Over 50s life insurance leads: a UK guide for brokers
Over 50s life insurance leads are enquiries from people aged 50 and over who have asked to be contacted about a small lifelong plan that pays a fixed cash sum when they die, usually a guaranteed acceptance whole of life policy taken out with funeral costs in mind. They can be good business for an advice firm, but on Swiss Re’s figures the average new plan in 2024 was £4,069 of cover for £290 a year, so a source only pays if the lead cost of each policy sits well inside a modest commission. The sale also needs more care than term cover, because of waiting periods, premiums that can overtake the payout and some customers in vulnerable circumstances.
What are over 50s life insurance leads?
An over 50s life insurance lead is the name, contact details and basic cover needs of someone aged 50 or over who has asked to be contacted about a lifelong life insurance plan, usually one with guaranteed acceptance that pays a fixed cash sum to their family when they die.
Sellers also call them over 50 life insurance leads or over 50s plan leads. American sites use final expense leads for the nearest equivalent, and senior life insurance leads as a looser label. The UK product behind an over 50s lead is a small whole of life policy, not term cover.
The amounts involved are modest. Swiss Re’s Term & Health Watch 2025 puts the average new guaranteed over 50s plan in 2024 at £4,069 of cover for £290 a year, against about £201,000 of cover for £375 a year on the average new level term policy. Most of these customers aren’t replacing an income or clearing a mortgage. They want money towards a funeral, a small gift for family, or the reassurance that nobody else will be left with the bill.
That last figure matters if you advise. Almost every guaranteed over 50s plan is bought without advice, and the FCA’s interim report found that 79% were sold through single-tie arrangements in 2024, where the intermediary works with only one insurer. An advised firm that compares guaranteed and underwritten options is offering something most of these customers never get. For how leads work in general, from lead types to what a lead contains, see our complete guide to UK life insurance leads; here we stick to the over 50s market.
Who sends an over 50s enquiry
Consumer research the FCA commissioned for its protection market study shows what prompts these purchases. Among people who had bought an over 50s plan, the most common triggers were thinking about the future (37%), reaching a milestone birthday (30%) and a bereavement (18%). Among term buyers, buying a home or taking a new mortgage led the list at 31%, and having or expecting a child was a trigger for 14% (FCA consumer research summary).
Over 50s buyers also leaned less on online sources. Among recent buyers, 23% of those with an over 50s plan had used a comparison site, against 39% of term buyers, though both samples are small. So someone in their sixties who fills in a form online may have been prompted by something specific, such as a milestone birthday or a loss, and may be thinking about cover for the first time in years.
Expect a wide range of people in one batch of over 50s life insurance leads. Some are healthy, still working and comparing their options with care.
Some have a condition that makes underwritten cover hard to get, which is exactly why guaranteed acceptance appeals. Some have recently lost a partner or a friend. Your process has to work for all of them, and most leads won’t tell you which kind you have until you speak.
How do guaranteed acceptance over 50s plans work?
Guaranteed acceptance means the insurer asks no medical questions: anyone inside the age limits who pays the premium is accepted. Most over 50s plans work this way, although some insurers also offer versions with a few health questions. The features below are typical, but each insurer sets its own terms, so check the policy wording for the plan you recommend.
| Feature | What it typically means | What the customer needs to hear |
|---|---|---|
| Entry age | Usually from 50, sometimes 49, with most insurers stopping new plans at around 80 and some at 85 | Whether they are close to an age limit, and that waiting usually means a higher premium |
| Health questions | None on a guaranteed acceptance plan | That the price ignores their health, so a healthy customer may be paying for a guarantee they don’t need |
| Premium | Usually fixed when the plan starts | How long they could be paying, and that stopping payments typically ends the cover with nothing paid back |
| Cash sum | Fixed at the start, typically a few thousand pounds | That a fixed sum buys less as prices rise, so it may cover less of a funeral in 15 years than it would today |
| Waiting period | Usually 12 or 24 months, occasionally longer; a death that isn’t accidental in that time typically returns the premiums paid rather than the cash sum | That full cover doesn’t start on day one, and what the plan pays for an accidental death meanwhile |
| Total paid in | Can exceed the cash sum if the customer lives long enough | Roughly when that point arrives for their premium (worked through further down) |
Waiting periods are described in the FCA’s 2025 market overview, which sets out how guaranteed over 50s cover differs from other protection products. Once the waiting period has passed, and as long as premiums are kept up, these plans pay out on death whenever it happens. In ABI figures quoted in the FCA’s interim market study report, close to 100% of whole of life claims were paid in 2024, though that figure covers whole of life cover as a whole rather than over 50s plans alone.
What are whole of life leads?
An over 50s plan is a type of whole of life cover, but it isn’t what most advisers mean by whole of life. Underwritten whole of life is medically assessed, often for far larger sums, and frequently tied to estate planning.
It is a niche: of roughly 0.2 million whole of life policies sold in 2024, only about 36,000 were underwritten, on ABI data the FCA used in its interim report. Guaranteed over 50s plans made up most of the rest. So when a seller offers whole of life leads, ask which of the two it means.
The two products overlap more than customers realise. The FCA’s final market study report estimated a price gap for healthy customers aged 50 or over with up to £8,000 of cover: on average, a guaranteed plan was 12% to 22% dearer than a comparable underwritten whole of life plan, around £25.50 to £47.60 a year depending on whether mean or median premiums are compared. Below about £4,000 of cover, guaranteed plans were on average the cheaper option. Asked why they chose a guaranteed plan, 28% of buyers named the guarantee itself and 25% said it was more affordable.
That is where advice earns its place. A healthy customer asking for £8,000 of cover may be better served by an underwritten plan. A customer with a serious diagnosis may have no realistic alternative to guaranteed acceptance. A customer who only needs cover until a loan is repaid may need term cover instead, which our guide to term life insurance leads covers.
How are over 50s plans different from funeral plans?
Customers often use the two names for the same thing, and some adverts blur them. They are different products under different rules. An over 50s plan is life insurance: when the customer dies, after any waiting period, the insurer pays a fixed cash sum and the family decides how to use it. A pre-paid funeral plan is an agreement with a funeral plan provider to deliver a defined funeral later, paid for now, in one go or by instalments.
| Question | Over 50s life plan | Pre-paid funeral plan |
|---|---|---|
| What it provides | A fixed cash sum the family can spend on anything | An agreed funeral, delivered by the plan provider |
| Which rules apply | The insurance distribution rules that cover other protection | The FCA’s funeral plan rules, in force since 29 July 2022 |
| Commission to intermediaries | Paid by the insurer | Banned by the FCA |
| Cold calling | Marketing calls follow PECR and TPS rules | Banned under the FCA’s funeral plan rules |
| If funeral costs rise | The fixed sum may cover less of the bill | Covers what the plan includes; anything outside it is paid separately |
| Total paid | Can exceed the cash sum if the customer lives long enough | Paid up front or by instalments for a defined funeral |
In July 2021, a year before it took over regulation of funeral plans, the FCA confirmed measures that included banning cold calling, banning commission payments to intermediaries and new standards on advertising. Three things follow for a broker working over 50s life insurance leads.
- Don’t sell an over 50s plan as a funeral plan. Don’t say or imply that its cash sum will pay for a whole funeral. Whether it does depends on the funeral and the year.
- If the customer wants a guaranteed funeral, that is a separate regulated product. Check with your compliance adviser what your firm’s permissions allow before you discuss one.
- Ask about existing plans. A customer who already holds a funeral plan may still want cash for other costs, or may not need an over 50s plan at all.
What are final expense leads and senior life insurance leads?
Search for final expense leads or senior life insurance leads and most of the results are written for American agents. In the US, final expense insurance is a small whole life policy sold to older people to pay for a funeral and final bills, and final expense leads are enquiries for it. Senior life insurance leads is a looser American label for older prospects, sometimes sold alongside Medicare enquiries that have no equivalent in a UK protection business.
The nearest UK equivalent of a final expense lead is an over 50s enquiry for a guaranteed acceptance plan. Most of the surrounding advice doesn’t travel.
| US term | UK equivalent | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Final expense leads | Over 50s life insurance leads | The plan is guaranteed acceptance whole of life cover, sold under FCA rules rather than state insurance law |
| Senior life insurance leads | Over 50s enquiries | Age is a campaign filter, not a sales angle, and US Medicare enquiries have no UK equivalent |
| Guaranteed issue | Guaranteed acceptance | Waiting periods and premium refunds vary by insurer, so explain the terms of the actual plan |
| Licensed agent | Adviser at an FCA authorised firm or appointed representative | Advising on and arranging the plan needs FCA permissions, held by your firm or covered by your principal |
| Do Not Call list, TCPA consent | TPS, PECR and UK GDPR | Different rules on who you may call, and consent for marketing emails or texts must name both your firm and the channel |
| Final expense mailer leads | No common UK equivalent | Reply-card mailer leads sold to brokers are mainly a US model, and sellers of them are rare in the UK |
Be wary of the benchmarks too. Close rates, scripts and objection handlers written for American final expense agents assume a different product, a different regulator and different consumer protections. None of them was written with the Consumer Duty in mind. If you have been reading US material, our guide for agents and appointed representatives translates the vocabulary, and our guide to direct mail leads in the UK covers the mailer model.
Where do over 50s life insurance leads come from?
Over 50s leads offered to UK brokers usually start in one of three places: an online form the customer reached from an advert or a search, a call from a call centre that passes on the details or the call itself, or an old list sold on as aged data. Ask which route produced the leads before you compare prices. Each route needs its own checks and leads to a different first conversation with an older customer.
- Online forms. The customer started the enquiry, which gives you a clear starting point, but the advert behind it shapes what they expect. Check that it described an over 50s plan accurately and didn’t present it as a funeral plan. On Google and Meta, UK financial services adverts have to come from an FCA authorised firm or be backed by one, and our guide to running life insurance adverts on Facebook explains the rules.
- Calls and transfers. ICO fines between 2024 and 2026 have repeatedly involved marketing calls to TPS-registered numbers, often to older people, and some of those calls were selling life insurance. A lead that began with a call is only as sound as that call, so ask how the list was built and screened. Our guide to the rules on hotkeys and telemarketing covers what to check.
- Aged lists. Old over 50s and final expense lists also turn up for sale as aged data. By then the customer’s interest has faded, any consent is older and some numbers may have joined the TPS. Our guide to aged leads sets out the checks.
Whichever route a lead took, ask to see the advert, script or form the customer saw, including any gift offered for enquiring. It shows what the customer thinks they asked for, and that is where your first call has to start.
Questions to ask a seller of over 50s life insurance leads
- Which website or advert produced the enquiry, and can I see the page and the consent wording the customer saw?
- Did the customer ask about over 50s cover specifically, or tick a box on a wider form?
- Did what the customer agreed to name my firm, and how recently were the numbers checked against the TPS?
- Was any gift or incentive offered for making the enquiry?
- If the lead came from a call, what was the customer told about who would call next?
- Is each lead sold to one firm or to several, and has it been sold before?
- Who is the seller on the FCA Register, and which authorised firm issues or approves its adverts?
- What happens if the number is invalid or the customer is outside my criteria?
A seller that can’t answer these clearly is telling you something. Our guide to checking what a lead seller tells you explains how to test the answers you are given.
How do you handle customers in vulnerable circumstances?
The FCA’s guidance on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers (FG21/1) describes vulnerability as personal circumstances that make someone especially likely to suffer harm, particularly when a firm doesn’t take enough care. It groups the causes into four drivers: health, life events, resilience and capability. The FCA has kept the guidance in place alongside the Consumer Duty.
None of this means treating every 65-year-old as fragile. Many over 50s customers are confident, well informed and clear about what they want, and talking down to them is a failure of care in its own right. The aim is to notice characteristics of vulnerability when they show, adapt, and keep a note of what you changed so the next person who speaks to the customer knows.
| Driver | What you might notice on an over 50s call | How you might adapt |
|---|---|---|
| Health | A diagnosis behind the interest in guaranteed acceptance, hearing or sight difficulties, signs of memory problems, tiredness on a long call | Shorter calls, written summaries in a format they can use, and checking whether underwritten cover is possible rather than assuming it isn’t |
| Life events | A recent bereavement, a partner moving into care, retirement | Let them set the pace, don’t press for a decision on the first call, and offer a call back |
| Resilience | A fixed income, little in savings, other debts | Test affordability over the long run, not just this month, and explain what happens if they stop paying |
| Capability | Difficulty with numbers, low confidence with forms, email or money matters, no one to help with financial decisions | Plain numbers, asking them to explain the plan back, and offering to include someone they trust |
The Duty doesn’t wait for someone to become your client. It covers retail customers whether or not they are clients yet, so it reaches the person behind a lead before they agree to anything. It asks firms to avoid foreseeable harm, and over 50s sales have some well-known ones: a plan the customer can’t keep up, a misunderstanding about the waiting period, or a healthy customer paying extra for a guarantee they didn’t need.
Our overview of the rules that apply when you buy and call leads covers the Duty, PECR and UK GDPR in general. Ask your compliance adviser how they apply to your over 50s process.
Calling older customers
Buying a lead doesn’t change the calling rules. You can’t make a live marketing call to a TPS-registered number unless the subscriber has notified your firm that, for the time being, they do not object to your calls. The ICO acts on this in life insurance as elsewhere: in March 2024 it fined Pinnacle Life £80,000 after around 48,000 calls selling life insurance were made to numbers on the TPS.
Beyond the rules, a few habits suit these calls. Ring at times the customer would expect. Say who you are, that they asked about over 50s cover and how you came to have their details before you ask anything. Slow down. Treat a request for something in writing as reasonable, not as an objection to overcome. If the customer asks you not to call again, record it and stop.
The source of the lead matters here too. A shared over 50s lead can mean several firms ringing the same older person in quick succession. Think about how that would feel to the customer, and ask your compliance adviser how your firm’s choice of lead sources fits its Consumer Duty obligations. If you buy elsewhere, our guide to checking whether a lead really goes to one firm sets out the tests.
Before you buy over 50s leads, make sure your firm can:
- Spot and record characteristics of vulnerability, and share them with anyone else who deals with the customer
- Explain the waiting period and the total premiums point in plain numbers
- Offer to include a family member or someone the customer trusts, with the customer’s agreement
- Send a written summary of the plan before the customer commits
- Check whether underwritten whole of life or term cover would serve the customer better
- Find out what cover the customer already has, and record why any replacement is in their interest
- Stop contact the first time a customer asks
Is over 50s life insurance good value for the customer?
It can be, depending on what the customer wants the cover for and how long they live, and explaining that trade-off is central to whether an over 50s sale is a fair one. Someone who starts a plan in their fifties or sixties and lives a long time may pay in more than the plan will ever pay out. That isn’t a trick hidden in the small print; it is what happens when a fixed premium buys a fixed sum over a lifetime nobody can predict. Your job is to make sure the customer sees it before they commit.
As a rough guide using the 2024 averages Swiss Re reported, £290 a year for £4,069 of cover, total premiums would match the cash sum after about 14 years. Averages mix different ages and plans, so work it out from each customer’s actual quote. The table runs the same sum on three made-up plans.
| Plan | Premium a month | Cash sum | Paid in after 10 years | Premiums pass the cash sum after |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | £15 | £3,000 | £1,800 | About 16 years 8 months |
| B | £24 | £4,000 | £2,880 | About 13 years 11 months |
| C | £35 | £5,000 | £4,200 | About 11 years 11 months |
Illustrative example: three made-up plans, not quotes. Real premiums depend on age, smoker status, the insurer and the plan’s terms, including whether and when premiums stop.
Then put it in the customer’s own terms. If they are 62 and their plan looks like plan B, their premiums would overtake the cash sum around their 76th birthday.
Some will decide that is fine: they value the certainty, or the cover in the early years. Others will prefer to put the money aside, or to apply for underwritten cover. Either is a good outcome if it is an informed one.
Take particular care when the customer already has an over 50s plan. Replacing it usually means starting a new waiting period and paying a premium set at their older age, and because stopping one of these plans typically ends the cover with nothing paid back, what they have paid in so far is lost. Only recommend a replacement where it is clearly in the customer’s interest, record why, and never treat existing cover as a chance to earn new commission. Ask your compliance adviser how your firm checks replacement business.
Fair value and what you are paid
For pure protection, the Duty’s price and value outcome gives way to the product governance rules in PROD 4, and those rules reach distributors as well as insurers. A firm has to weigh how its own arrangements and pay bear on the value the product is meant to give, and make sure that what it is paid still leaves the customer with fair value. Your lead costs sit inside those arrangements.
Over 50s plans sharpen the question. The FCA’s interim market study report found that commission over the life of a guaranteed over 50s plan averaged about 34% of projected premiums, the top of a range that started at about 20% for critical illness cover. Its final report did not find that these products failed to give fair value to their target market, but it found that for some customers other products, such as underwritten whole of life cover, may offer better value or suit them better. Ask your compliance adviser how your firm evidences value on these sales.
A call outline for over 50s enquiries
- Introduce your firmGive your firm’s name, say they asked about over 50s cover and explain how you have their details, before any questions.
- Find the purposeWhat is the money for, who would pay for a funeral today, and what cover, savings or funeral plan do they already have?
- Check the alternativesAsk enough about health to know whether underwritten whole of life or term cover could suit them better, and say why you are asking.
- Show the numbersExplain the waiting period, what happens if they stop paying, and roughly when their premiums would pass the cash sum.
- Check understandingAsk them to describe the plan in their own words, and offer time to think or a call with someone they trust.
- Confirm in writingSend a summary with the cash sum, premium, waiting period and cancellation rights, and note any adaptations you made.
Speed still matters at the first step: a prompt call reaches the customer while the question is fresh, and our guide to working enquiries as they arrive covers the set-up. After that, let the customer set the pace. First calls, follow-up and contact plans for every kind of lead are covered in our guide to turning leads into policies.
Over 50s enquiries from 50Life, sent to one firm only.
Choose the age range, smoker status and cover you want, with a maximum price per enquiry you never go above.
Are over 50s life insurance leads worth buying?
They are if each policy they produce carries less lead cost than its commission can absorb, after clawbacks, and if you can sell them fairly. The second part is covered above. The first is arithmetic you can do with your own figures.
What an over 50s policy earns you
The FCA’s interim report found initial protection commission is generally set at 170% to 250% of first-year premium, with about 96% of it paid upfront on indemnity terms. That range covers protection as a whole, and over 50s terms vary by insurer and by agency agreement. The FCA also noted that much guaranteed over 50s commission is set within insurance groups, so it may not reflect what an independent firm is paid.
Illustrative example: if an insurer paid 170% of the £290 average premium, initial commission would be about £490 before any network or principal share, which is why the calculator below starts at £500. Enter what your firm actually keeps. A lapse inside the clawback period, which generally runs for two or four years, means repaying some or all of it.
Calculator
Over 50s lead cost per policy
Enter what you pay per enquiry, how many enquiries become over 50s policies and your average commission on a plan. The figure 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
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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
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- 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: at £40 per enquiry, placing 12 policies for every 100 enquiries means about 8.3 enquiries per policy, so each policy carries about £333 of lead cost. On £500 of commission that leaves about £167, and you would break even at £60 per enquiry.
Open “Allow for clawbacks” and enter 10%: the commission you keep falls to £450, the margin to about £117 and the break-even price to £54. Set clawbacks back to 0% and drop conversion to 8%: each policy then costs £500 in leads, the whole commission, and with 10% clawback still entered it costs £50 more than it earns. These rates are examples, not Protection Connect results.
What the example shows is how little room there is. Because over 50s commission is modest, a few points of conversion separate a source that pays from one that loses money, so track every source separately and judge it over enough leads to be fair. Guaranteed acceptance removes one reason cases fall through, since nobody is declined on health, but don’t assume it lifts your conversion rate. No reliable UK benchmark is published; measure your own.
Set a separate maximum price for over 50s campaigns rather than reusing your term figure. The steps for working out a maximum bid are the same for any product, and our breakdown of what each type of lead typically costs in the UK also covers the pricing models sellers use and the costs that sit beyond the lead itself.
Planning a monthly budget
Calculator
Over 50s lead budget planner
Set the number of over 50s policies you want each month, or the budget you have, and see how many enquiries that takes at your own rates.
Use your own figure if you have one.
- Monthly lead budget
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- Leads a month
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- Leads a week
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- Daily spend limit to spread it evenly
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- Commission after lead costs
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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: to place six over 50s policies a month at 12% conversion you need about 50 enquiries. At £40 each that is £2,000 a month, about £65.79 a day spread evenly, or 11 to 12 enquiries a week. Six policies at £500 earn £3,000, leaving about £1,000 after lead costs and before clawbacks, staff and overheads. These rates are examples, not Protection Connect results.
Whether that many enquiries are available depends on the source. On Protection Connect, lead estimates are a guide, not a promise of volume, and your dashboard shows whether over 50s enquiries are being supplied before you top up.
For context, among the small group of protection specialists the FCA sampled for its interim report, lead generation and staff between them cost roughly 30% of gross commission. That covered all their products, so it isn’t a target for over 50s leads alone. But if lead costs take most of your over 50s commission in your own figures, look again at the price, the source or the process.
Which firms over 50s leads suit
- If you already advise older clients, these enquiries fit what you do. Your edge is comparing guaranteed and underwritten options that most buyers never see.
- If protection sits alongside your mortgage work, over 50s enquiries won’t come with a mortgage conversation. Term enquiries are usually the closer fit.
- If you are an appointed representative, your principal may limit the lead sources you use or the over 50s plans you can recommend, so ask before you buy. On Protection Connect, a full AR declares when it applies that its principal has agreed to it buying from us, and introducer ARs can’t buy at all.
- If you run a telephone team, train for vulnerability and the payout conversation first, and monitor calls for it. Volume without that is a complaints risk.
- If your over 50s model is non-advised, you can still buy leads elsewhere, but not from us; see below.
How do over 50s life insurance leads work on Protection Connect?
Our over 50s life insurance leads start on 50Life, our own website, where people looking for over 50s cover ask to be contacted. Each enquiry is delivered to one broker only: we never share, resell or recycle it.
An Over 50s Life Insurance campaign starts with an age range of 50 to 80, adjustable in whole years. You can add smoker status and a minimum cover of £5,000, £10,000 or £20,000 or more, which excludes enquiries giving no amount, but not health or reason for cover.
Among eligible campaigns, the highest maximum bid wins. The winner pays 1p more than the best maximum bid from any other firm’s eligible campaign, capped at its own maximum; where bids tie, the one set first wins, and if no other firm is eligible the price is the minimum of £35. Daily spend or lead limits reset at midnight UK time.
Enquiries arrive in your lead inbox, alerts reach your team by email without customer details, and enquiries can also go to Zapier or Make by webhook. You get the customer’s name, phone, email if given, age, full postcode, smoker status, any cover amount, a source label, the consent time and which contact methods they agreed to on the enquiry form, but never the health answer given on 50Life.
The customer asked to be contacted but doesn’t see your firm’s name before sending, so give it first. In general, a marketing call to a number on the TPS is only allowed once the person has told your firm they don’t object, and email or text marketing needs consent naming your firm and that channel. Ask your compliance adviser how PECR applies to your follow-up.
Credits can be claimed within 48 hours of delivery for an invalid phone number or email, a duplicate of an enquiry already supplied for that customer, one materially outside your criteria, or one that is fraudulent or a test. A customer deciding against cover isn’t grounds. See our full marketplace description, how it works and a fictional sample life insurance enquiry.
Where we’re not the answer. Only advice firms can buy. We don’t supply funeral plan, underwritten whole of life, critical illness or income protection enquiries, and at a minimum of £35 per enquiry we aren’t a cheap source. Your dashboard shows whether enquiries are being supplied before you top up, from £250. See what it costs to start.
Questions brokers ask about over 50s leads
They are enquiries from people aged 50 or over who have asked to be contacted about a lifelong life insurance plan, usually a guaranteed acceptance whole of life policy that pays a small fixed cash sum when they die. Most are for a few thousand pounds of cover, often meant for funeral costs. Some sellers call them over 50 life insurance leads. Senior life insurance leads is a looser American label that can cover other products, so ask any seller using it what the customer actually enquired about.
Final expense is the American name for a small whole life policy bought to pay for a funeral and final bills, so final expense leads are the nearest US equivalent of UK over 50s enquiries. In the UK the plans are sold under FCA rules, marketing calls fall under PECR and the TPS instead of US do-not-call law, and American scripts and close rates don’t transfer. Read US advice on these leads with that in mind.
It depends on the seller, whether each lead is exclusive or shared and how it was generated, so compare sellers on the lead cost of each policy rather than the price of each lead. Your break-even price per enquiry is the commission you keep on a policy multiplied by your conversion rate. Illustrative example: £500 of commission at 12% conversion breaks even at £60 an enquiry. On Protection Connect you set your own maximum per enquiry, and the minimum price for over 50s enquiries is £35.
No reliable UK benchmark is published, so be sceptical of anyone who quotes one. Guaranteed acceptance means nobody is declined on health, which removes one reason cases fall through. Against that, older customers often want time, written information or a relative’s view before deciding, and some enquiries come from people in difficult circumstances. Measure your own conversion by source, over enough leads to be fair, and set your maximum price from that.
It is the opening stretch of the plan, typically 12 or 24 months and sometimes longer, during which the full cash sum isn’t paid on a death that isn’t accidental. If the customer dies of other causes in that time, the plan typically refunds the premiums paid instead. Some plans pay the full sum for an accidental death during the waiting period. Check the terms of the plan you recommend and explain them early.
Only if your firm has the right permissions. Pre-paid funeral plans have been regulated by the FCA since 29 July 2022 under their own rules, which ban cold calling and commission payments to intermediaries. If a customer wants a guaranteed funeral rather than a cash sum, ask your compliance adviser what your firm can do, and never describe an over 50s plan as a funeral plan. Protection Connect’s Terms allow an enquiry to be used only to advise that customer on protection.
No. A date of birth tells you nothing certain about vulnerability, and many over 50s customers know exactly what they want. The FCA’s guidance looks at four drivers: health, life events, resilience and capability. Nearly one in five over 50s plan buyers in FCA research said a bereavement played a part, and some enquirers have serious health conditions, so your process should help advisers notice characteristics of vulnerability when they appear, adapt how they deal with the customer and record what they changed.
Not always. Underwritten whole of life involves medical questions and usually much larger sums, often for estate planning, and only about 36,000 such policies were sold in 2024. Most whole of life sales are guaranteed acceptance over 50s plans, so ask a seller which product it means before you price its leads. On Protection Connect, over 50s enquiries come from our website 50Life, and we don’t supply underwritten whole of life or funeral plan enquiries.
From lead generators that run their own consumer websites or adverts, from lead marketplaces, from call centres that transfer calls, and from sellers of aged data. Whichever route you use, look the seller up on the FCA Register, ask for the advert and consent wording the customer saw, and find out whether each lead goes to one firm or several. On Protection Connect, over 50s enquiries come only from our own website 50Life, and each enquiry is delivered to one broker only.
In practice, yes, or your principal must be if you are an appointed representative. Buying a lead isn’t a regulated activity in itself, but advising on or arranging the plan is. Check the seller’s FCA status too. Protection Connect sells only to firms that both advise on and arrange non-investment insurance for retail customers, and to their full appointed representatives, so introducer ARs and non-advised firms can’t buy.
Sources and further reading
- FCA: Market study into the distribution of pure protection products, final report (MS24/1.5), September 2026
- FCA: Market study into the distribution of pure protection products to retail customers, interim report (MS24/1.4), January 2026
- FCA: Pure protection market study, market overview (MS24/1.3), September 2025
- FCA: Pure protection market study, consumer research summary, 2025
- FCA: Guidance for firms on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers (FG21/1)
- FCA: FCA confirms measures to raise standards in the funeral plans market, July 2021
- ICO: ICO fines Wigan-based Pinnacle Life £80,000 for predatory spam call campaign, March 2024
- Swiss Re: Term & Health Watch 2025 (2024 new business data; copy hosted by Actuarial Post)
