Certain to stop Independent with cover (7)
I believe the answer is:
insured
'certain' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'stop independent with cover' is the wordplay.
'stop independent' becomes 'd' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'cover' becomes 'insure' (synonyms).
'd' after 'insure' is 'INSURED'.
'to' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for insured that I've seen before include "Covered against accident" , "Covered, maybe against damage to 23 ..." , "Protected against loss" , "Financially protected" , "Financially covered" .)