Lead generation is one of the most vital tools for keeping an insurance agency running. Getting quality leads isn’t as easy as it seems, though. To help you hit your sales goals, we’ll explain everything you need to know about insurance leads, lead quality and how to get them.
What Are Insurance Leads?
An insurance prospect is someone who shows a general interest in a service insurance agents provide. Insurance leads are potential clients who’ve requested quotes about specific insurance products.
Expressing interest isn’t enough for a person to count as a qualified insurance lead. Agents need to know certain information about the person, such as their name, contact information and the type of insurance they want to get.
If we want to make a broad distinction, we can say that there are two types of insurance leads:
- Cold insurance lead: a person (or company) still unaware of the need for a certain type of insurance.
- Warm insurance lead: a person (or company) aware of the need for a certain type of insurance who has already expressed interest in a service.
Insurance leads matter to agents because their income depends on lead conversions. It is often difficult for agents to find high-quality leads on their own, so they reach out to providers who sell insurance leads that help them scale their business and meet quota.
These Are the Most Relevant Types of Insurance Leads
Not all insurance leads are created equal. Since different people have different needs that vary by lifestyle, medical condition and age, there are nuances between the types of insurance each person might want. This is how we distinguish between several types of insurance leads. Here are the most relevant types of insurance leads you should be aware of.
Life Insurance Leads
To explain what life insurance leads are, we need to explain what life insurance is and who it is for.
Life insurance is a contract between a person and a policyholder where an individual pays a sum in exchange for a premium issued upon a person’s death or after a set period. A life insurance agent usually sells life insurance.
A life insurance lead is a person who expresses a desire for it. Life insurance leads are some of the most in-demand prospects in the industry, and life insurance leads cost more than most other types because of their long-term policy value.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, many people have purchased life insurance to secure their families in case of untimely death.
When qualifying a life insurance lead, insurance companies usually ask for information such as a person’s zip code, gender, date of birth, height, weight, credit ranking and overall health.
Social Insurance Leads
Social insurance protects against economic risks such as loss of income due to unemployment, sickness or old age. Most countries make social insurance compulsory, and the term is often used interchangeably with “social security.”
Social insurance leads are all residents of a state. An individual’s employer usually deducts social insurance from the payroll.
Health Insurance Leads
Health insurance is coverage for medical expenses included in the contract between an insurer and a provider. It usually covers medical or surgical interventions, prescribed medications and rehabilitation.
A health insurance lead can be any company offering employees insurance packages. Health insurance is one of the most lucrative niches in the insurance business because it’s something most people choose to have, which keeps demand for quality health insurance leads high.
Auto Insurance Leads
Auto insurance is a contract between a person and an insurance company that protects a person from financial loss in case of theft or a car accident. Auto insurance usually covers damage to your car, your liability, medical bills after an accident or funeral costs.
Auto insurance leads are individuals who own a vehicle and require auto insurance. Auto insurance leads are among the highest-volume leads in the industry, which often makes them more affordable per lead than life or commercial leads.
Commercial Insurance Leads
Commercial insurance usually protects a business from risk, including property damage, legal issues and employee grievances.
Commercial insurance leads are usually business owners, entrepreneurs and businesses that want to protect their operations and avoid loss.
Home Insurance Leads
Home insurance protects homeowners and renters against damage and theft. This insurance usually covers damage to a property’s exterior and interior, personal liability for harm to others and theft.
Home insurance leads are either homeowners or renters whose landlords require them to purchase this type of insurance.
Insurance Leads Cost: What Do You Need to Know?
There’s an ongoing debate about what’s better: generating your own leads or buying insurance leads. Both options have their own set of pros and cons. If you buy insurance leads, you’ll save a lot of time, but it will cost you more than running your own lead generation.
Before discussing the price of leads and whether a certain price is too high or low, a better question is how a lead provider sources its leads. They might source them through ad services, organic search or referrals. All of this matters when it comes to forming the price of the leads. Organic leads are the best leads because they need your services right away.
Lead quality and the amount of information a provider has both affect the price. The more information a provider has, the more expensive a lead will be. Lead exclusivity matters too: a shared lead is sold to multiple agencies, while an exclusive lead goes to one buyer only and costs more.
Based on various criteria, a typical insurance lead price ranges between $20 and $50 for shared leads. Exclusive leads, live transfer insurance leads and high-intent life insurance leads can cost considerably more per lead because of their higher quality and conversion rate.
How to Get Insurance Leads: 5 Ways Explained
If buying leads is not an option for you, you can use several insurance lead generation strategies that benefit your business when used properly. We’ll list some of those techniques below.
List Building Software
The most efficient way to acquire qualified insurance leads is with list-building software such as UpLead.
As an online lead generation platform and one of the best lead generation tools on the market, UpLead helps you build accurate target lists of high-quality leads and insurance sales leads that drive greater overall conversion. We have insurance agent email lists ready for you to get started.
By choosing UpLead, you also get access to features including real-time email verification, competitor and email pattern intelligence, social profile links and numerous CRM integrations.
You don’t have to spend a dime to check it out. Sign up for a free seven-day trial to see what it can do for your business.
Use PPC and Social Ads
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) combined with social ads is a strong way to acquire leads because it’s inexpensive and does not require a large upfront investment. Here are its greatest benefits.
Google Ads
PPC advertising is a form of online advertising where you pay based on a user’s interaction with an ad instead of paying based on how many people saw it. When we say PPC, we usually refer to ads that run on Google, Yahoo or Bing.
PPC campaigns are a great lead source because they’re shown to people who have already expressed a desire for certain products or services. When campaigns are set up properly, they deliver good lead quality. They’re convenient too, since users see your offer first instead of navigating through organic results.
Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are another solid solution for generating leads in the insurance industry because they’re cheaper than Google ads. Running Facebook ads to get new leads works well because the market isn’t as saturated as Google’s. Since you can include pictures and text, you have a greater chance of attracting leads with engaging content.
By creating a Facebook insurance lead generation campaign, you can place the capture form on the call-to-action button that turns regular users into leads much faster.
If users click a call-to-action button, Facebook lets them automatically fill out the form, which saves time and decreases the abandonment rate.
Running Facebook ads lets you reach your targeted niche, the people who need your services. The Facebook Ads Library gives you resources to analyze competitors’ strategies and identify successful ad formats, which helps you create campaigns that resonate with your audience. (You can also export Facebook Ads data to track performance and refine your strategy based on real-time insights.)
Adding an image and text to your ad makes it more appealing to end users, who are more likely to click if it resonates with their needs. You can also teach your audience something and hold their attention, which makes them more prone to clicking on your ads.
Cold Calling
Cold calling can be one of the most efficient strategies for getting leads. To execute it properly, you need to be well prepared. That includes making a list of targeted prospects who want your services and can pay for them.
The first step toward getting the best telemarketing leads is to assess how many potential customers live in your area. Then create a buyer persona that includes the coverage they might want, their age, their gender and their problems, so you make the most out of every call.
We’ve created a collection of cold-calling scripts you can use to acquire customers.
Social Selling
Social selling is one of the best ways to get free leads. The idea is to run a social marketing strategy that uses social networking sites and apps to generate leads.
The best social selling examples are sharing content that resonates with a target audience, interacting with buyers and customers, working on company branding and social listening.
As an insurance agent, you can make LinkedIn posts that include numbers, educate your audience on the importance of getting insured, respond to their questions and run polls or surveys to engage them.
In Facebook groups, you can offer professional opinions to build trust and credibility. You can answer common questions or help resolve doubts to earn the trust that leads to customers calling you. Here’s an example of social selling you can recreate as a new agent who wants to establish yourself in the field.
Free Content
Free content is one of the best lead sources out there. The point is simple. Instead of creating ads, create informative content that you publish on your website’s blog or YouTube, educate your audience about the benefits of your services, build trust and show that you’re an expert in the field. Unlike traditional ads, running a blog or making videos won’t cost you anything. This works well for new agents who need to establish themselves in the field.
Blog
Writing blog posts is another great way to get free insurance leads. By writing blog posts, you can share your expertise, show that you’re willing to share knowledge for free and establish yourself as an expert in the field. Maintaining a blog is a strong way to get free exposure and high lead quality.
YouTube Channel
Making YouTube videos is another good way to get leads for free. YouTube is the second largest search engine, and it’s a great resource any business or entrepreneur should use to grow.
You can start by filming short videos about the topics clients most want to cover, describing what they should pay attention to, vouching for your services and explaining why they need them. It’s like a blog post, but in a video, for those who need to see the person behind the words. A YouTube channel works well for most agents and costs no money.
Webinars
Hosting webinars is another option for becoming a lead hero. They’re generally better than live seminars because they’re online and reachable by prospective clients anywhere and at any time. Webinars share content that draws in more clients over the long run.
Webinars can be more appealing to a general audience because they’re not “salesy” at first. Keep them interactive and make sure they provide value and educate prospective clients on the value of insurance, which makes them more likely to convert.
Everything Else You Need to Know about Insurance Leads
Now that we have a clear overview of insurance leads, here is a quick recap of the main ways to acquire them and the tactics that work best when you run a lead generation campaign.
What are insurance leads?
Insurance leads are people who have expressed a general interest in insurance and about whom you have some information. The more information you have, the more qualified the lead.
How do you generate insurance leads?
You generate insurance leads with several lead generation tactics, such as using dedicated software like UpLead, buying from insurance lead providers, creating content and running ads. Most agents combine a few of these to keep a steady flow of quality leads.
What types of insurance leads can you buy?
If you want to buy leads, there are several types of insurance leads and lead programs, including:
- Internet insurance leads. Many websites offer the option of purchasing prospects. These sites usually don’t offer insurance services, but they help leads find additional information and make money by selling that information.
- Shared or exclusive leads. Shared leads are resold to multiple insurance agents, while exclusive leads are only sold to one buyer. Exclusive leads cost more but tend to convert better.
- Live transfer insurance leads. A call center qualifies a prospect and transfers the live call straight to you. These are some of the highest-intent and highest-cost leads you can buy.
- Direct response leads. Direct response insurance leads come from companies that send mail campaigns containing brochures, flyers and surveys, then sell clients’ information to insurance agents.
- Telemarketing leads. Telemarketing insurance leads are collected by phone, either by you or a third-party company that sells the contacts. They often prove to be good leads because agents who speak to them gather plenty of useful information.
- Pre-set appointments. Pre-set appointments are one of the most expensive types of prospects. A telemarketing company contacts the prospect and books an appointment on your behalf, giving you the information you need to make an offer and close the deal.
- Referrals. Referrals are considered the highest-quality prospects. They come from people who already use your services, trust you as a reliable source and are the most likely to buy what you offer.
Insurance Leads: Conclusion
Buying leads can seem like the perfect option because it saves time and effort, but knowing how to acquire quality leads yourself often proves more profitable in the long run. When you run your own lead generation, you can vouch for the quality of the prospects, which you can’t do when you simply purchase them. In the end, the decision is yours.
