Life insurance leads in the UK: the complete guide for brokers
Life insurance leads in the UK are the details of people who have asked to hear from an adviser about life cover, passed to a protection firm, usually for a fee. They range from a fresh enquiry supplied to one firm only to a months-old record sold many times, and the price, the chance of reaching the customer and the compliance risk all follow from which one you buy. Whoever sells you the lead, the firm that advises the customer must be FCA authorised or an appointed representative of an authorised firm, and it answers for its own calls.
What is a life insurance lead?
A life insurance lead is a record of a person who has asked to be contacted about life cover, passed to an adviser firm so it can speak to them, usually in return for a fee per lead.
The same words are used for very different things, from a live web enquiry to a line in an old data list, so always ask a seller what it means by them.
Whether a seller calls them sales leads for life insurance, prospects or enquiries, every lead has three parts. There’s the person and how to reach them. There’s what they want: the product, cover amount, age and smoking status. And there’s the record of what they asked for and agreed to.
That third part is what turns a phone number into a sales lead. Without it you can’t show the customer wanted to hear from anyone, and you can’t judge whether calling them is fair.
Enquiry, lead or data?
Sellers use these words loosely, so it helps to pin them down. An enquiry is created when a person fills in a form or calls to ask about cover. Data is a list of names and numbers gathered for another purpose, such as a survey, a competition or a different product, and then sold on. Both are advertised as life insurance leads.
They are not the same product. Someone who asked about cover this morning expects a call. Someone who ticked a box on a lifestyle survey last spring may not remember doing it, and the permission behind that record may not cover your call at all.
Age matters too. The ICO generally recommends not relying on consent given through a third party more than six months ago, unless people would expect marketing after that. It’s a recommendation, not a legal limit, but it’s a useful test for any record sold as a lead.
Life assurance leads, life cover leads and protection leads
You’ll see the same product sold under several names. Life assurance leads and life cover leads normally mean life insurance leads. In everyday UK use the two words are interchangeable, although “assurance” traditionally meant cover that is certain to pay out, such as whole of life, and “insurance” meant cover for a fixed term.
Protection leads is the wider term. It can take in life cover, critical illness, income protection and family income benefit, and a seller that advertises protection leads may supply only one or two of those. Check the product on every lead, not just the name on the price list.
What types of life insurance leads can you buy in the UK?
Sellers of UK life insurance leads usually describe what they sell as one of four types. They differ in three ways: how fresh the enquiry is, how many firms receive it, and who started the conversation. Price follows those three things, which is why the same words can sit next to very different prices. Our guide to life insurance lead prices explains what moves them.
The four types of life insurance lead
From cheapest and most shared to freshest and most exclusive.
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 table sets out how each type is made and what to check before you buy it.
| Lead type | How it’s created | Who else gets it | Check before you buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aged | An earlier enquiry or data record, resold weeks or months later | Often several firms, sometimes many times over | The original consent wording and date, TPS screening, and how often it has been sold |
| Shared | A fresh enquiry sold to several firms at the same time | Several firms, all racing to call first | How many buyers each lead goes to, and whether the customer was told several firms would call |
| Exclusive | A fresh enquiry supplied to one firm only | No other firm, if the seller keeps its word | Whether it is ever resold later, and what “exclusive” means in the contract |
| Hotkey | A call centre contacts the customer, asks some questions and transfers the call live | Should be one firm per transfer | How the customer was first contacted, and whether that outbound call followed PECR |
Aged and shared leads usually win on price per lead and lose on contact. When several firms ring the same person, or the person enquired months ago, expect fewer calls to connect and more customers to have arranged cover already. Our guide to aged leads covers when old data can still be worth calling, and exclusive vs shared leads puts the two common models side by side.
Exclusive leads cost more because no other buyer of that lead is calling. You aren’t racing anyone to the phone, which usually means better contact and conversion rates, though not always enough to justify any price. Our guide to exclusive life insurance leads sets out what one-firm-only should mean in writing. Hotkeys go a step further: you’re handed a live call, but someone else made the first approach, and the hotkey leads guide explains how those calls are made and who they suit.
Labels that describe delivery, not type
Two more labels tell you how a lead reaches you rather than what it is. Real-time leads are delivered as soon as the enquiry is matched, which matters because contact rates tend to drop quickly after an enquiry; our guide to real-time leads covers the timing. Online leads are any leads created on the web, through search, social media or comparison journeys, and our guide to web and inbound leads compares those routes.
You’ll also meet two models imported from the US. Booked appointments are sold by some telemarketing firms, and reply-card mailers are common in America but uncommon in the UK; our direct mail guide explains what UK firms do instead. At the low end of the market, our guide to low-cost leads looks at when a low price per lead pays off, and the guide to free sources of leads covers referrals, existing clients and other sources that cost time rather than money.
Where do life insurance leads come from?
Every lead starts with a moment that makes someone think about cover. In the FCA’s 2025 consumer research, term buyers were usually prompted by buying a home or taking a new mortgage, thinking about future responsibilities, an adviser’s recommendation or the birth of a child, while over-50s buyers were more often prompted by a milestone birthday or a bereavement. What happens next decides what kind of lead they become, and how far you should trust it.
The FCA’s interim report on protection distribution describes protection as a product that is usually sold rather than bought, with intermediaries competing to reach people at the point they’re ready to act. Buying leads is how many firms do that. The route a person took to reach you is the first thing to understand about any lead.
Inbound: the customer asks first
The person searches, sees an advert or a post, or visits a quote or comparison site, then fills in a form asking to be contacted. Real-time, exclusive and shared leads all start this way. The customer started the conversation, they expect a call, and the seller should be able to show you the form and the wording they agreed to.
Inbound doesn’t automatically mean good. A form can be buried in a competition, padded with incentives, or worded so loosely that the customer doesn’t realise an adviser will ring. The seller questions further down are how you tell the difference.
Adverts give you another check on a seller. Since September 2021 Google has required UK financial services advertisers to be verified, which generally means being FCA authorised, and a lead-generation agency can be verified only if an FCA authorised firm vouches for it. Meta has limited UK financial services adverts to FCA authorised firms, or adverts approved by one, since late 2022. If a seller finds its enquiries through paid search or social adverts, ask whose FCA authorisation those adverts run under.
Outbound: the seller calls first
Telemarketing, surveys and data lists produce leads the customer didn’t start. A call centre rings a list, asks a few questions, and either passes the details on or transfers the call live as a hotkey. These leads can scale quickly, but their consent and PECR position depends entirely on how the list was built and screened.
That position becomes your question the moment you buy. The ICO has fined firms in this market for calling numbers registered with the TPS, as the rules section below explains.
Your own channels
Referrals, existing clients, mortgage clients and your own website or advertising produce leads you don’t pay a seller for, although each costs time or money. Referrals and existing clients come with a relationship or a personal recommendation, but these channels are the hardest to scale at short notice. Our guide to how to get life insurance leads compares every channel open to a UK firm, and life insurance lead generation explains how to generate your own enquiries rather than buy them.
Why the source matters more than the price
Source decides intent, and intent decides how the call goes. A person who asked for a quote this morning and a person who ticked a box months ago need different conversations, and only one of them is likely to buy soon.
Source also shows up in lapses. In the FCA’s interim report, some firms said that some early lapses came from poor-quality leads.
The FCA also reported a 23% first-year lapse rate in 2024 for non-advised intermediated sales on four-year clawback. That figure covers all such sales, not only those from bought leads, but it shows how costly early lapses can be. A lapse inside the clawback period means repaying some or all of the commission, so a cheap lead that produces a short-lived policy can cost you twice.
How does the UK market for life insurance leads work?
Protection in the UK is mostly sold through advisers. Alongside the figures above, the FCA’s interim report found that about 70% of policies were advised in 2024. Specialist protection advisers placed just over half of intermediated policies (52%), mortgage advisers about a third (36%) and financial advisers the remaining 12%.
The FCA’s main concern is the protection gap. In its 2025 consumer research, 58% of UK adults held no pure protection, and 59% of those had never considered their needs. The market study, completed with its final report in September 2026, found that competition generally works for people who already hold cover. For a firm, the hard part is reaching people at the moment they’re ready to talk, and that moment is what lead sellers charge for.
The same FCA consumer research asked recent buyers how they found the firm that helped them: 30% through a recommendation and 27% by searching online and contacting the firm directly, from a small sample. That online route is where inbound leads begin, and lead generators compete for those searchers with consumer websites and adverts, alongside firms’ own sites.
The regulator now names this part of the market in its own work. Its final report defines a lead generator as a business that gathers people’s contact details and passes them on to other firms, either for a fee or for a share of the commission. The FCA looked at requiring intermediaries to report which lead generators they use, as one possible way to tackle unnecessary switching. It decided against it, citing the cost and doubts about how well it would work, and said it will keep monitoring switching through its supervision of insurers and intermediaries.
Knowing where your leads come from stays your firm’s job. We’re not aware of any published, independent benchmark for UK lead prices or conversion rates, so treat every seller’s figures as claims to test.
How do you choose a life insurance lead provider?
Life insurance lead providers in the UK work in six broad ways. Knowing which one you’re talking to tells you what to ask. Many sellers combine more than one model, so ask about each source separately.
| Provider model | How it gets leads | Ask them |
|---|---|---|
| Lead generator with its own sites | Runs consumer websites or campaigns and sells the enquiries they capture | Which sites, what the form says, and whether anyone else buys the same lead |
| Agency or affiliate network | Buys traffic or leads from publishers and sells them on | How many publishers supply it, and whether each lead shows its source |
| Data broker or reseller | Sells lists, or leads first sold elsewhere | The original consent wording and date, TPS screening, and how often each record has been sold |
| Call centre | Calls people and transfers or books them as hotkeys or appointments | How the numbers were sourced, the call script, and whether calls are recorded |
| Marketplace | Matches enquiries to buying firms on criteria and price | How the price is set, how ties are broken, and where its enquiries come from |
| Network or principal lead scheme | Arranges lead supply for its members or appointed representatives | Who generates the leads, what the scheme adds to the price, and whether you may also use other sources |
Whatever the model, the same questions separate a seller you can work with from one you can’t. Our step-by-step guide to where to buy life insurance leads in the UK walks through them, and choosing the best leads for your firm explains how to weigh quality against price.
Questions to ask any seller
- Where exactly do your enquiries come from, and can I see the form and the consent wording?
- Is each lead supplied to one firm only, and is it ever resold later as aged data?
- What is the customer told about who will call them and why, and is my firm named?
- When were the numbers last screened against the TPS, and how are objections passed on?
- How soon after the customer sends it will I receive the lead?
- Which fields will I always receive, and which only sometimes?
- What can I claim back for, how long do I have, and is a credit paid as cash or balance?
- Are you FCA authorised or an appointed representative, and do you check that your buyers are?
- Is there a contract term, a minimum spend or a volume commitment?
Be wary of a seller that won’t show you its forms, can’t say how long ‘exclusive’ lasts, wants a long contract before you’ve seen a lead, or never asks for your FCA details. A seller that doesn’t check its buyers can’t show that it passes customers only to firms permitted to advise them.
Once you’ve shortlisted one or two, test them on the same terms and judge them on the lead cost of each policy you place, not on the number of leads delivered. Our buying guide explains how to run a fair trial.
What should a good life insurance lead contain?
A good lead gives you enough to make a useful first call and enough to show why you’re calling. Here is a fictional example of an enquiry as it lands in a Protection Connect lead inbox. The note beneath it shows the wording a LifeAdviser customer ticks before sending.
Mrs Hannah Price
Lead PC-7KQ2M9XD Fictional example- Product
- Life insurance
- Cover
- £250,000
- Term
- 25 years
- Age
- 38
- Smoking
- Non-smoker
- Site
- LifeAdviser
- Phone
- 07700 900123
- hannah.price@example.com
- Postcode
- LS6 9ZZ
- Consented
- 7 Oct 2026, 10:42
Whoever you buy from, look for three groups of fields.
- Contact. Name, a phone number checked for a valid UK format, an email address where the customer gave one, and a postcode.
- Needs. Product, age, smoking status, and the cover amount and term where the customer gave them. That’s enough to prepare a sensible first conversation, and not enough to recommend anything without speaking to them.
- Evidence. The date and time of the request, the wording the customer agreed to, the website it came from, a source label and a unique reference. This is what goes on your file.
More data isn’t always better. A lead that arrives with detailed health, income or family information gathered by someone else should make you ask how it was collected and whether the customer expected it to be passed on. Health information is special category data under UK GDPR, which carries extra conditions.
Sellers often describe their leads as “qualified”. Ask what that means: a checked phone number, a set of answers the customer gave on a form, or a call-centre conversation. Our guide to what makes a life insurance lead qualified separates those meanings and explains which ones matter to an adviser.
On Protection Connect. Before an enquiry is accepted, automatic checks run on the phone number and email address, covering UK number ranges and lengths, obvious fakes, common email typos, disposable addresses and whether the email domain can receive mail. These checks don’t prove a customer will answer.
What UK rules apply when you buy and call leads?
Buying a lead doesn’t hand your responsibilities to the seller. Once you call, the customer relationship is yours, and so is the evidence. What follows is a summary of the main rules, not legal advice. Check how each one applies to your firm with your compliance adviser or network.
FCA authorisation and appointed representatives
Buying leads isn’t itself a regulated activity, but advising on and arranging protection are, so the firm that works a lead needs to be FCA authorised or an appointed representative of an authorised principal. The FCA Financial Services Register shows each firm’s status and permissions and, for an appointed representative, who its principal is. A responsible seller checks this before supplying you.
Use the same register to check the seller. A business that is paid to collect enquiries and asks people qualifying questions may itself need to be authorised or an appointed representative, so look it up before you buy, and ask your compliance adviser if a seller tells you it doesn’t need to be. If you’re an appointed representative, your principal may also have rules on which lead sources you can use and what you must keep on file.
The Consumer Duty
The Consumer Duty has applied to open products since 31 July 2023. It requires firms to act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers and to avoid foreseeable harm, across four outcomes: products and services, price and value, consumer understanding and consumer support. It applies to retail customers whether or not they are yet your client, so it covers the lead you haven’t converted as well as the one you have.
Lead buying touches every outcome. How a customer was found shapes what they understand about your call, and customers who show signs of vulnerability need the same care whether they came from a referral or a web form. For pure protection, value is assessed under the product governance rules in PROD 4, which ask distributors to consider how their distribution arrangements, including remuneration, affect the value of the product; ask your compliance adviser how your lead costs fit into that. In practice, be ready to show where each lead came from, what the customer was told and how you treated them.
PECR, the TPS and calling
The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) cover marketing calls, emails and texts. You must not make a live marketing call to a number registered with the Telephone Preference Service, or the Corporate TPS for organisations, unless that person has told your firm they don’t object to your calls. To email or text a bought-in lead for marketing, their consent must name your firm and the channel, and the soft opt-in never applies to details someone else collected.
The ICO enforces these rules in this market. In March 2024 it fined Pinnacle Life £80,000 for about 48,000 marketing calls selling life insurance to TPS-registered numbers. Since 5 February 2026, under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, PECR fines can reach £17.5 million or 4% of global turnover.
The ICO’s recent cases also show where buyers of data go wrong. In January 2026 it fined ZMLUK £105,000 over marketing emails sent to people whose details came from a website that listed 361 ‘partner’ companies and gave people no way to pick between them. The ICO ruled that consent invalid. If a seller’s form mentions partners, ask how many there are and whether the customer could choose.
How these rules apply to a call returning someone’s enquiry depends on what the person asked for, what they were told and whether your firm was named. That’s a judgement your firm has to make; a seller’s assurance doesn’t settle it. Agree your approach with your compliance adviser or network, covering TPS screening for live calls and consent for any email or text, and keep a record of what you decided.
UK GDPR and privacy information
When you get personal data from someone other than the customer, such as a lead seller, UK GDPR Article 14 requires you to give them privacy information, including where you got their details, within a reasonable period and at the latest within one month, or when you first contact them if that is sooner. For a lead you call straight away, the deadline is that first contact. Firms that process personal data generally also need to pay the ICO data protection fee.
A seller’s word isn’t evidence. If a supplier tells you its leads are compliant, ask to see the form, the consent wording, the timestamp and its screening process, and keep copies with each lead. Your file should stand on its own, without the seller’s help.
Before you call a bought lead
- You know where the lead came from and what the customer asked for.
- You hold the consent wording and the timestamp, and the request is recent.
- You’ve screened the number against the TPS where your firm’s approach requires it.
- Your number displays when you call, and your first words say who you are, why you’re calling and how you got their details.
- Your privacy information reaches the customer at or before first contact.
- You record the outcome, including any request not to be contacted again.
What is a life insurance lead worth to your firm?
Advertised prices follow the four lead types: aged and shared leads cost least per lead, while exclusive leads and hotkeys cost more, as the indicative ranges above show. Our guide to what leads cost in the UK breaks the prices down. For a buying decision, though, start somewhere else: with what a policy earns you.
How protection commission shapes a lead’s value
Most UK protection is paid on indemnity commission. The FCA’s interim report found that initial commission is usually 170% to 250% of the first year’s premium, and that about 96% of it was paid upfront on indemnity terms in 2024. If a policy lapses within the clawback period, generally two or four years and moving towards four, you repay some or all of it.
So the customer’s premium largely sets what a lead can be worth. Which? found that in April 2026 the five cheapest quotes for a non-smoker aged 31 wanting £200,000 of level term over 25 years averaged about £8.20 a month.
Illustrative example: at 170% to 250% of first-year premium, an £8.20 monthly premium earns roughly £167 to £246 of initial commission, while a £30 monthly premium earns roughly £612 to £900. The same price per lead can be comfortable on one customer and a loss on the other. These figures are examples, not Protection Connect results.
None of this should change what you recommend. The cover, and so the premium, has to follow the customer’s needs and budget, not what you paid for the lead, and PROD 4 expects your distribution arrangements not to stop the product giving fair value. If a lead only pays off when a customer buys more cover than they need, it doesn’t pay off.
Work out your lead cost per policy
Use the calculator to turn a price per lead into a lead cost per policy. Its defaults are illustrative: a £45 lead, one policy for every 10 leads, £750 average commission (a policy of roughly £25 to £37 a month, depending on the commission rate) and 10% of policies lost to clawback, which you can change under “Allow for clawbacks”.
Calculator
Lead cost per policy calculator
Enter what you pay per lead, how many leads become policies and what a policy earns you. The number that matters is the lead cost of each policy you place.
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
- –
- Leads per policy
- –
- Commission left after leads
- –
- Commission per £1 of lead spend
- –
- Break-even price per lead
- –
Illustrative calculator: the default figures are examples, not Protection Connect results or a forecast. Use your own numbers.
Illustrative example: at those defaults you need 10 leads to place one policy, so each policy carries £450 of lead cost. After allowing 10% for clawback, the average policy keeps £675 of commission, which leaves £225 once the leads are paid for, and you’d break even at £67.50 a lead. Halve the conversion to 5% and the same £45 lead costs £900 per policy, more than the policy earns. These rates are examples, not Protection Connect results.
What your lead budget has to cover
For the protection specialists among the ten intermediary firms that gave the FCA cost data, lead generation and staff costs together took about 30% of gross commission, and operating margins averaged about 10% of net revenue. That’s a small sample, but it’s a useful check. If leads alone are taking most of your commission, there’s little left for advisers, compliance, clawback and profit.
Treat the calculator’s break-even figure as a ceiling, not a target. Set your maximum price per lead well below it, so that a weaker month doesn’t turn a profitable source into a loss.
When buying leads makes sense
The FCA’s concern is that many people who could benefit from cover have never considered it. The question for your firm is whether buying enquiries from people who are already looking for cover is a cost-effective way to reach them, compared with the time and money your own channels take.
Bought leads earn their place when you can answer three questions with numbers: what a placed policy earns you, how many leads it takes to place one, and how many of those policies stay on risk. If you can’t answer them yet, buy small and measure before you scale. Our guide to whether bought leads actually work tests the question with the maths.
Which approach fits your firm
- If you’re a new adviser with time but few clients, a small, capped budget of exclusive enquiries can add conversations while referrals build, depending on how many enquiries match your criteria. Keep the budget to what you can afford to lose while you learn, and make sure your firm or principal is satisfied with your competence and supervision before you advise on bought enquiries; our guide for new advisers covers how to start.
- If you’re a mortgage adviser who sells protection, your own mortgage clients come first. Bought life enquiries can add conversations in quiet months, but you’ll be calling people with no existing relationship, so plan the first call differently.
- If you run a protection team with a contact process, you can work more volume, but every extra lead source adds compliance work. Track each source separately, so one weak supplier can’t hide inside a good average.
- If you’re an appointed representative, start with your principal’s rules on which lead sources you may use and what you must keep on file; our guide to leads for appointed representatives covers the detail.
- If your average commission is low, for example mostly young, healthy customers or small over-50s plans, set your maximum price from the calculator above, not from market ranges.
Working the leads you buy
Leads don’t convert themselves. Call as soon as you can, while the customer is still thinking about cover; our real-time leads guide explains why timing matters. Many sales need several contact attempts at different times of day, within a limit you set in advance, using only the contact methods the customer agreed to, and you should stop as soon as the customer asks you to. The first call should say who you are and why you’re calling before it asks anything.
From there the usual protection disciplines apply: a proper fact-find, a recommendation that fits the need and the budget, and a follow-up plan that respects a customer who says no. Our guide to converting leads into policies sets out a contact plan from the first call to a policy on risk.
Buy exclusive enquiries, up to your own maximum.
No fixed-term contract. No minimum monthly spend. You never pay more than your maximum bid.
What’s the difference between life insurance leads and protection leads?
Protection firms rarely sell one product, and lead sellers rarely supply them all. Before you set a budget, check exactly which products a seller’s enquiries are for and where they come from. This is how the main UK protection products line up, and which ones Protection Connect supplies today.
| Product | What the customer usually wants | On Protection Connect |
|---|---|---|
| Life insurance, usually term cover | A lump sum if they die during the term, often to protect a mortgage or a family | Supplied, from LifeAdviser |
| Over-50s life insurance | A small whole of life plan with guaranteed acceptance, often towards funeral costs | Supplied, from 50Life |
| Mortgage protection | Usually decreasing term cover, sometimes with critical illness, alongside a mortgage | Not a separate product. A life enquiry may come from a homeowner, but you can’t target by reason for cover |
| Critical illness cover | A lump sum on diagnosis of a listed condition | Not supplied |
| Income protection | A monthly income if illness or injury stops them working | Not supplied |
| Family income benefit and business protection | A regular income for a family, or key person and relevant life cover for a business | Not supplied |
Term cover makes up most new business: about 1.4 million of the roughly 2 million new individual protection policies a year, according to the FCA’s interim report. Our guide to term leads looks at these enquiries in more depth.
Over-50s plans need extra care. Guaranteed acceptance plans typically return the premiums paid, rather than the full benefit, if death during an initial waiting period isn’t accidental, and a customer can pay in more than the plan pays out. That puts consumer understanding at the centre of these sales.
Some customers making these enquiries will be recently bereaved or in poor health, so be ready to spot characteristics of vulnerability and adapt how you explain the plan, in line with the FCA’s vulnerable customers guidance, FG21/1. Age alone doesn’t make someone vulnerable. Our over-50s leads guide explains what to expect from these enquiries.
Life insurance business leads can mean two things: new business for a life insurance firm, which is what this guide covers, or business protection such as key person and relevant life cover. Business protection conversations usually start with a business owner or their accountant rather than a consumer web form, and Protection Connect doesn’t supply them.
If you’ve been reading US advice
Much of the advice online about life insurance sales leads is written for American agents, with American products and rules. This is how the terms map across to UK practice; our guide to leads for agents and advisers in the UK goes further.
| You may read | What it means for a UK firm |
|---|---|
| Agents, licensed in your state | Advisers and brokers working for an FCA authorised firm, or as an appointed representative of one |
| Final expense leads | Over-50s life insurance, usually a guaranteed acceptance whole of life plan |
| Live transfers | Hotkeys: a call centre qualifies the customer and transfers the call to you live |
| Do Not Call list, TCPA | The Telephone Preference Service and the PECR rules, enforced by the ICO |
| Life and health insurance leads | Protection leads. In the UK, health insurance usually means private medical insurance, a separate market |
| Mortgage protection mailers | Decreasing term cover advised alongside a mortgage, usually found through your own mortgage clients or live enquiries |
How Protection Connect supplies life insurance leads
How an enquiry reaches one broker on Protection Connect
From the moment someone looks for cover to the lead in your inbox.
- Looks for coverA real person looks for life insurance or over-50s cover online.
- Enquires and consentsOn LifeAdviser or 50Life they give their details and ask to be contacted.
- Eligibility firstOnly approved, FCA-checked firms whose campaign, budget and limits match.
- Highest bid winsThe winner pays 1p more than the next firm’s bid, or the minimum price. Never more than its maximum.
- Delivered to youIn your lead inbox with an email alert, or by webhook. Never shared or resold.
Protection Connect is a UK marketplace for exclusive life insurance leads. It is a trading style of PJG Financial Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 919697).
Enquiries come from our own consumer websites, LifeAdviser (life insurance) and 50Life (over-50s life insurance), from people actively looking for cover who ask to be contacted. Those websites don’t give advice, and every enquiry is delivered to one broker only. We never share, resell or recycle it, so no other broker receives it from us.
Who can buy
Only FCA authorised firms and their appointed representatives that give advice can buy. The firm, or for an appointed representative its principal, must have permission to advise on and arrange non-investment insurance for retail customers. Introducer appointed representatives can’t buy enquiries. Every application is verified against the FCA register before approval.
At sign-up we ask for your firm’s ICO registration number, and if you’re an appointed representative, you confirm that your principal has approved you buying leads from us. When you set up your account, we ask for a compliance contact and your PI insurer, and ask you to confirm three things:
- “We contact customers in line with FCA rules and the Consumer Duty.”
- “We keep records of our contact with customers as the rules that apply to our firm require.”
- “We check numbers against the TPS where required before calling.”
Setting up a campaign
Each campaign sets out the customers you want, by product, age, smoker status and cover amount, and the most you’ll pay for one matching enquiry. A daily cap, by spend or by number of leads, resets at midnight UK time, and you can pause a single campaign or all buying whenever you like.
Campaigns cover the whole UK. You can’t currently choose regions or postcode areas yourself, and there’s no filter for term, reason for cover, joint cover, income or health. If your model depends on those filters, factor that in before you start.
How the price of each enquiry is set
Two rules decide every sale: eligibility first, then price. A campaign is in the running only if it’s active, it matches the enquiry, its maximum bid is at or above the minimum price, it’s inside its daily limits, the account’s balance covers its maximum bid, and the firm is approved with up-to-date FCA checks. An ineligible campaign never wins, however high its bid.
The eligible campaign with the highest maximum bid gets the enquiry, and no other firm receives it from us. What it pays depends on who else was in the running.
| If | What the winner pays |
|---|---|
| Other firms’ eligible campaigns bid less than yours | 1p more than the highest of their maximum bids, never more than your own maximum |
| No other firm’s campaign is eligible | The minimum price, currently £35 for life and over-50s enquiries |
| Another firm’s eligible bid equals yours | Whichever bid was set first wins, at that amount |
| More than one of your own campaigns matches | Only your best campaign competes, so your own bids never raise your price |
Illustrative example: you set a maximum of £60. Two other firms have matching campaigns with maximums of £48 and £52, but the £52 campaign has reached its daily limit, so only the £48 bid is eligible. You receive the enquiry and pay £48.01. These figures are for demonstration only, not live marketplace data.
Other firms never see your bid, and you never see theirs. To try your own numbers, use the pricing tool in our guide to what leads cost on Protection Connect.
Delivery and what you receive
How quickly does a lead arrive? Usually within a minute. Each enquiry is matched as soon as the customer sends it, then it appears in your lead inbox and your team gets an email alert, so you can call while they’re still looking. The alert carries a link, never customer details.
Leads can also go by webhook to Zapier or Make, and on from there to your CRM. Direct CRM connections are coming soon.
You receive the fields shown in the sample lead above, plus the price you paid, a source label and a repeat flag. Every lead also carries the time the customer consented and the contact methods they agreed to. You never receive their date of birth, IP address, device details or full address, or the general health answer given on 50Life.
Be clear about what the customer agreed to. On LifeAdviser, the box the customer ticks names Life Adviser, a trading style of PJG Financial Limited, rather than your firm. 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, but they don’t see your firm’s name before they send the enquiry.
So introduce your firm by name at the start of every call, and ask your compliance adviser how PECR bears on the way you follow up these enquiries, from TPS screening for calls to consent for any email or text.
Costs, credits and control
- Paying. Your balance is prepaid. Card top-ups start at £250 and carry no card fees, and no VAT is charged, because PJG Financial Limited is not VAT registered.
- Commitment. There’s no subscription or monthly fee, no fixed term and no minimum monthly spend.
- Supply. Before you top up, your dashboard shows whether enquiries are being supplied. Lead estimates are a guide, not a promise of volume.
- Leaving. Close your account and any unused balance comes back to you within 14 days, less anything you owe.
If an enquiry isn’t genuine, you can claim within 48 hours of delivery on five grounds: invalid phone, invalid email, duplicate, materially outside your criteria, or fraudulent or test. Approved claims are credited to your balance in full. No answer, a change of mind or a decision not to go ahead aren’t grounds for a credit; the full wording is in our Terms.
When we’re not the right fit
We aren’t a low-cost, per-lead source: the minimum price is £35 per enquiry, so if your model relies on high volumes at a few pounds a lead, look elsewhere. Our enquiries are for life and over-50s life cover only.
Because every enquiry comes from our own two websites, supply varies, which is why the dashboard shows it before you pay. You can see how it works, what it costs to start and a sample enquiry on our homepage.
Questions brokers ask about buying leads
In UK protection, a lead usually means an enquiry: someone who asked to be contacted about cover, passed to an adviser firm that pays for the introduction. Sellers also use the word for survey records and old data lists, which are a different product. Before you buy, ask how each lead was created, what the customer was told, when they asked and how many other firms received it.
As a guide, advertised UK prices run from about £1 to £10 for aged leads, £10 to £25 for shared, £30 to £80 for exclusive and £60 to £120 for hotkeys. 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. Judge any price by the lead cost of each policy you place, after clawback. Our guide to what leads cost breaks this down.
Work out what a placed policy earns you, how many leads it takes to place one, and how many policies stay on risk past the clawback period. If the lead cost per policy leaves room for your other costs, the source is worth more of your budget. If not, change the source, the price or your process. Start small and measure. Our guide to whether bought leads work sets out a test plan.
Six kinds of business sell them: lead generators with their own consumer websites, agencies and affiliate networks, data brokers and resellers, call centres selling hotkeys, marketplaces that match enquiries to firms, and network lead schemes. Many combine models, so ask about each source separately. Choose on source, exclusivity, consent evidence, delivery speed, credit terms and contract length rather than price alone, and expect the seller to check your FCA status. Our guide to buying leads in the UK walks through the checks.
Buying leads is not itself a regulated activity, but advising on and arranging protection are, so the firm that calls and advises the customer needs to be FCA authorised or an appointed representative of an authorised principal. Responsible sellers check this before they supply. Protection Connect supplies only FCA authorised firms and their appointed representatives that give advice, and every application is verified against the FCA register before approval.
PECR stops live marketing calls to TPS-registered numbers unless the person has told your firm they do not object to your calls. How that applies when you return someone’s enquiry depends on what they asked for and what they were told, so it is a judgement for your firm. Agree your approach with your compliance adviser or network, and screen numbers against the TPS wherever that approach requires it.
Not that we are aware of. The best seller for your firm is the one whose leads give you the lowest lead cost per policy that stays on risk, with consent evidence you are comfortable keeping on file. That depends on your products, process and commission, so a source that suits a telephone brokerage may not suit a mortgage adviser. Test two sources side by side on the same terms. Our guide to the best leads for your firm explains how.
Nothing that matters when you buy. Sellers use life insurance leads, life assurance leads, life cover leads and simply life leads for the same thing: enquiries from people who want a lump sum paid if they die. The old distinction, assurance for cover that always pays out and insurance for a fixed term, rarely shows on a price list. Check the product, cover amount and source of each lead instead.
No. Protection Connect supplies two kinds of enquiry: life insurance, from LifeAdviser, and over-50s life insurance, from 50Life. A life insurance customer may want to discuss critical illness or income protection once you speak, and advising on their wider needs is part of your role, but we do not sell enquiries for those products or for business protection.
That depends on the seller’s credit or replacement policy, so read it before you buy: what counts as invalid, how long you have to claim, and whether you get cash, credit or a replacement lead. On Protection Connect you can claim within 48 hours of delivery for an invalid phone number or email, a duplicate, an enquiry materially outside your criteria, or a fraudulent or test enquiry. Approved claims are credited to your balance in full.
Sources and further reading
- ICO: Direct marketing guidance, planning your direct marketing
- FCA: Pure protection market study, consumer research summary, 2025
- FCA: Market study into the distribution of pure protection products to retail customers, interim report (MS24/1.4), January 2026
- Google Ads policy: Financial services verification
- FCA: Financial promotions data 2022
- FCA: Pure protection market study, final report (MS24/1.5), September 2026
- FCA: Financial Services Register
- FCA: Consumer Duty
- FCA: PS22/9 A new Consumer Duty
- ICO: Direct marketing and privacy and electronic communications
- ICO: ICO fines Wigan-based Pinnacle Life £80,000 for predatory spam call campaign, March 2024
- ICO: Statement on the commencement of the Data (Use and Access) Act, February 2026
- ICO: Fines of £225,000 for nuisance marketing messages, January 2026
- legislation.gov.uk: UK GDPR Article 14
- ICO: The right to be informed
- Which?: More people are looking for affordable life insurance, but what does it actually cost? April 2026
- FCA: Guidance for firms on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers (FG21/1)
