How to buy insurance leads, step by step
To buy insurance leads, decide which lines and states you can write, set the filters and daily caps your agents can work, choose ping/post or post delivery, check how consent is captured, and agree return terms in writing. Then run a small test, measure contact, quote and bind rates, and scale only the sources that produce policies.
Summit Leads is now onboarding buyers and suppliers for auto and home insurance leads. Email us with the lines, states and daily volume you want.
Summit Leads is now onboarding buyers and suppliers for life insurance, final expense, IUL and mortgage protection leads. Email us with the lines, states and daily volume you want.
The steps below describe how agencies commonly set up an order with any insurance lead seller. They are general industry practice. Each seller has its own terms, so use the steps as a list of decisions to make before you sign.
Generate insurance leads? Sell them through Summit.
Before buying insurance leads: know your numbers
Write down three numbers before you contact a seller. They decide how much you can pay and how many leads you can use.
- The most you can pay for one written policy. Work it out from your commission and how long policies usually stay on your books. Divide it by your expected leads per policy to get a ceiling per lead.
- Agent capacity. How many new leads each agent can call, quote and follow up each day without leaving leads untouched.
- Response time. How fast your team can call a lead during business hours, and what happens to leads that arrive at night.
Lead prices depend on the line, state, distribution model, age and fields; how much insurance leads cost explains each factor. Whether bought leads make sense for your agency at all is covered in is buying leads worth it.
Eight steps to buy insurance leads
Choose your lines
Pick the lines you write: auto, home, home and auto bundles, life, final expense, IUL or mortgage protection. Start with one or two lines so the test results are clear.
Choose your states
List the states where your agents can quote and your carriers are writing new business. A lead from a state you cannot write is wasted spend.
Set your filters
Choose the qualifying answers a lead must have, such as currently insured for auto or property type for home. Each filter narrows volume, so add only the ones your carriers need.
Set caps and hours
Set a daily cap per line and per state, and the hours you accept leads. Caps keep volume within agent capacity.
Choose delivery
Decide between real-time ping/post and post delivery, and where leads land: your CRM, a dialer or email.
Check consent
Review the quote form and the consent language, and confirm you can retrieve a consent certificate for every lead.
Agree return terms
Write down which failures can be returned, how to submit a return and how credits are applied.
Test, measure, then scale
Run a small test per source, measure contact, quote and bind rates, and raise caps only on sources that produce policies.
For the same process across every vertical, see how to buy leads. The sections below add detail on the insurance-specific steps.
States and licensing
According to the NAIC, people who sell, solicit or negotiate insurance in the United States must be licensed as insurance producers, and each state sets its own licensing rules. Agencies usually buy leads only in states where the agents who will call them can quote. Check each state's rules with its insurance department; the NAIC keeps a directory of state insurance departments.
Your carriers matter too. A carrier that has stopped writing new home policies in part of a state makes home leads from those ZIP codes unusable for its agents.
Filters insurance lead buyers commonly set
Sellers in the industry commonly let buyers filter on answers from the quote form. Which filters a seller supports, and which apply to your account, is agreed with that seller.
| Line | Filters commonly used |
|---|---|
| Auto | State and ZIP code, currently insured, number of vehicles, number of drivers, recent violations or accidents |
| Home | State and ZIP code, property type, occupancy, year built, homeowner or buyer, policy expiration date |
| Home and auto bundle | The home and auto filters together, plus whether both lines were requested |
| Life and final expense | State, age range, coverage type and coverage amount requested |
Line pages describe what each lead type commonly carries: auto insurance leads, home insurance leads and how to buy life insurance leads.
Delivery: ping/post or post
| Ping/post | Post | |
|---|---|---|
| How it works | The seller sends a partial record without contact details. You bid or pass, and the full lead goes to the winning bid. | The seller sends the full lead directly, on a fixed price agreed in advance. |
| What you control | A price per lead, set by your bid | Filters and caps, at a set price |
| What you need | A system that can receive pings and return bids in real time | An endpoint, CRM or inbox that accepts posted leads |
| Common users | Agencies and buying desks that price leads by state or profile | Agencies that want every lead matching their filters |
For how a seller routes one lead across many buyers, see what is a ping tree and ping/post vs direct post.
Consent checks before your first call
Calls and texts to people who submitted a quote form are governed by the TCPA and FCC rules. Before you buy insurance leads from a new source, check:
- The quote form shows consent language before the submit button, and the language covers contact about insurance.
- The consent language names your agency, or names the companies or categories the lead may be sold to.
- Each lead carries a consent certificate or record with the time, IP address and page URL.
- You can retrieve that record later, after the lead has been delivered.
- Your team scrubs against the National Do Not Call Registry and your own internal do-not-call list where those rules apply.
See TCPA compliance for insurance leads for consent, Do Not Call and state rules. This page is general information, not legal advice.
Return terms to agree before you start
Insurance lead sellers commonly accept returns for a short list of reasons. Agree yours in writing before the first lead arrives:
- Disconnected or invalid phone number
- The person reached says they did not request a quote
- Duplicate of a lead you already bought within an agreed period
- Outside your filters, such as the wrong state
Also agree how to submit a return, the time limit for returns and how credits are applied. A person who simply did not buy is not usually a return reason. See how lead returns work.
Where to buy insurance leads
Insurance leads are sold by several kinds of company: lead generators with their own quote sites, aggregators and marketplaces, lead brokers, aged lead sellers and carrier programs for their own agents. Each sells on different terms. Compare them by type and against one checklist in insurance lead companies.
Working with Summit Leads
Summit Leads is a lead generation brokerage: it buys leads from generators and sells them to buyers by real-time ping/post. Summit handles web leads from quote forms only, not calls or live transfers. To start, email team@summitleads.ai with your lines, states, daily volume or caps, delivery method and the fields you need. States, filters, return terms and payment terms are agreed during onboarding. The steps after your email are shown at the end of this page.
If you generate insurance leads yourself, see sell insurance leads. For the full lead lifecycle, see how insurance lead generation works.
Common mistakes when buying insurance leads
- Buying more leads than agents can call. Untouched leads still cost money. Set caps from agent capacity.
- Testing too many sources at once. Two or three sources, tracked separately, give clearer results.
- Skipping the consent review. Look at the actual form and certificate before the first lead, not after a complaint.
- Leaving return terms verbal. If the terms are not written, they are hard to enforce.
- Judging on cost per lead. Compare sources on cost per written policy.
- Keeping a filter nobody needs. Every extra filter cuts volume. Remove filters your carriers do not require.
For every insurance lead type in one place, see insurance leads for agents.
Frequently asked questions
How to buy leads for insurance?
Choose your lines and states, set filters and daily caps, pick ping/post or post delivery, review the consent form and certificates, and agree return terms in writing. Then test each source with a small volume and scale the ones that produce policies.
Where can I buy leads from?
From lead generators with their own quote sites, aggregators and marketplaces, lead brokers, aged lead sellers, and carrier programs for their agents. See insurance lead companies to compare them.
How long should a first insurance lead test run?
Long enough for each source to produce enough contacted leads and quotes to compare bind rates. Many agencies run a test for several weeks at a fixed daily cap before changing volume.
Do I need a CRM or dialer before I buy insurance leads?
Post delivery can go to email, but most agencies use a CRM or dialer so leads are called fast and every attempt is tracked. Ping/post needs a system that can return bids in real time.
Related
Sources
- Producer Licensing, National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC)content.naic.org
- State Insurance Departments, National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC)content.naic.org
Buying insurance leads?
Email us the insurance lines, states, daily volume or caps, delivery method and the fields you need. Terms are agreed during onboarding.
Or write to team@summitleads.ai. We reply by email.
What happens next
- Step 1: You email us.
- Step 2: We reply by email.
- Step 3: Return terms are agreed on the onboarding call, before you go live.