Cheap life insurance leads: when low-cost leads pay off, and when they don’t
Cheap life insurance leads can pay off for a UK broker, but only when the low price per lead still gives you a low cost for each policy that stays on risk. Most cheap leads are cheap for a reason: they are old, shared with several firms, collected with little intent, resold, or list data from people who never asked about cover. The test is the same for all of them: divide the price by the share of leads that become policies, add the cost of the time it takes to work them, and compare the total with a dearer source.
What are you really buying at £1, £5 or £15 a lead?
Cheap life insurance leads are contact details sold for well below the price of a fresh enquiry supplied to one firm, usually because they are older, sold to several buyers, collected with little intent or taken from a marketing list.
The low price is real. The question is what it buys.
A lead’s price tends to reflect what it cost to produce, how many times it can be sold and how much buyers want it. Read the price that way and it tells you a lot about a lead before you see it. The table climbs the price ladder from a bulk data record to a fresh exclusive enquiry, and shows what each lower price takes away.
| Illustrative price | What it usually is | What the person did | What the low price leaves out | The work left to you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| About £1 a record | A line on a bulk data list, often sold in batches as “telephone-validated” or “TPS-checked” | Often nothing to do with cover: answered a survey, entered a competition or ended up in a marketing database | The enquiry itself. The person may never have asked about cover, and every buyer of the list gets the same record | The lead generation itself: a cold call, with screening and consent checks before anyone dials |
| About £5 | An aged enquiry, weeks or months old | Asked about cover once, then the details were passed on or resold | Freshness. The person’s interest may have cooled, and other firms could have called already | Re-engaging someone whose interest may have cooled, and checking that what they agreed to still covers your call |
| About £15 | A recent enquiry sold to several firms | Asked about cover recently, often on a form that said more than one firm might call | Exclusivity. Several firms buy the same enquiry and call at much the same time | A race to the phone, with a customer who may already be fielding other calls |
| £30 and up | A fresh enquiry supplied to one firm | Asked about cover recently and agreed to be contacted | None of these, if the seller’s promise holds. That is what the higher price pays for | Calling promptly and running a good first conversation |
Illustrative example: these price points are not quotes from any seller and not Protection Connect prices. The aged, shared and exclusive points sit inside the indicative ranges shown below; list data is shown for contrast and isn’t covered by those ranges.
Where low-cost leads sit in the market
Prices fall as leads get older and are sold to more firms.
Indicative ranges based on our view of typically advertised UK prices in 2026. Not a survey and not Protection Connect prices; on Protection Connect you set your own maximum.
The spectrum covers enquiries only. List data sits outside it altogether, because it isn’t an enquiry, even when a seller calls it a lead.
A low price isn’t dishonest in itself. Aged and shared leads are legitimate products, and some firms build a business on them.
The mistake is comparing a £5 lead with a £45 one as if they were the same thing at two prices. They aren’t, and the only fair comparison is what each one costs you per policy. For prices across every lead type and the ways sellers charge, see our guide to how much life insurance leads cost in the UK.
Why are cheap life insurance leads so cheap?
Six things push a lead’s price down, and most cheap leads involve one or more of them. Age and sharing mainly cost you contact and conversion, though age can stretch consent too. Cheap traffic, co-registration, resale and list data can also leave you unsure what the person agreed to, which makes them a compliance question as well as a sales one. Knowing which reason applies tells you what to check before you buy and what to expect when you call.
It’s old
Interest cools as an enquiry ages, phones go unanswered and the person may already have arranged cover elsewhere. Sellers price that in. An older enquiry has often been sold before, and what the person agreed to when they filled in the form may not stretch to your call months later. Our guide to buying aged life insurance leads explains how to judge age, consent and screening.
It’s shared
A shared lead is one enquiry sold to several firms, so each buyer pays a slice of what it cost to produce. Every buyer then calls the same person, often close together. You pay less to enter a race, and the customer decides how many calls they’ll take. The trade-offs are set out in our comparison of exclusive and shared leads.
The traffic was cheap
Some enquiries come from people who were not really shopping for cover. A prize draw, a “see what you could get” quiz, a cashback offer or a social media lead form can all collect a name and number for very little. Social lead forms can fill in a person’s details for them, which makes them quick to send and just as quick to forget. These sources aren’t banned, and some convert, but the intent is thinner and the form may not have made clear that an adviser would call.
One form fed many buyers
Co-registration bundles several offers or “partners” into one sign-up, so a single tick can pass a person’s details to a long list of companies. The form owner sells the same person many times over, which is why the price is low. The person is unlikely to expect your call. Even if your firm appears among the named partners, the ICO has found consent invalid where people were shown a long list with no real way to choose, so check with your compliance adviser before relying on it. Our exclusive leads guide shows how multi-partner forms stretch the word “exclusive”, and what the ICO made of one.
It has been sold and resold
Recycled data has already passed through several buyers and may be folded into a fresh batch, so the date on a batch may not be the date the person enquired. Ask whether the date on each record is when the person enquired or when the record was last sold. Every sale lowers the next price, and nothing on the record tells you how many firms have rung that person, or what they said.
It was never an enquiry
At the bottom of the market, “leads” can mean list data: names, numbers and sometimes an age or postcode, compiled for outbound marketing. The person never asked about life cover. You are buying the raw material for a cold call, and the compliance work that comes with it.
Three questions that explain any low price. How old is each lead when I receive it? How many firms receive the same person, and when? Can I see the exact page and wording the person saw? A seller who answers all three clearly is telling you what you’re buying.
What are the risks of buying a life insurance leads list?
Bulk life insurance leads and leads lists are where a low price and legal risk meet. When you buy a list, you are responsible for how you use it, whatever the seller has promised. The ICO’s guidance for organisations buying from data brokers says that accepting a broker’s assurance that its data is compliant is not enough: you have to check for yourself.
The same goes for wholesale life insurance leads sold in large, discounted batches. The price per record falls; the checks per record don’t.
Calling: TPS screening goes out of date
Under PECR, a live marketing call to a number on the Telephone Preference Service, or the Corporate TPS for organisations, is only allowed if that person has told your firm they are happy to receive your calls. A list sold as “TPS-checked” only helps if the screening is recent. The ICO’s guidance on live marketing calls notes that a new registration can take 28 days to become active, so a list screened some time ago can now contain numbers you can’t call. Screen it again yourself before anyone dials, and against your own do-not-call list as well.
“Consented” lists
Some lists are sold as “consented” or “opted in”. Ask to see what each person actually agreed to, and when. A tick for “selected partners” is not the same as telling your firm, by name, that they are happy to take your calls.
For emails and texts, the ICO’s electronic mail guidance is clear: consent that doesn’t name you, or doesn’t cover the channel you plan to use, isn’t valid, and a bought-in list can never rely on the soft opt-in. If a record’s consent doesn’t name your firm, don’t email or text that person.
Age matters as well. The ICO’s direct marketing guidance generally advises against relying on consent passed on by a third party after six months, unless people would expect contact that much later. That is a recommendation rather than a legal limit, and our aged leads guide explains how consent goes stale on older data. So ask when each person gave their consent, which may be long before the list was compiled.
Telling people where you got their details
When you get someone’s details from a third party, UK GDPR requires you to give them privacy information, including the source of their details, within a reasonable period and at the latest within one month, or at your first contact if that comes sooner. That is an awkward opening when the honest answer is a list bought from a company they’ve never heard of, and impossible if you don’t know the source. In May 2026 the ICO fined Energy Prices Direct £160,000 for marketing calls using data bought without establishing whether it had been screened against the TPS or CTPS, and in some cases the firm could not say where its data came from.
What enforcement looks like
That case fits a pattern. In December 2024 the ICO fined Money Bubble £120,000 and Breathe Services £170,000 over nuisance calls trying to sell life insurance and debt solutions; Money Bubble could show no evidence that anyone it called had consented.
Since 5 February 2026, the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 has allowed the ICO to impose PECR fines of up to £17.5 million or 4% of global turnover. In 2023 the government also proposed banning cold calls for consumer financial products, including insurance. As of October 2026 that is not law, but it is worth watching if your plans depend on calling list data.
Check the seller as well as the data
A business paid to collect people’s details and ask them about their cover may itself need to be FCA authorised or an appointed representative. Check any seller on the FCA Financial Services Register yourself, and if it says it doesn’t need to be authorised, take that answer to your compliance adviser before you spend anything. Our guide on where to buy leads in the UK covers how to vet a seller more widely.
Before you buy any list or bulk batch, get written answers to these questions and keep them with the records:
- Who compiled the data, from which website, survey or competition, and whether each person ever asked about life insurance.
- When each record was collected, and the exact wording the person saw.
- Whether any consent names your firm, and for which channels.
- When TPS and CTPS screening was last run, and on which records.
- Whether any numbers or details were added later from other sources, rather than given by the person.
- Whether the list was selected by health, such as medical conditions, and why you would need that.
- How many other firms have bought the same records, and when.
- How the seller passes on objections and requests to stop contact.
- Whether dead or unusable records are credited, replaced or simply your loss.
- The seller’s FCA status, checked on the Register rather than its website.
Health details are special category data under UK GDPR, which brings extra conditions before you can use them, so take advice before buying any list selected by health. Paying a call centre to work a list doesn’t pass the risk on either: under PECR, both the caller and the firm that instigated the calls can be held responsible. Check the caller’s screening and records as closely as your own, and put the arrangement in writing.
If a seller can’t answer, the ICO’s advice is not to use the data. For the wider rules on buying and calling any lead, including the Consumer Duty, see the UK rules section of our life insurance leads guide. None of this is legal advice: agree your approach with your compliance adviser or network.
Price a list by the records you can use. Add the cost of screening and checking to what you paid, then divide by the records left once TPS matches, objections and dead numbers are removed. Illustrative example: 1,000 records at £1, £60 of screening and 300 records removed leaves 700 usable records, at about £1.51 each. These figures are examples, not Protection Connect results.
Do cheap life insurance leads cost less per policy?
The price per lead is what you pay. The cost per policy is what decides whether you make money: what you spend on leads for each policy you place, or the price per lead divided by your conversion rate. It turns every cheap-versus-dear argument into a single test.
A rule of thumb falls straight out of it. A lead at a third of the price has to convert at least a third as well just to match the dearer lead per policy.
Illustrative example: if a £45 lead converts 1 in 10, a £15 lead has to convert at least 1 in 30 to cost the same £450 per policy. Below that, the cheaper lead is the more expensive way to place a policy. These figures are examples, not Protection Connect results.
Try it with your own numbers. The calculator puts four lead types side by side, with prices inside the indicative market ranges above and example conversion rates.
Calculator
Cheap leads against dearer ones, per policy
Enter the price you’d pay and the share of leads you expect to become policies for each type. The cheapest lead to buy is often not the cheapest policy.
- Lowest lead cost per policy
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Illustrative calculator: the default prices sit inside our indicative market ranges and the conversion rates are examples, not Protection Connect results or a forecast. Use your own numbers.
Illustrative example: with the starting figures, an aged lead at £5 that converts 0.8% of the time costs £625 per policy, a shared lead at £15 converting at 3% costs £500, an exclusive lead at £45 converting at 10% costs £450 and a hotkey transfer at £90 converting at 16% costs about £563. The aged lead is the cheapest to buy and the dearest per policy.
Raise the shared rate to 3.5%, though, and it falls to about £429, below the exclusive lead. A low-cost lead can win when you convert it well. These conversion rates are examples, not Protection Connect results.
So the honest answer to “are cheap leads worth it?” is sometimes, and only your own conversion rates can tell you. For the wider question of whether bought leads earn their keep for your firm at all, see our honest look at whether life insurance leads work.
Count the hours, not just the pounds
The calculator leaves out the cost of working each lead. Dialling, voicemails, notes and follow-up take time whether or not a lead buys, and cheaper leads need more of them for every policy. The table adds that time back in.
Illustrative example: each lead takes 20 minutes of contact attempts, call time and admin, before any advice, and that time costs £30 an hour, so £10 a lead whatever its price. Conversion rates match the calculator’s starting figures. These figures are examples, not market averages or Protection Connect results.
| Lead type | Leads per policy | Contact hours per policy | Lead cost per policy | Time cost per policy | Total per policy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aged (£5, 0.8%) | 125 | 41.7 | £625 | £1,250 | £1,875 |
| Shared (£15, 3%) | 33.3 | 11.1 | £500 | £333 | £833 |
| Exclusive (£45, 10%) | 10 | 3.3 | £450 | £100 | £550 |
| Hotkey (£90, 16%) | 6.3 | 2.1 | £562.50 | £62.50 | £625 |
Time is where cheap life insurance leads can lose out. In this example the aged lead needs more than 40 hours of contact work for each policy, against just over three for the exclusive one. A dialling team on a lower hourly cost shrinks that column, which is why outbound operations can make low-cost data work where a solo adviser may struggle. Systems, invalid leads and other overheads add more on top; our cost guide covers the hidden costs of buying leads.
Those two costs weigh on real firms too. In a small sample of protection specialists, the FCA’s interim report on pure protection distribution found that lead generation and staff costs together came to about 30% of gross commission. A source that cuts your lead bill but needs twice the contact hours can push that combined share up, not down.
What price makes a low-cost lead worth buying?
Turn the sum round and you get your break-even price: commission per policy, after allowing for clawbacks, multiplied by your conversion rate. Pay more than that and every policy costs more in leads than it earns. Pay less and the difference still has to cover adviser time, systems and profit, so the price you accept should sit well below it.
The calculator starts with a low-cost shared lead. Change the figures to match a lead you’ve been offered.
Calculator
Does a low-cost lead pay at your conversion rate?
Enter the price you’ve been quoted, the share of those leads you expect to become policies and your average commission. The break-even price is the most a lead can cost before each policy loses money.
What you pay for one enquiry.
Policies placed for every 100 leads, as a %. 10% means 1 policy in 10 leads.
Your average commission kept per policy placed (after any network or principal share), before lead costs. Initial commission is typically 170% to 250% of the first year’s premium (FCA, 2026).
Allow for clawbacks
If you take indemnity commission, the share you expect to repay because policies lapse early.
- Lead cost per policy
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- Leads per policy
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- Commission left after leads
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- Commission per £1 of lead spend
- –
- Break-even price per lead
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Illustrative calculator: the default figures are examples, not Protection Connect results or a forecast. Use your own numbers.
Illustrative example: a £15 lead that converts 3% of the time needs about 33 leads for each policy, so each policy costs £500 in leads. Say you keep £750 of commission per policy after any network or principal share; with no share, that is roughly the initial commission on a £25 to £37 monthly premium at 170% to 250% of the first year’s premium. Less the 10% clawback allowance set under “Allow for clawbacks”, that leaves £675, which is £175 after lead costs, and the break-even price is £20.25 per lead.
Drop the conversion rate to 2% and the same lead costs £750 per policy, £75 more than the policy earns, and break-even falls to £13.50. One percentage point turns a lead that pays into one that loses money, before anyone’s time is counted. These figures are examples, not Protection Connect results.
Allow for policies that don’t stick
UK protection commission is mostly paid up front. The FCA’s interim report also found that about 96% was paid on indemnity terms in 2024, with initial commission usually 170% to 250% of first-year premium, and that clawback periods have been moving from two years towards four. The FCA’s earlier market overview (2025) puts them generally at two or four years. A policy that lapses inside that period hands commission back.
The interim report adds that some firms told the FCA some early lapses may be due to poor-quality leads from lead generators. If you suspect a cheap source produces policies that don’t last, raise the clawback setting and watch the break-even price fall.
Illustrative example: at 20%, break-even on the £15 lead above drops from £20.25 to £18. These figures are examples, not Protection Connect results. Track lapses by lead source, because that is the only way to know whether a source’s policies stick.
How do you make low-cost life insurance leads work?
If your numbers say a low-cost source could work, how you buy and work it decides whether it does. These steps apply to shared enquiries, aged leads and bulk batches alike.
- Test small, with a stop dateBuy a fixed number of leads or a fixed spend, and decide in advance what result would make you stop. Avoid long contracts and big minimum orders until a source has proved itself.
- Get the paperwork firstFor each batch, hold the consent wording, the collection date and the screening date before the first call, and keep them with the leads.
- Screen and suppressBefore any live marketing call, screen numbers against the TPS and CTPS, unless the person has told your firm itself that they don’t object to your calls, and check your own do-not-call list. Remove anyone who has asked not to be contacted.
- Set your dialler for the rulesShow your number on every call, and keep abandoned and silent calls to a minimum, because Ofcom can treat them as persistent misuse. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 has also changed PECR so that an attempted call counts even if it never connects, so a dialler that rings a number you shouldn’t call can breach the rules whether or not anyone answers. Agree your dialler settings with your compliance adviser.
- Match your speed to the leadCall shared leads promptly, but keep each attempt calm and brief, because the customer may already be fielding other calls. Work aged leads through a short, planned sequence over several days rather than a burst of calls in one afternoon, set a maximum number of attempts, and stop as soon as someone asks you to.
- Open honestlySay who you are, why you’re calling and where you got their details. Give your privacy information by your first contact, and never later than a month after you receive their details.
- Measure each sourceTrack contact, quote, application, policy on risk and early lapses by source and by batch, not just leads bought.
- Stop when the numbers say soIf a source stays above your break-even price after a fair test, drop it. A lead that doesn’t convert stays expensive however hard you work it.
Opening lines that match how you got the lead
The first few seconds of a call should tell the person who you are and why you have their number. With low-cost leads that matters more, because the person may not remember the form, or may already have had other calls.
- A shared enquiry: your name and firm, the website and the day they enquired, then one question: is now a good time to talk about the cover they asked about?
- An aged enquiry: your name and firm, where their details came from and roughly when they enquired, then ask whether cover is still something they’re thinking about, and accept a no straight away. If they’ve already arranged cover, only discuss replacing it where a change is clearly in their interest, and record why.
- Any lead: if the person says they didn’t ask to be contacted, apologise, record it, add them to your do-not-call list and end the call.
Our guide to converting life insurance leads covers the rest of the first call and the follow-up. If you buy shared enquiries, our guide to real-time life insurance leads explains how to organise a team to call while the customer is still looking.
See whether fresh, exclusive enquiries fit your numbers.
Set a maximum and a daily cap, and pause any time, with no fixed-term contract or minimum monthly spend.
When is paying more for leads the cheaper option?
Affordable life insurance leads are the ones whose cost per policy your commission can carry, not the ones with the lowest price on the rate card. Paying more per lead is cheaper whenever it lowers your total cost per policy: leads, time, checks and clawbacks together. In the illustrative hours table above, that holds for the £45 exclusive lead against the £15 shared one, at three times the price, but not for the £90 hotkey against the £45 exclusive lead. Whether it holds for you depends entirely on your own conversion rates and costs.
Low-cost leads can pay
When your set-up fits them
- You run a dialling team whose time costs less than an adviser’s
- You already screen, record and suppress bought data as a matter of routine
- You know your own conversion rate on that lead type
- You can work every lead on the day it arrives
Pay more instead
When cheap leads struggle
- You advise and make your own calls, so your hours are the limit
- Your conversion rate on cheap leads is low, or you don’t know it
- You can’t show what list data customers were told
- Early lapses from a source are eating your commission
A quick way to place your firm:
- If you advise and make your own calls, your hours are the constraint. A lead at a third of the price that needs three times the dialling for each policy costs more in the end, once your time is counted. Start with your own clients and referrals, which our guide to free life insurance leads covers, and buy fresh enquiries to fill the gaps.
- If you’re a mortgage adviser adding protection, the clients you already advise are usually your lowest-cost source. Raise protection at application and at remortgage before you buy anything.
- If you run an outbound team with a dialler, low-cost leads can pay, but screening and records are only the start: agree your dialler settings with your compliance adviser, as the steps above explain. Run a cheap source and a fresh one side by side, compare cost per policy rather than price per lead, and keep tracking early lapses by source over the following months.
- If you’re new to buying leads, don’t start at the bottom of the market. You need a clean read of your own conversion rate first, and cheap leads give a noisy one. Our guide for advisers new to buying leads suggests how to begin.
There is also the customer to think about. Someone who gets several calls about one form, or a call they didn’t expect, has not had a good start. The FCA’s Consumer Duty expects firms to avoid foreseeable harm, including to people who aren’t yet their clients, so ask your compliance adviser how it applies to the sources you use.
Low-cost data also reaches people who didn’t expect a call, and some of them may be in vulnerable circumstances. The FCA’s guidance on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers (FG21/1) names four drivers: health, life events, resilience and capability. Make sure whoever makes the calls can spot the signs, slows down or offers to call back when they see them, and doesn’t press anyone for a decision.
Does Protection Connect sell cheap life insurance leads?
No. Protection Connect is not a cheap per-lead source. The minimum price per enquiry is £35 for life and over-50s cover, shown in your dashboard before you pay.
- Where it comes from, and who else gets it. Our own consumer websites, LifeAdviser and 50Life, from people looking for life or over-50s cover who asked to be contacted. Each enquiry goes to one broker only; we never share, resell or recycle it.
- What the customer agreed to. On LifeAdviser the customer ticks: “I’d like Life Adviser, a trading style of PJG Financial Limited, to contact me about life insurance by phone or email. I have read the Privacy Policy and Terms.” They are then told an FCA authorised adviser firm will contact them, and that the firm pays us a fee for the introduction, at no extra cost to them. The tick names Life Adviser, not your firm, and the customer doesn’t see your firm’s name before they send. Every lead, from either website, shows when the customer consented and the contact methods they agreed to. At set-up you confirm that you check numbers against the TPS where required. Ask your compliance adviser how PECR applies to calling or emailing these customers, including the naming and channel rules above.
- What you pay. You set the most you’ll pay. The highest eligible maximum receives the enquiry and pays 1p more than the next-highest eligible bid from another firm, or the minimum price if no other firm’s campaign is eligible, never more than its own maximum. Bid at the minimum and that is all you pay, but you receive an enquiry only when no other eligible firm bids more, and equal bids go to the bid set first, so you may receive fewer.
- What you can claim back. Claim within 48 hours of delivery for an invalid phone number or email, a duplicate, a customer materially outside your criteria, or a fraudulent or test enquiry, and an approved claim credits the full price to your balance. A customer not answering or not buying isn’t a ground; see our Terms.
You top up from £250, cap each campaign by spend or by leads per day (limits reset at midnight UK time) and pause any time, with no subscription, fixed-term contract or minimum monthly spend.
When we’re not the answer. If, on your own figures, a lead is worth less than £35 to your firm, we aren’t the right source, and a cheaper lead type or generating your own enquiries may suit you better.
See how it works, a sample enquiry, what it costs to start and our fuller guide to buying on Protection Connect.
Questions brokers ask about cheap life insurance leads
Sometimes. A cheap lead is worth buying when your cost per policy, including the time it takes to work the extra leads, comes out lower than with a dearer source. That usually needs a team built for volume, a reliable compliance process and conversion data of your own. If you don’t yet know your conversion rate on a lead type, test small before you commit, and judge the result per policy, not per lead.
Most come from one of six places: enquiries that are weeks or months old, enquiries sold to several firms at once, low-intent traffic such as prize draws and quizzes, co-registration forms that pass details to many partners, data that has been resold several times, and marketing lists that were never enquiries at all. Ask any seller which of these applies before you buy.
In the UK, low-cost leads mostly come from data companies that sell aged enquiries or marketing lists in batches, sometimes with a minimum order, and from lead sellers that pass each enquiry to several firms. Some agencies also sell details collected through prize draws, quizzes or social media forms. Before you pay, check the seller on the FCA Register, ask how old each lead is, how many firms get it and what the person agreed to, and start with a small batch.
Buying marketing data isn’t prohibited in itself, but how you use it is tightly regulated. PECR restricts marketing calls to numbers registered with the TPS, and email or text marketing needs consent that names your firm. UK GDPR requires you to tell people where you got their details, and the ICO says you must check a seller’s claims rather than accept them. How the rules apply to a particular list is a question for your compliance adviser.
Only if each person gave consent that names your firm and covers that channel. The ICO says consent that doesn’t name you, or doesn’t cover the method you plan to use, isn’t valid, and the soft opt-in never applies to bought-in lists. In practice, if a record’s consent mentions only partners or third parties, treat it as phone-only, screen against the TPS before calling and check your approach with your compliance adviser.
A lead, however cheap, starts with a person asking about cover, even if it was months ago or the enquiry was sold to several firms. A data record is contact information compiled for marketing, often sold in bulk, where the person never asked about life insurance. Calling a record is outbound marketing, with TPS screening and consent checks to match, so the two should never be priced or judged as the same thing.
A bulk or wholesale batch lowers the price per lead, but not the work or the checks per lead, and the cash goes out before you’ve tested quality. Leads can also age while they wait in your queue. Bulk buying makes most sense once you know a source converts for you and you can work every lead promptly. Until then, buy small and judge the result on cost per policy.
Divide one by your conversion rate. Illustrative example: at 3%, about 33 leads produce one policy; at 0.8%, it takes 125. That number is also your workload, because every lead takes dialling and admin time whether it buys or not. Use your own conversion rates rather than anyone else’s averages, and count the hours as well as the price. These figures are examples, not Protection Connect results.
Usually your own sources: existing clients, mortgage clients at application and remortgage, and referrals from clients and professional contacts. They cost time rather than a price per lead, and the person already knows who you are. They are harder to scale at short notice, which is when firms tend to buy leads. Our guide to free life insurance leads covers the legitimate options for UK advisers.
The minimum price per enquiry is £35 for life and over-50s cover, and it’s shown in your dashboard before you top up. If no other firm’s campaign is eligible for an enquiry, the firm that receives it pays that minimum. Otherwise it pays 1p more than the next-highest eligible bid from another firm, never more than its own maximum. Every enquiry goes to one broker only.
Sources and further reading
- ICO: Organisations using marketing services of data brokers: what you need to know
- ICO: How do we comply with the rules on live marketing calls?
- ICO: How do we comply with the PECR electronic mail marketing rules?
- ICO: Glasgow-based energy company fined £160,000 for making unsolicited marketing calls (May 2026)
- ICO: Rogue companies receive fines totalling £290k for making millions of nuisance calls (December 2024)
- ICO: Statement on the commencement of the Data (Use and Access) Act (February 2026)
- GOV.UK: Data (Use and Access) Act factsheet: PEC Regulations
- HM Treasury: Ban on cold calling for consumer financial services and products (consultation, 2023)
- FCA: Distribution of pure protection products to retail customers, market study interim report (MS24/1.4), January 2026
- FCA: Pure protection market study, market overview (MS24/1.3), September 2025
- FCA: Consumer Duty
- FCA: Guidance for firms on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers (FG21/1)
- FCA: Financial Services Register
