How to convert life insurance leads: from first call to policy on risk

How do you convert life insurance leads?

A bought lead becomes a policy only after five stages, and the success rates at each stage multiply. Modest gains at two or three stages can do more for your cost per policy than a cheaper lead.

1. Reach themCall promptly, then make planned attempts at different times until you speak or close the lead.
2. Open wellSay who you are, which enquiry you’re returning and how you have their details.
3. Advise and quoteFind the real need, recommend cover that fits it, and give an indicative premium early.
4. Apply and underwriteAsk the underwriting questions first, then keep the customer informed until the decision.
5. Keep it on riskLine up the start date and first premium, then check in once the first payments have gone.

With a shared lead, other firms may be calling too, so speed and a clear opening count for even more; see how exclusive and shared leads differ.

How to improve your contact rate

Your contact rate, the share of leads you speak to, caps everything after it, so protect the first call: one named owner per lead, an alert that reaches a person, and daily caps that match the calls your team can make. Our guide to real-time leads sets out a 10-day plan of attempts.

Before you dial, spend half a minute on what the lead tells you:

• Age, smoker status, cover and term: a rough premium range and a first guess at the need.
• The website and the time of the enquiry: your opening line.
• The contact methods they agreed to: the channels you may be able to use for follow-up, subject to your firm’s view on PECR (email or text marketing needs consent that names your firm and the channel).
• A repeat flag from the seller, or an earlier record in your CRM: you may be picking up a conversation, not starting one.
• What’s missing, usually date of birth, full address and health details: your fact-find questions.

Call from a number that displays and takes call-backs, and use the same one each time. Leave a voicemail on some attempts with your name, firm and the enquiry you’re returning, but no health details or cover figures.

Use only the contact methods the customer agreed to. Agree attempt limits, and how PECR applies to each channel, with your compliance adviser. Our summary of the UK rules for calling leads and the ICO’s direct marketing guidance cover TPS screening and consent for email and text.

What should you say on the first call to a life insurance lead?

The first half minute often decides whether the call carries on. Answer three questions quickly: who is this, why are they calling me, and how did they get my number?

A clear opening is one practical way to support the Consumer Duty’s consumer understanding outcome, which applies to people before they become your client (PRIN 2A.1).

1. Say who you areYour name, your firm and that you advise on protection. Slow down; it’s the part customers most need to hear.
2. Name their enquiryThe website, roughly when, and what they asked about, such as £250,000 of cover over 25 years.
3. Explain how you have their detailsThey asked to be contacted about cover, and the website passed their enquiry to your firm. Give your privacy information by this first contact at the latest (UK GDPR Article 14), including where their details came from.
4. Check it’s a good timeIf it isn’t, book the next call and ring exactly when you said.
5. Ask what prompted the enquiryA new home, a baby or a friend’s illness tells you the need and how urgent it feels.
6. Explain what happens nextHow advice works with your firm, how long it takes, and that the customer decides at each step.

Treat it as an outline, not a script. Agree the wording with your compliance adviser, then let each adviser say it in their own voice.

Before a customer takes out a policy, ICOBS 4.1 requires you to tell them, among other things, who you are and your address, that you’re an intermediary and how to check your FCA register entry, whether you act for them or the insurer, whether you give a personal recommendation and on what basis, and how to complain, including to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Pointing a wary customer to your register entry also answers “how do I know you’re genuine?”

When the customer says they didn’t ask to be called

It happens: a forgotten form, a partner who filled it in, a mistyped number. Stay polite, say which website the enquiry came through and when, and ask whether they’d like help or no further contact. Record the answer and act on it.

One such call is noise. A run of them from one source is a quality and compliance warning, so stop buying until the seller can show how those enquiries were collected. Our guide to qualified life insurance leads helps you tell a weak source from a weak process.

Notice when someone may need more care

Protection enquiries often follow a birth, a bereavement or a diagnosis. The FCA’s vulnerable customers guidance, FG21/1, names four drivers of vulnerability: health, life events, resilience and capability. If you notice signs, slow down, offer to put things in writing, suggest a family member joins the next call and don’t push for a decision.

How do you turn a life insurance lead into a quote?

Once the customer is happy to talk, the job is good advice: understand the need, recommend cover that fits it and the budget, and make the next step easy. You’re building trust and fact-finding at once, so say why you’re asking each question.

• Who depends on the customer’s income or care, and for how long.
• The mortgage: balance, remaining term, repayment or interest-only, and any completion date.
• Other debts, and existing cover, including death-in-service benefit and policies in trust.
• Health, lifestyle and smoking status, in enough detail to choose the right insurer.
• Date of birth and full address, which a lead may not include.
• The monthly budget they’re comfortable with, not the most they could stretch to.
• Whether a long illness or loss of income would hurt the household as much as a death.

That last point can widen a life enquiry: critical illness cover or income protection may deserve a place in the discussion. Recommend what they need and can afford, explain anything you’re leaving out and why, and record it.

Give an indicative premium early

Where you can, give an indicative premium in the first or second conversation rather than promising to come back with figures. Send the written recommendation promptly and book the next call before you hang up, so the quote doesn’t sit unanswered in an inbox. Then give them time to read it; if they want longer to decide, agree when you’ll next speak and keep to it.

For customers who assume cover is out of reach, Which? found in April 2026 that £200,000 of level cover over 25 years cost a 31-year-old non-smoker about £8.20 a month, averaging the five cheapest quotes. Say what the figure was based on, and that their own premium may be much higher.

Explain why the recommendation suits them, including level or decreasing cover and whether to write it in trust; a customer who understands it has fewer reasons to drop out. Our guide to term life insurance leads covers the enquiry types you’ll meet most.

On over-50s enquiries, explain that guaranteed acceptance plans typically have a 12 or 24 month waiting period and can pay out less than the premiums paid in, and compare underwritten cover where health allows.

How do you handle life insurance objections without pressure?

Most objections are questions the customer hasn’t quite asked, so find what sits behind each one and answer it straight. Pressure selling risks the foreseeable harm the Consumer Duty asks firms to avoid, and a policy someone was pushed into is easy to cancel, which can take your commission with it.

A second no after a fair answer is the customer’s decision. Thank them, record the reason and close the lead.

How do you follow up a life insurance lead until the policy is on risk?

Cases stall between stages: a missed call-back, a quote with no next step, an application that goes quiet in underwriting. A planned next step at each stage keeps them moving.

Getting applications through underwriting

• Ask the underwriting questions before you apply: height and weight, medical and family history, occupation, hobbies, travel, smoking and vaping.
• Stress full, honest answers. A misrepresentation can reduce or defeat a claim later.
• Where your panel allows, choose the insurer for the customer’s health and lifestyle, not the headline price or the commission.
• Say at the outset if a GP report or medical is likely, and that it adds time.
• If terms come back changed, explain what that means and check the cover still suits them and is affordable before asking them to accept.

Not taken up cases and early lapses

A case is not taken up (NTU) when the insurer offers cover but the policy never starts. An early lapse starts and then stops because premiums aren’t paid. Both waste the lead, and a lapse can also cost you commission you’ve already received.

The FCA’s interim report records some firms saying some early lapses may be due to poor-quality leads, so track lapses by source.

Illustrative example: a £30-a-month policy at 200% initial commission pays £720 up front. If it lapses after eight months and clawback runs pro rata over four years, you repay about £600. Terms vary, so check your own, and see how clawback affects cash flow.

• Check affordability against their real monthly budget, not only the quote.
• Send a short summary of what the policy covers and doesn’t. Tell them to talk to you if money gets tight, as there may be a way to keep some cover, and make clear they can cancel whenever they choose.

If the customer already holds cover, replace it only when that leaves them better off, never to restart the commission clock.

How do you track leads and measure your conversion rate?

One conversion figure tells you whether leads work, but not why. Track every lead through the same stages, by source and by adviser.

A spreadsheet will do at first. Record each lead’s source, arrival and first-call times, attempts, outcome and stage dates, then the premium, commission and on-risk date, and keep the record open through the clawback period. For outcome codes, see measuring lead quality yourself.

Calculator

What does each policy cost you in leads?

Enter your price per lead and your rate at each stage, then change one rate at a time to see which gain saves most.

Leads you speak to as a percentage

%

Conversations that get a quote as a percentage

%

Quotes that become policies as a percentage

%

Price per lead in pounds

£

1. Leads bought–
2. Spoken to–
3. Quoted–
4. Policies–

Illustrative calculator: the default figures are examples, not Protection Connect results or a forecast. Use your own numbers.

Illustrative example: at the defaults, 100 leads at £45 cost £4,500 and become 10 policies, so each carries £450 of lead cost. Lift contact from 50% to 60% and you get 12 policies at £375 each, the same as cutting the lead price to £37.50. These rates are examples, not Protection Connect results.

Judge on enough leads, because rates from a dozen swing wildly. Our 30-day test plan for bought leads sets out when to stop and when to scale.

Whether £375 or £450 is affordable depends on what a policy earns you. Our guide to whether buying leads works at your numbers runs that sum, and the hidden costs of buying leads adds adviser time and clawback.

Use a CRM and automation for the admin, not the call

Automation won’t make the call, but it removes the delays and forgotten follow-ups that cost conversions.

1. Receive. The lead arrives by webhook, for example through Zapier or Make.
2. Record. Create the CRM contact with the source, reference, consent time and the contact methods the customer agreed to.
3. Assign. Route it to the adviser on duty, in rotation or by product.
4. Prompt. Create a call-now task and your follow-up tasks, and notify the adviser with the reference and a link, not the customer’s details.
5. Tidy up. Mark credited leads. If the customer asks for erasure, delete the record, keeping only what your compliance adviser agrees you need to avoid contacting them again; someone who simply objects goes on your suppression list.

Don’t let a sequence send marketing emails or texts the customer hasn’t validly agreed to receive from your firm; automation makes a consent mistake faster, not safer. If you use a dialler, read the rules for calling leads within minutes, including why unconnected attempts now count, and stop it calling anyone who has objected.

How this works on Protection Connect

Protection Connect supplies only exclusive life insurance, income protection and over-50s life insurance leads. Each enquiry comes from someone on our own websites, LifeAdviser or 50Life, who asked to be contacted, and goes to one broker only.

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  Calling while it’s freshAvailable leads shows roughly when each enquiry arrived. Once you buy, the details open in My leads straight away, with an email alert. You can call as soon as you buy.
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  Saying who you areOn LifeAdviser and 50Life a notice tells the customer their details may go to one FCA authorised adviser firm, or one of its appointed representatives, that buys enquiries through Protection Connect and may contact them about their enquiry. It doesn’t name your firm, so say who you are and which site they enquired on when you call. Contact them only about that enquiry, and ask your compliance adviser how PECR applies to each way you contact them.
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  Keeping the recordA Zapier or Make webhook can feed your CRM and tell it when a lead is credited or the customer asks for erasure. Contact details stay in your inbox only for a limited time, so keep live cases in your CRM.
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  CreditsClaim within 48 hours of delivery for a phone number not in service, a duplicate supplied to your firm in the previous 30 days, or a test enquiry. A customer who doesn’t answer, changes their mind, already has cover, doesn’t qualify or doesn’t buy isn’t a ground (see our Terms).

Converting is down to your firm; we can’t guarantee anyone will answer or buy. More on how it works and buying options, pricing and credits.

Questions brokers ask about converting leads

Sources and further reading

1. ICO: Guidance on direct marketing and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations
2. FCA Handbook: PRIN 2A.1, application of the Consumer Duty
3. FCA Handbook: ICOBS 4.1, information about the firm and its services (status disclosure)
4. ICO: The right to be informed, when should we provide privacy information? (UK GDPR Articles 13 and 14)
5. FCA: FG21/1, guidance for firms on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers
6. Which?: What does affordable life insurance actually cost? (April 2026)
7. ABI: Protection insurers pay out £7.84 billion (June 2026)
8. FCA: Distribution of pure protection products to retail customers, market study interim report (MS24/1.4), January 2026