Life insurance leads for agents and advisers in the UK

Life insurance leads for agents, in UK terms, are enquiries from people who want cover, passed to the adviser who will call them, advise and arrange the policy. To buy and work them yourself, your firm must be FCA authorised to advise on protection, or you must be a full appointed representative (AR) whose principal allows it; an employed adviser usually works the leads the firm buys. Your options are fresh exclusive enquiries, shared leads, hotkey transfers and aged data, and the most you can pay for any of them depends on the commission you keep after your principal’s or network’s share.

What are life insurance leads for agents in the UK?

“Agent” is American vocabulary, and much of the advice written for agents assumes an American set-up. There, an agent holds a personal licence for each state they sell in, independent agents often contract with insurers through a marketing organisation, and leads are often part of the arrangement. Very little of that carries across.

In the UK the regulated part of the job is advising on and arranging the cover, and the FCA grants permission for it to firms. You can look up any firm on the FCA Financial Services Register, which shows its status and permissions. An appointed representative isn’t authorised itself: it works under a contract in which an authorised principal accepts responsibility, in writing, for its regulated business (SUP 12.2).

So the first question about leads isn’t what they cost. It’s who decides which ones you can use.

Five steps before you buy your first lead

1. Check your Register entryMake sure your firm, or your AR appointment, is listed for insurance distribution, and that permission to advise on and arrange protection sits with your firm or your principal.
2. Read your principal’s lead policyFind out whether bought leads are allowed, which sellers are approved and what you must keep for each lead.
3. Agree who handles the dataSettle who screens numbers against the TPS, who sends the privacy notice and who is the controller of each lead’s data.
4. Price from your shareWork out the most you can pay per lead from the commission you keep after any split, not the commission the insurer pays.
5. Start small and log the sourceBuy a capped batch, record where every lead came from and judge the seller on cost per policy.

US words and their UK equivalents

If you’ve been reading American advice, these translations help.

• Captive agent: an adviser who recommends one insurer only. A UK firm in that position must tell customers which insurer it deals with (ICOBS 4.1).
• Independent agent: an adviser who recommends from a panel of insurers or from the whole market.
• IMO or FMO: the nearest UK equivalent is a network or principal firm that oversees its appointed representatives.
• Book of business: your client bank, which may belong to your firm or principal rather than to you, depending on your agreement.
• Final expense: the nearest UK product is over-50s life insurance, usually a guaranteed acceptance plan, which our over-50s life insurance leads guide covers. Pre-paid funeral plans are a different product, regulated by the FCA since 29 July 2022, and need their own permission.

Life insurance agent leads in the UK therefore come in two forms: leads a firm buys or generates for its own advisers, and leads a self-employed adviser buys within the rules of the firm they work under. The sections below take each in turn.

Can appointed representatives buy life insurance leads?

Usually, yes, with your principal’s agreement. The purchase itself isn’t what the FCA regulates. Advising the customer and arranging their cover are, and as an appointed representative you do both under your principal’s responsibility. That’s why many principals and networks have a lead-sourcing policy, and why it outranks anything a seller tells you.

What your principal is responsible for

Your principal has accepted responsibility for the regulated business you carry on within the scope of your appointment. If a lead was gathered with a misleading advert, or a customer is contacted in a way that breaks the rules, the problem becomes your principal’s as well as yours. Expect it to want a say in where your leads come from, how they’re contacted and what you keep on file.

Principals handle this in different ways. Some approve a handful of suppliers and let you buy from any of them. Others want you to ask before you try a new seller, and some don’t allow bought leads at all. Find out which applies to you before you spend anything.

Full ARs and introducer ARs

The type of appointment matters more than the size of your business. A full AR can be appointed to advise on and arrange protection, so it can work a lead all the way from first contact to a policy on risk. An introducer AR’s appointment is limited to making introductions to its principal and distributing non-real-time promotions. It can’t advise or arrange, and it must avoid anything that suggests it does (SUP 12.2.8G).

If your appointment is new

An appointed representative can’t start insurance distribution until the FCA Register lists it for that activity (PERG 5.13). Check your own entry before you buy anything. A careful seller will look it up too, and a lead that arrives before you can advise on it is money spent on a customer you can’t help.

What to ask your principal before you buy

• Are bought leads allowed under my AR agreement, and for which products?
• Which sellers have you approved, and how do I get a new one approved?
• What due diligence do you need from me on a seller, such as its FCA status, its consent wording and how it collects enquiries?
• If I generate my own leads, do my adverts and web pages need your sign-off?
• Who is the data controller for leads I buy (me, you or both), and whose privacy notice does the customer receive?
• Do you provide TPS screening or a central do-not-contact list, or do I run my own?
• What must I keep for each lead, and for how long?
• How should each lead and its source be recorded so your file checks can find them?

Get the answers in writing and keep them with your notes on each seller. Policies change, so check again before you add a new source.

If you’re the principal

If you run a network or principal firm, your ARs’ lead buying is part of the oversight you already owe. A short written policy saves arguments later: which sellers are approved and why, what each AR must keep for every lead, and how a new source is tested before ARs spend money on it.

If you buy enquiries centrally and pass them to ARs, check first that the seller’s terms and what each customer was told allow it. An AR is usually a separate firm and may be a separate data controller, so ask your compliance adviser how PECR and UK GDPR apply, then decide how you’ll allocate leads and record who worked each one. Protection Connect doesn’t allow it: each AR that wants our enquiries opens its own account.

Do networks and principal firms provide leads?

Some do. A network or principal might run its own lead scheme, agree a rate with an outside seller for its members, or simply approve a few suppliers and leave the buying to each AR. Others supply none. For mortgage networks, the FCA’s interim market study report on pure protection found that lead costs are typically borne by the member firms, and that leads usually come through members’ mortgage clients rather than being specific to protection.

A scheme can spare you the work of vetting sellers, but “network leads” is a label, not a lead type. Ask the questions you’d put to any seller, plus a few that only arise inside a network.

Judge a network scheme on lead cost per policy from your own results, alongside anything else you buy. Our guide to where to buy leads and what to check walks through the other kinds of seller and how to run a fair trial.

Are there life insurance companies that provide leads?

Not in the way US searches for life insurance leads for agents suggest. UK protection insurers reach customers mainly through intermediaries and pay them through commission, not by handing over enquiries.

That commission is how an insurer pays for distribution, including the work of finding the customer. Insurers also sell direct: about 12% of policies sold in 2024 went direct to consumers, according to the same FCA interim report, and we know of no UK protection insurer that passes its direct enquiries to advisers as a routine lead supply. Insurers support advisers in other ways, with product training, literature and online application systems.

There’s also a reason to be wary of leads from a provider. Under the FCA’s principles, firms must manage conflicts of interest fairly, and a flow of customers from one insurer is a benefit that could be seen to sway which insurer you recommend. If an insurer, or anyone acting for one, offers you enquiries, ask your compliance adviser how that fits your firm’s conflicts policy before you accept.

If you meant companies that sell leads

Many people who search for life insurance companies that provide leads are really looking for lead sellers. The FCA’s final market study report, published in September 2026, defines a lead generator as a business that collects consumers’ contact details and hands them to other firms, paid either by fee or by a share of the commission. It considered requiring intermediaries to report which lead generators they use, as a check on unnecessary switching, and decided against it. That doesn’t change your position: checking a seller, and keeping the evidence, has always been your firm’s job.

Start with the seller’s FCA status. A seller that is paid for enquiries and asks people qualifying questions would typically need its own authorisation, or to be an appointed representative, so look it up on the Register and raise it with your compliance adviser or principal if the seller claims it doesn’t need to be. Then check what “exclusive” means in its terms; the exclusive life insurance leads guide shows how sellers stretch the word.

What should you check in life insurance jobs with leads provided?

Before anything else, check three things: who pays for the leads, who repays commission if a policy lapses early, and who keeps the client if you leave.

Search for life insurance jobs with leads and you’ll find two kinds of advert. American ones often recruit commission-only agents and promise leads as part of the package. UK ones tend to be adviser roles at telephone brokerages and advice firms, or self-employed places with a network, with leads either supplied or available to buy.

A role that comes with leads can be a sensible start, because once the firm has assessed you as competent you advise customers, under supervision, without paying for enquiries yourself. The catch is that “leads provided” tells you who buys them, not who ends up paying.

The cards below set the two kinds of job beside a third option, running your own firm. Each puts the cost and the risk in a different place.

Questions to ask before you accept

• Am I employed or self-employed, and is there a basic salary?
• Who pays for the leads, and does any of the cost come out of my commission?
• What kind of leads are they: enquiries from people who asked for advice, hotkey transfers from a call centre, or aged data?
• Roughly how many leads a week, and what happens to my pay if supply drops?
• If a policy lapses within the clawback period, who repays the commission, and is anything held back from me to cover it?
• Who keeps the client, the renewal commission and future reviews if I leave?
• What training and supervision will I get, and how will the firm assess my competence?
• Is the firm, or its principal, on the FCA Register with permission to advise on protection?

Be wary of any role that asks you to pay before you earn: a fee to join, a paid starter pack of leads, or training you buy before anyone has taken you on. Until you work under an authorised firm’s permissions, directly or through an AR, you can’t advise the customers behind those leads. If the role is commission-only, find out whether you’d be employed or self-employed, because that usually decides who pays for leads and who carries clawback.

Clawback deserves the most attention. Clawback periods are usually two or four years and have been moving towards four, according to the FCA, so a policy that lapses in its second year can still cost you some or all of its commission.

Lead quality feeds straight into this. Some firms told the FCA that some early lapses may be due to poor-quality leads from lead generators. Separately, the highest lapse rate the FCA observed was 23% in the first year, on non-advised intermediated sales with four-year clawback; the average across 2024 policies in force was 5%, so 23% isn’t a benchmark for advised business.

The same interim report cites Elixir, an industry group representing insurers: its members wrote off around £100m of commission debt between 2019 and July 2025 after some intermediaries left the market, and more than 95% of write-offs were attributed to phone-based sales firms. Elixir described a cycle of selling new policies to cover clawbacks, which is the pattern a lead budget must never push you into.

On training, there’s no FCA-required qualification for pure protection advice, but the firm must check that you’re competent for the work, so ask how it will assess you before it puts you on leads. A firm that hands you leads in your first week without that conversation is telling you how it works. Our guide for new advisers covers what the competence rules expect and how a network can support you.

How do life insurance agents get leads in the UK?

Leads for life insurance agents come through the same channels as any protection firm’s. What changes when you’re an AR or an employed adviser is who has to agree. Our channel-by-channel guide to getting leads lines up every channel by cost, speed and effort; the table below shows what to settle with your firm or principal for each one.

Which leads suit an AR or a self-employed adviser?

The right leads for an AR or a self-employed adviser pass three tests: your firm or principal allows them, you can contact the people behind them within the rules, and they cost less per policy than the commission you actually keep. For a self-employed adviser working alone, that usually points to your own clients and referrals first, then fresh exclusive enquiries bought in small, capped batches. We sell exclusive enquiries, so weigh that view accordingly.

Shared leads put several firms in a race to call the same person, which tends to favour teams set up to call at volume. Our guide to the best life insurance leads for different firms ranks the lead types by firm model.

If you run the firm and buy life insurance leads for your agents or advisers, apply the same tests at firm level. Buy only what your advisers can call promptly, and give each lead to one adviser so the customer hears from one person at your firm, not several.

What can a self-employed adviser afford to spend on leads?

Whether life insurance leads for agents pay off comes down to two numbers: the most you can pay for one lead, and the monthly budget that gets you the policies you want. Both start from the commission you keep, which for an AR or a self-employed adviser is usually less than the commission the insurer pays out. Your principal or network may keep a percentage, charge fees, or both.

Start from the commission you keep

Illustrative example: a policy at £30 a month brings in £360 of premium in its first year. At the 170% to 250% initial commission the FCA found to be usual, that earns about £612 to £900, so £750 is a fair middle figure. If your principal keeps 20%, £600 reaches you. These are examples, not typical splits or Protection Connect results, so use the terms of your own agreement.

The calculator works back from that figure to the most you can pay per lead. It starts at £600 kept per policy, 12% of leads becoming policies and half of each commission spent on leads. These are placeholders, not typical or Protection Connect figures: we know of no published UK conversion benchmark for protection leads, so replace them with your own.

Calculator

What can you pay per lead on your share of commission?

Enter the commission you keep after your principal’s or network’s share, the share of leads you turn into policies, and how much of each commission you’re prepared to spend on leads.

Average commission per policy in pounds

£

Initial commission is typically 170% to 250% of the first year’s premium (FCA, 2026). Use the commission your firm keeps after any network or principal share.

Leads that become policies as a percentage

%

Share of commission you will spend on leads as a percentage

%

Keep the rest for advice time, overheads and profit.

Your maximum bid per lead

–

Break-even price per lead

–

Lead cost per policy at your maximum

–

Illustrative calculator. The maximum bid is the most you would pay for one enquiry; on Protection Connect the price you actually pay can be lower (1p more than the next-highest eligible bid from another firm, or the minimum price), never higher.

Illustrative example: at those figures each lead is worth £72 to you before any costs (12% of £600). Spending half of that on the lead gives a maximum of £36, which works out at £300 of lead cost per policy. Keep the full £750 at the same conversion rate and the maximum rises to £45.

A commission split comes straight off what you can bid, so don’t borrow a maximum from a firm that keeps all of its commission. These figures are examples, not Protection Connect results.

Illustrative example: put that £36 next to what sellers advertise. Exclusive enquiries are often advertised at around £30 to £80 and shared leads at £10 to £25, so at these example figures an adviser whose principal keeps 20% can afford only the bottom of the exclusive range. 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.

On Protection Connect the minimum price per enquiry is currently £35, and the calculator tells you if your result falls below it. The highest eligible maximum bid wins each enquiry, so a maximum set just above the minimum wins only where no other firm’s eligible campaign has set more.

If your result is below the minimum, Protection Connect enquiries won’t pay at your numbers until your conversion rate or the commission you keep per policy improves, and your own clients deserve your time first. Don’t look for bigger cases to make the sums work: the cover should fit the customer’s needs, not your lead budget. Our guide to exclusive leads sets out the full maximum-bid method, including how to allow for clawback.

Set a monthly budget you can carry

Next, decide how many policies you want from bought leads each month and let the planner show what that costs. It starts at four policies a month, 12% conversion, £36 a lead and £600 kept per policy.

Calculator

How much will your lead plan cost each month?

Start from the policies you want each month, or switch to the budget you have, then enter your own conversion rate, the price you expect to pay and the commission you keep.

Plan by

Policies I want Budget I have

Policies you want a month

Monthly lead budget in pounds

£

Leads that become policies as a percentage

%

Use your own figure if you have one.

Average price per lead in pounds

£

Average commission per policy in pounds

£

Monthly lead budget

–

Leads a month

–

Leads a week

–

Daily spend limit to spread it evenly

–

Commission after lead costs

–

Illustrative planner: the default figures are examples, not Protection Connect results or a promise of lead volumes. The daily figure divides the monthly budget by 30.4 days.

Illustrative example: four policies at 12% needs about 34 leads a month, or roughly eight a week. At £36 each that’s about £1,224 a month, or a daily spend of around £40 if you spread it evenly. Four policies at £600 bring in £2,400, leaving about £1,176 after lead costs, before clawback, any fees and tax.

On Protection Connect you never pay more than your maximum bid, so pricing every lead at the maximum shows the upper end of what the plan would cost. These figures are examples, not Protection Connect results or a promise of volume.

Plan for the wait and the clawback

The money goes out before it comes back. You pay for each lead when it arrives, and commission follows only once the customer has been advised, underwritten and put on risk, which can take weeks. After that, a clawback period, usually two or four years, runs on each policy. As an AR or self-employed adviser, the answers that decide your cash flow are in your agreement, so ask your principal or network:

• Does it keep part of each commission advance in reserve against clawback, and when is that money released to you?
• If a policy you wrote lapses after you leave, who repays the commission, and can it come out of money still owed to you?
• Are lead costs taken off before your commission split is worked out, or after? On a 20% split, the order changes what you take home.

For comparison, the protection specialists in the FCA’s sample spent about 30% of their gross commission on lead generation and staff costs combined. That was a small sample of firms, and the comparison isn’t exact: in a firm, staff costs pay the advisers, while as a self-employed adviser your own earnings come out of what’s left after leads. If leads take half of each commission you keep, check that the other half covers clawback, fees, insurance, tax and a living, not just the next batch of leads.

If you’re new to advice as well as to buying leads, our guide for new advisers works through a month-by-month cash-flow example and a plan for your first 90 days, and the cost guide covers how to budget for leads each month.

Which rules matter most when an adviser works bought leads?

The general rules on buying and calling leads, including the Consumer Duty, PECR and the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), and UK GDPR, are set out in the rules section of our UK life insurance leads guide. If you’re an AR or an employed adviser, five points need extra care.

Use your principal’s processes

If your principal screens numbers against the TPS, keeps a central do-not-contact list or supplies a privacy notice for new customers, use them rather than building your own. If it doesn’t, agree in writing who does each job.

The rule for live calls is the same whatever your set-up: you can’t make a live marketing call to a TPS-registered number unless that person has specifically told your firm, in a notification that names you, that they don’t object to your calls for the time being, and you keep a record of it (ICO guidance). Email and text marketing to a bought-in lead needs consent that names your firm and the channel. Check with your compliance adviser or principal how these rules apply to the way you contact the enquiries you buy.

Say who you are, and whose representative you are

A customer who made an enquiry may not recognise your trading name, so open every call with your name and firm, the reason for the call and where their details came from. Your status disclosure tells them how to check your entry on the FCA Register, which for an AR shows your principal. A clear opening supports the consumer understanding the Consumer Duty expects, and the Duty applies to people who haven’t yet become your clients.

Know who controls the data

When you buy a lead, someone becomes responsible for that customer’s personal data under UK GDPR: your firm, your principal, or both. Your AR agreement should say which. A firm that is a controller generally needs to pay the ICO data protection fee, and it must give the customer privacy information, including where their details came from, no later than its first contact with them and within one month at most.

Keep your own file

Neither a seller’s promise that its leads are compliant nor your network’s approval of that seller is evidence you hold yourself. For each source, keep the seller’s FCA status, its form and consent wording, how and when it collects enquiries, and what your principal approved. If a complaint arrives a year later, that file is what you and your principal will rely on.

Don’t let the cost of a lead drive the advice

When each enquiry comes out of the commission you keep, a lead that doesn’t convert feels like money lost. Keep that pressure away from the customer: recommend cover only where it meets their needs and budget, give them time to decide, and accept a no. The FCA treats early lapses as a possible sign that policies don’t match customers’ needs, and a lapse inside the clawback period can cost you some or all of the commission too.

Take particular care in two situations. The FCA’s guidance on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers (FG21/1) names health, life events, resilience and capability as drivers of vulnerability, and someone enquiring after a bereavement or a diagnosis may be showing one: slow down, check they understand, and offer to include someone they trust.

And if the customer already has cover, replace it only where the new policy clearly suits them better. The FCA’s final market study report calls moving a customer to a policy that doesn’t better suit their needs, or offers less value, in order to earn commission “unnecessary switching”, and says it will keep monitoring switching through supervision. Record why any replacement is in the customer’s interest.

How does Protection Connect work for appointed representatives and advisers?

Protection Connect is a trading style of PJG Financial Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 919697).

Who can buy

Your firm must give advice and hold permission to advise on and arrange non-investment insurance for retail customers; for an AR, that permission must sit with its principal. An AR’s appointment must be a full one, current and already started. We refuse introducer ARs, firms in run-off, and firms whose Register status is suspended, cancelled or closed to new business.

How we check an AR

Every application is verified against the FCA register before approval. We check the FRN’s status, permissions, any principal and regulatory record as you apply and again on submission. You show you work at the firm with a work email on the domain of the website on its Register entry. Without a usable website on the entry, a current IRN at the firm lets you apply, and our compliance team checks it.

An AR also confirms that its appointment covers advising on and arranging protection, and that its principal has approved it buying leads from us. Your firm must give its ICO registration number and stay registered while it has an account. Under our Terms, the buying firm is an independent controller of the customer’s data.

Networks and money

A principal firm confirms its leads are for its own staff only, so its ARs buy through their own accounts. Campaigns cover the whole UK by default; you can’t set regions or postcode areas yourself. Top-ups start at £250 with no subscription; our pricing has the rest.

We’re not a cheap per-lead source, and we supply only life and over-50s enquiries, from our own websites, LifeAdviser and 50Life. Every enquiry is delivered to one broker only and comes from someone who asked to be contacted. Each lead shows when they consented and the contact methods they agreed to, so stick to those methods.

On LifeAdviser their tick names Life Adviser, not your firm, and they’re 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. An AR isn’t itself authorised, so if you’re one, say so at the start and name your principal. Ask your compliance adviser or principal how PECR applies to how you contact them: TPS screening for calls, and consent for any email or text. See our overview of Protection Connect or how it works.

Questions advisers ask about leads for agents

Sources and further reading

1. FCA: Financial Services Register
2. FCA Handbook: SUP 12.2, appointed representatives
3. FCA Handbook: PERG 5.13, appointed representatives in insurance distribution
4. FCA: Market study into the distribution of pure protection products, interim report (MS24/1.4, January 2026)
5. FCA: Market study into the distribution of pure protection products, final report (MS24/1.5, September 2026)
6. FCA: FG21/1, guidance for firms on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers
7. ICO: How do we comply with the rules on live marketing calls?
8. ICO: Data protection fee