Lyfery: Redefining Life Insurance Through Health Behaviour And Prevention

In our latest Leaders InFocus conversation, we delve into the innovative world of Lyfery, an Estonian Insurtech company that has recently been awarded the "Best InsurTech Start-Up Estonia 2025" accolade. Founded by Mihkel Mandre, Lyfery is transforming the life insurance landscape by integrating health behaviour analytics and prevention strategies into its core offerings. By assessing lifestyle factors such as physical activity, smoking habits, and preventive health measures, Lyfery offers personalised insurance solutions that reward clients for health-conscious choices. In this discussion, Mihkel shares insights into the company's journey, the challenges of building trust in a traditional industry, and Lyfery's vision for the future of life insurance.

Brett 

Mihkel, congratulations on Lyfery winning Best Insur Tech Start-Up Estonia 2025. As the founder, how do you feel this recognition reflects your company's innovative approach to life insurance?

Mihkel

Feeling good. I think it's always positive to be recognised and noticed. That was effectively the second recognition. Last year, we received a local award in Estonia—the Insurance Act of the Year Recognition from the Estonian Insurance Association and the Estonian Brokerage Association. I'm genuinely pleased that we've also received international recognition, which is excellent.

Brett

Lyfery is pioneering health behaviour and prevention as an approach to life insurance. Can you explain how your unique scoring model works and how it benefits your clients?

Mihkel

Absolutely. At Lyfery, we have introduced truly personalized life insurance that values health-conscious choices and rewards risk-preventing behaviour. We shift the emphasis from protection to prevention, combining financial protection with support for healthier, longer lives, all grounded in scientific research.

Today, our health behaviour scoring model assesses following lifestyle factors to provide fairer insurance pricing. Such as daily physical activity, like steps or weekly exercise, medically harmful habits like smoking or alcohol. Moving onto the preventative, like health check-ups. This is just the first phase soon we will be looking at biometric indicators like blood pressure face scans, nutritional habits, social and mental health indicators and finally preventative screenings.

By continuously refining our model and integrating the latest scientific insights, we align the interests of individuals, insurers, and society. Customers benefit from healthier lives and lower premiums, insurers gain a more sustainable model with fewer claims, and society sees reduced healthcare burdens and improved well-being. This prevention-focused approach creates lasting.

Brett

Building on that – you launched in 2024 and have made significant strides – what are the key challenges you faced in introducing such an innovative concept to any marketplace, particularly the Estonian market?

Mihkel

In the financial and insurance sectors, trust is essential and for any fintech or instech company there exist a trust barrier—often outweighing price or product quality. Thus, the pressing question is: how do we earn the trust of clients, partners, and investors to scale effectively and fully leverage our core offering.

The way to overcome a significant trust barrier is to stay true to your strategic direction, uphold your values, and ensure transparency in your actions—while absorbing and sharing both the financial and mental risks, as well as the results, challenges, and risks. This enables us to grow from hundreds to thousands of customers, from thousands to tens of thousands, and eventually to hundreds of thousands, and beyond.

Some examples what we have done to achieve that trust would be Client Protection First, this is where Lyfery ensures that policies remain valid even if the company ceases operations. Compensa, our insurance partner, carries the insurance risk and will continue fulfilling policies. Clients can trust their coverage is secure, regardless of Lyfery's future.

Also unlike large corporations, startups must build trust through strong alliances. Our early partnerships with brands like Garmin helped establish credibility and reduce trust barrier.

Obviously investor relationships matter and we've built a network of 400+ investors and key partners. This allowed us to secure early phase funding from 20 investors. Our approach is relationship-driven, not mass pitches.

Brett

You mentioned your investors. Having raised pre-seed funding and collaborated with partners like Garmin, how have these partnerships and investments shaped your product development and market strategy?

Mihkel

Building strong partnerships was essential. When we first conceived the business model idea, we even considered launching a fully licensed digital life insurance company from day one. However, the entry barriers for that route were extremely high – nearly impossible. In the life insurance sector, we rarely witness entirely new life insurance companies being established from scratch; most existing players boast decades, if not hundreds of years, of history. Therefore, we chose to collaborate with established players. That's why we reached out to Compensa  part of the Vienna Insurance Group. We also negotiated very specific agreements – not merely reselling traditional products, but reached tailor-made pricing agreements, underwriting criteria, function splits, profit-sharing arrangements – everything necessary to create a health behaviour and prevention-driven life insurance solution. Our distribution, technical, and other partners also play a crucial role in fostering trust. Together, we are far stronger and better equipped to overcome the challenges of trust and market entry, which are particularly daunting when starting from scratch.

Brett

Your roadmap includes enhancements to your scoring model, which I believe are supported by an Enterprise Estonia Development Grant. What new features and lifestyle categories are you most excited about introducing?

Mihkel

Our core logic is that we look all relevant lifestyle categories and factors that individuals can influence through their own behaviour – factors that impact long-term mortality and morbidity risks, such as physical activity, mental health, nutrition, risk behaviour, smoking, alcohol consumption, and commitment to prevention as well as participation in various screening programmes. We shall gather data via questionnaires, wearables, and mobile devices – including biometric data and modern scanning technologies. For instance, one category we aim to include is blood pressure, which can be measured using mobile phone video scanning solutions, thanks to a dedicated partner. So far , we have a preliminary, simplified model in place, and as you noted, we are currently building the next version, supported by the Estonian research grant. It will be more sophisticated and data-driven, which is something we genuinely anticipate.

Brett

Regarding your go-to-market strategy, you've got an interesting B2B2C distribution model involving digital partnerships. How do these partnerships help you reach and ultimately educate potential customers about your unique insurance offerings?

Mihkel

Yes, absolutely – that's something we genuinely believe in. I would say we haven't yet fully optimised every detail to operate as efficiently as possible, but it's all about being stronger together with our key partners. We're primarily seeking partners with shared goals or values, particularly in the prevention and healthy lifestyle sectors. For instance, we have partnered with one of the largest sports and wellness organisations in Estonia, Club Tartu Marathon, which has around 50,000+ members. They organise skiing marathons, bicycle marathons, and running events for professionals, amateurs, and families.

Sport and physical activities are naturally linked to health and wellness, and they help promote our business and product idea among their network. This collaboration has already generated some early sales and built our customer base through joint email campaigns, social media activities, and even a presence at one of their large bicycle events. Besides customer acquisition, the brand awareness and visibility we received have been highly valuable.

Brett

Thinking about your partnership with Compensable Life Insurance – you mentioned at the beginning that you received the Insurance Act of the Year award in Estonia, and that collaboration is key to your go-to-market strategy. How do you feel that helps your market position in terms of trust with potential clients, given they're a recognised brand in the marketplace?

Mihkel

When I reflect on our milestones—from funding events, to key partnerships or awards—it feels like constructing a house, brick by brick. A very practical example from late last year: once we were able to say to other investor contacts that we were part of the Tenity program and had strong lead investor with roots in the insurance sector (Risto Rossar), the next ca. ten investors followed quickly.  We have been also part of Impact Valley Accelerator - a transformative program dedicated to nurturing startups with a mission to drive positive social change in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania and were selected as best startup in that programme.

We also participated in Latitude, one of Estonia's largest startup events, which further bolstered our reputation. Later, we received the Insurance Act of the Year recognition. Each of these elements contributes to building trust—none alone would be sufficient, but together they add significant credibility. I believe even more opportunities will arise. It's a process, and it's all lon term. Nothing comes easily.

Brett

Lyfery aims to foster a broader cultural shift towards preventative health. How do you see this approach impacting the wider insurance industry and public health in Estonia? Can it be that impactful?

Mihkel

I'd like it to be. From a macro perspective, we see similar demographic trends in many countries – we're living longer, but often not in a healthy way. We live longer, yet the last 25% or so of life can be problematic health-wise. As the population ages and the ratio of older to younger people shifts, the solidarity-based systems such as pensions and healthcare, where everyone pays the same and receives similar services, are under strain. Funding shortfalls and deficits mean that queues grow and service quality drops. Although Estonia has a relatively well-optimised state healthcare system, only about 2–3% of the budget goes to prevention. While there are good screening programmes – for instance, cancer or breast screening for women – overall, prevention is underfunded. Prevention is much more cost-effective in the long run, but it's a long-term gain, while the pain and need for treatment is immediate.

Brett

Thinking about your position as one of the first life insurance providers in Estonia offering this type of solution – what has been the response from traditional competitors offering life insurance and from the regulatory bodies?

Mihkel

Beginning with the regulators, we generally maintain very good relations with them. When establishing our business model and the legal arrangements between us and our insurance partner, I discussed all these matters in advance with the Financial Supervisory Authority. They were informed from the beginning about our plans, considering the legal, risk, and tax perspectives. I encountered a few legal barriers in the initial phase that somewhat restricted our options, and during that process, I suggested a few changes to the law. Nonetheless, the regulators have been supportive overall.

Regarding competitors, the Estonian life insurance market is not particularly competitive. It is dominated by the bank insurance business model, which operates quite effectively. Major players—large Swedish banks based in the Baltics, such as Swedbank—operate with their own captive insurance companies. I also have a background with these banks, so I understand their inner workings. However, genuine competition has been lacking, which is not in customers' best interests. I have identified an opportunity to create more value and drive change. To achieve this, I needed to distance myself from the traditional bank insurance model. Now, we have our product solutions in place, our initial recognitions, our first customer base etc.. We are growing steadily. The solution clearly resonates with customers—they appreciate that, for the first time, good health behaviour is acknowledged as a positive factor. Traditionally, if someone had any health issues, their risk—and thus their price—was higher. However, our model rewards good health behaviour by reducing life insurance prices. We also plan to introduce a recommendation layer as our model evolves with more data, providing insights into how one's health affects overall quality of life. This is not merely about a payout if risks materialise; it is about preventing or minimising those risks.

Brett

Lastly, looking ahead, what are your business goals for the next few years, and how do you plan to expand your innovative model beyond Estonia?

Mihkel

Primarily, we are looking towards the Central and Eastern European region – expanding into several larger markets outside Estonia is already underway. Then, a couple of steps further, we aim to enter the larger European markets as well. This is a longer-term scenario. Potentially, we may even expand beyond life insurance in the future. We are considering which sectors or product lines could also transform health behaviour into value. There is a natural connection with health insurance and possibly even other types of insurance, or entirely different categories. In the long run, the scoring model and the health data we collect will be among our strongest unique assets.

Brett

What a great place for us to wrap up. Mihkel, congratulations once again to you and the Lyfery team.

Brett Hurll, Executive Editor at Global Financial Market Review, draws on over 35 years of international experience across technology and finance sectors, providing readers with sharp analysis and unique perspectives on emerging trends, market shifts, and the complex interplay between global business and political dynamics. His extensive background and senior leadership role position him as a trusted voice on financial markets and economic developments. If you have an interesting editorial reach out to our team at editoral@gfmreview.com