes wellness continuous and participatory.John Ronayne, Chief Data Scientist at YuLife, expands on the implications: “With traditional insurance, you’re looking at past claims and static data. Preventative AI changes that by continuously assessing risk in real time, predicting future health outcomes, and, crucially, understanding who is likely to maintain positive lifestyle changes.”This understanding is built on a unique feedback loop: as users engage with the gamified wellbeing experience, their actions inform the AI models, which in turn adapt and personalise future recommendations. Engagement is the engine that drives Preventative AI.The development of this technology has been underpinned by rigorous research, including a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Essex. Together, they have validated the real-world impact of gamified interventions and dynamic wellbeing strategies. YuLife’s platform has shown measurable improvements in resilience, activity levels, and claims cost reductions, all powered by Preventative AI.Core pillars of the system include:Real-time data analysis (e.g., intraday steps, sleep patterns, HR variability)Predictive analytics and behavioural modellingAI-powered gamification and incentivesTailored wellbeing pathwaysA comparison between traditional underwriting and Preventative AI:Traditional UnderwritingPoint-in-time risk scoresHistorical claims dataStatic pricingNo user feedback loopPreventative AIContinuous real-time monitoringPredictive modelling of future risksDynamic underwriting adjustmentsUser-engagement-driven risk modellingCore Components of Preventative AI1. Real-time Risk MonitoringPreventative AI captures ongoing health signals — steps, cadence, sleep, HR, and more — and converts them into dynamic risk scores and biological age equivalents.YuLife's models derive insights from thousands of users and validated public data (eg the UK Biobank) to predict future claims and assess evolving risks.One example from a trial with Broadstone, a leading independent UK financial services consultancy with deep specialism in the employee benefits consulting and insurance markets, highlights the power of real-time tracking. A subset of users aged 50+ — a group typically under-engaged by wellness programmes — showed a 150% increase in average daily step count after using the YuLife app. This behaviour shift signalled reduced cardiovascular risk and improved long-term health outcomes. “It’s the higher-risk individuals where we see the greatest change,” Ronayne says. “They’re often the least active at baseline, but the most responsive when properly engaged. That’s where Preventative AI is so powerful: it turns real-time signals into predictive insight.”2. Early Health Outcome IdentificationThrough predictive analytics, YuLife detects signs of cardiovascular conditions, burnout, sleep disorders, MSK issues and more, well before symptoms escalate.Research from the University of Essex showed that increased app engagement and gamified meditation features led to measurable improvements in resilience and physical activity.YuLife’s gamified platform has demonstrated measurable health improvements across multiple conditions, based on findings from a controlled trial involving Broadstone employees. The gamified group reported a 70% improvement in chronic pain symptoms, a 14% reduction in high-stress days, and a 40% improvement in BMI after six months, outperforming the non-gamified control group across all metrics. These outcomes reflect the predictive accuracy of the AI’s risk modelling, which links behavioural engagement to underlying health risks. The most significant gains were observed in musculoskeletal pain and mental health, which are two of the biggest drivers of workforce absence and insurance claims.3. Personalised Behaviour Change InterventionsYuLife uses behavioural science and gamification to influence long-term habits. The AI system delivers:Adaptive wellbeing questsGamified nudgesTimely push notificationsYuCoin rewards“Gamification gives you the ability to peer into the future,” Ronayne says. “We can model not just current behaviour, but the likelihood of habit formation and relapse.”Engagement is the engine behind habit formation, and Preventative AI is built to maximise it. In a one-year study group, users with access to gamified features showed a 24% increase in average daily step count, with many sustaining behaviour change far beyond the trial. “What we found,” Ronayne says, “is that after the one-year mark, about 90% of participants continued those habits into the following year. The longer a habit is sustained, the lower the probability of relapse.” These results were particularly strong among older age groups, with over-35s showing the highest levels of daily app engagement.4. Pathways to Meaningful CareWhen potential risks are flagged, users are directed to appropriate resources: virtual GPs, counselling, sleep coaches, EAPs, or NHS services.By embedding this support into an everyday wellbeing experience, Preventative AI ensures higher utilisation and timelier intervention.Benefits of Preventative AI Across StakeholdersPreventative AI creates a compelling value proposition for all parties involved in the insurance and wellbeing ecosystem. It does this not by fragmenting outcomes, but by aligning the incentives of individuals, businesses, and insurers around one simple goal: keeping people healthier for longer. Below is a breakdown of the specific benefits for each group, followed by deeper insight into what these benefits mean in practice.For Individuals:Actionable health insightsIncentives that make wellbeing engagingEarly access to carePreventative AI provides individuals with continuous feedback on their health status through intuitive dashboards and behavioural prompts. Preventative AI is more than just tracking steps. It offers teams a meaningful reflection of personal risk and wellbeing, contextualised by their habits and lifestyle. Gamified nudges and YuCoin rewards help ensure that taking daily steps toward better health is desirable, and when risk indicators do emerge, individuals are seamlessly guided toward appropriate care pathways, from sleep coaching to virtual GPs.For Businesses:Lower absenteeism and presenteeismPredictive insights on burnout and engagementCost savings on group insuranceFor employers, Preventative AI acts as an early warning system for workforce wellbeing. Aggregated insights allow HR leaders to see trends around stress, sleep disruption, and disengagement, well before they manifest as sick days or declining performance. This enables proactive strategy: adapting wellbeing initiatives, adjusting workloads, or investing in targeted resources. Ultimately, these early interventions reduce absenteeism and presenteeism, while improving morale and retention. Plus, dynamic risk scoring contributes to more accurate group insurance pricing, with the potential for reduced premiums.For Insurers:Real-time, dynamic underwritingBetter retention through engagementReduced claims costs and volatilityFor insurance providers, Preventative AI opens a new frontier in underwriting precision. Traditional actuarial models rely on backward-looking data and cannot account for real-time shifts in behaviour or wellbeing. With Preventative AI, insurers can monitor a dynamic picture of individual and population-level risk, allowing for more adaptive pricing models and better portfolio management. Engaged users mean more accurate data, earlier interventions, and fewer escalated claims, leading to reduced claims volatility and stronger long-term profitability.In addition to improved health outcomes, Preventative AI delivers real commercial value. A causal analysis of high-risk users identified by the platform’s Dynamic Health Questionnaire found that 76% experienced measurable improvement in mental health after being directed to appropriate support services. These improvements translate into reduced absenteeism and more productive workforces. “This goes beyond tracking steps,” Ronayne explains. “We’re modelling genuine health risk reduction using validated UK Biobank data, and for employers, that’s a scalable strategy for lowering claims, reducing absence, and improving population health.” As stress, MSK conditions and mental health continue to drive costs, YuLife’s solution offers a way to intervene before those issues escalate into claims.YuLife’s Validation and ResultsYuLife's development of Preventative AI has been grounded in rigorous scientific research and academic partnerships. Chief among these is our long-term Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Essex, funded by Innovate UK. The Essex team worked alongside YuLife’s data scientists to validate key findings from biometric and behavioural data, and through this collaboration, YuLife has validated not just the conceptual promise of Preventative AI, but also its real-world impact on individual behaviour, resilience, and healthcare costs."It was critical that we didn’t just rely on internal assumptions or industry trends,” Ronayne explains. “We built our models using real engagement and biometric data from our users, and then rigorously tested those models alongside academic partners to measure behavioural change and downstream cost reduction."The University of Essex helped to independently evaluate the platform’s effectiveness using statistical modelling and large-scale cohort analysis. One major finding was that sustained engagement with gamified elements such as meditation, steps tracking, and quests had a measurable effect on wellbeing metrics such as mood, activity levels, and self-reported resilience.Key outcomes include:Increased physical activity linked to gamified meditation: Users engaging in gamified wellbeing features, especially meditation and mindfulness challenges, showed a statistically significant uptick in daily step counts and consistency of activity across weeks.Reduced risk markers and improved self-reported resilience: Surveys showed improvements in resilience scores among highly engaged users, while biometric risk modelling indicated lower risk scores for cardiovascular health and mental wellbeing in this group.High engagement: 20–25 days per month usage vs. 10 in control group: One of the strongest indicators of success was daily engagement. Gamification boosted adherence and interest, which in turn fuelled more accurate predictive modelling and personalised interventions.Estimated £280 per user annual cost reduction in expected claims: This was derived from comparing standard actuarial baselines against dynamic models incorporating live behavioural data, showing promising early signs of financial impact at scale.Privacy and Ethical ConsiderationsYuLife designed Preventative AI with GDPR compliance and ethical data usage at its core. Privacy is a foundational element of Preventative AI. In a landscape where real-time data and behavioural modelling can raise questions about surveillance or misuse, YuLife has taken a transparent and privacy-first approach to how it handles sensitive user information.“We don’t want to know who you are,” Ronayne says. “We want to know how someone like you behaves. That’s a critical distinction. Everything we do is pseudonymised and aggregated. There is no personal data exposed to employers, and no single user can be identified in group-level insights.”Preventative AI operates on a strict principle of minimal necessary data. The system is designed to gather only what’s needed for predictive accuracy and to apply that knowledge in a way that benefits the end-user without compromising their privacy.This approach ensures that:All data is pseudonymised and stored securely: Personal identifiers are removed at the point of collection, and data is encrypted both in transit and at rest.No personally identifiable insights are shared with employers: Employers only ever see anonymised, group-level trends that meet a minimum cohort size.Aggregated data only is used for reporting: YuLife’s business clients receive workforce-level dashboards without the ability to drill down into individual behaviours.HR dashboards include safeguards (e.g., minimum group thresholds): No reporting is enabled on any group smaller than a privacy-protected minimum size to avoid inference.Implementing Preventative AI: A Practical GuideImplementing Preventative AI doesn’t mean you have to replace existing systems overnight. It’s more about layering new capabilities onto existing wellbeing and insurance strategies to make them more effective, responsive, and tailored to your people. YuLife’s approach to onboarding is designed to be practical, non-disruptive, and focused on real outcomes.YuLife’s approach to implementation is informed by real-world trials such as its nine-month partnership with Broadstone, which began in May 2024. The rollout follows a phased structure: first, a baseline month of passive data collection, followed by access to the full platform for the intervention group. Over the next six to twelve months, engagement data is used to personalise interventions, with employer dashboards providing aggregated insights. This low-friction onboarding is designed to complement existing benefit platforms, and HR teams can begin seeing results within weeks — from boosted usage of existing services like EAPs to early warnings around burnout or MSK issues.For HR leaders and insurers, success starts with a mindset shift away from reactive, one-size-fits-all interventions and toward a continuous feedback loop driven by real-time insights. We’re not offering just another new app; we’re helping you embed a culture of proactive wellbeing that touches everything from employee benefits to engagement strategies.To guide implementation, YuLife recommends the following steps:Review existing wellbeing and insurance strategy: Begin by auditing your current approach. Where are the biggest risks? Are employees engaged with the support on offer? What metrics are being tracked?Identify key employee health risk areas: Use aggregate data or existing health and absenteeism records to determine where interventions could have the biggest impact, eg, burnout, MSK issues, sleep, mental health.Integrate Preventative AI with existing platforms (e.g., rewards, EAPs): YuLife’s solution is built to complement, not replace, existing support channels. It acts as a behavioural front door to help employees discover and use these resources earlier.Monitor outcomes via HR dashboard insights: HR and benefits leaders will have access to aggregated, privacy-safe dashboards highlighting wellbeing trends, engagement levels, and predicted risk areas across the workforce.Adjust incentives and interventions based on insights: Preventative AI isn’t static. Over time, you can adjust nudges, tweak messaging, or reinforce popular wellbeing activities in response to how your people are engaging.This phased, integrated approach allows businesses to start seeing results quickly, without needing a full platform overhaul or culture reset.Future Outlook and Industry ImpactPreventative AI signals a new paradigm for insurance—from risk mitigation to risk transformation. In the short term, the next 3–5 years will likely see broader adoption of dynamic underwriting technologies and increased integration between wellbeing, healthcare, and insurance platforms. But the long-term vision is even more disruptive.“In the next five years, I think we’ll see some experimentation, but not massive change in the core models,” Ronayne explains. “The real transformation is going to be in the 10- to 15-year horizon when insurers start truly evolving around daily data and preventative engagement, rather than claims-driven logic.”That kind of evolution depends on trust and daily interaction: two things insurers have historically struggled to build. As YuLife’s COO and co-founder Josh Hart adds, “Historically, insurers have tried to use wearables and data to inform new models. But the problem is, nobody wants to hang out with their insurer. What’s different about YuLife is that we’ve built a genuine relationship: people use our app every day. That gives us the right to collect more useful data more frequently, and that makes the AI truly effective.“We always believed there was a win-win model in YuLife: help people live longer, and you reduce their risk. But to do that, you first need a daily relationship. Being on someone’s phone, being part of their everyday life — that was the precursor to rethinking the risk model. And now we’re at a point where we can really scale that.”This shift from transactional protection to continuous wellbeing support positions YuLife as more than a challenger brand. It sets a precedent for what the future of insurance could be: engaging, predictive, and deeply integrated into people’s lives.“The findings from YuLife’s study with the University of Essex and Innovate UK highlight an exciting evolution in how we think about workplace wellbeing and insurance risk,” says Jules Constantinou, Regional Manager: UK and Ireland at Gen Re Life UK. “From a reinsurer’s perspective, the exploration of preventative behaviours and dynamic incentives offers promising signals for the future of group insurance, particularly in how we assess, engage with, and reduce long-term health risks. It’s encouraging to see how YuLife is innovating in this space grounded in real-world data and academic rigour.” Beyond transforming insurance, Preventative AI addresses pressing public health challenges. Burnout and preventable diseases are escalating, imposing significant burdens on individuals, businesses, and the NHS. Obesity alone costs the UK economy an estimated £98 billion annually, including £6.5 billion in direct NHS expenses and substantial productivity losses due to increased absenteeism. Moreover, the NHS faces critical staffing shortages and financial constraints, exacerbated by the rising demand for healthcare services.Employers are uniquely positioned to combat these issues. By leveraging Preventative AI, they can proactively support employee health, reducing the incidence of chronic conditions and associated costs. This not only enhances workforce productivity but also contributes to alleviating the strain on public health systems. In essence, investing in employee wellbeing through technologies like Preventative AI is a strategic move that benefits individuals, businesses, and the broader economy.Conclusion & Call to ActionThe insurance sector is entering a new era, one where daily engagement and preventative strategies can deliver not only healthier individuals but also more sustainable pricing models. As chronic conditions and burnout drive rising costs, the industry is beginning to embrace dynamic tools that predict and prevent, rather than react and reimburse. And YuLife is at the forefront of this shift. “For decades, insurers have focused on helping people when things go wrong,” says YuLife CEO Sammy Rubin. “But Preventative AI allows us to flip that model. By building a relationship with our users and helping them stay well every day, we can transform insurance into a force for long-term wellbeing — and that’s the future we’re building.”To learn how your business can adopt Preventative AI, contact YuLife today.