Most insurance agents will be buying internet generated insurance leads from third parties (aka insurance lead vendors) rather than generating their own internet leads. Acquiring your own customers on the Internet is tricky, costly and time taking. (Refer the post on ‘Generating Your Own Insurance Leads on the Internet’ for more information on self generated leads approach.)

Buying Exclusive vs Shared Insurance Leads

When insurance leads are bought, generally the leads are sold to two to four agents. This lead is known as a Shared Lead, since the lead is sold to multiple agents. This method also gives a choice for the consumers to compare and contrast the services offered by various insurance companies / agents.

The lead generation companies (aka lead vendors or service providers) avoid providing a specific lead to multiple agents dealing with a specific insurance company. For example, if a consumer (say, John) is requesting a quote for vehicle insurance, the lead vendor will send John’s contact and insurance requirement related information to 2 to 4 agents, each dealing with a different insurance company. If agent 1 is providing State Farm service, other agents will be providing other insurance carriers. This helps agents affiliated with the same insurance carrier need not fight their turf.

However, when independent insurance agents (handling multiple insurance carriers – not associated with any specific insurance company) buy leads, enforcement of this distribution rule is not always possible.

In order to avoid competition and increase the chances of conversion, agents may opt to  buy Exclusive Leads, in which case the leads will be sold to only one agent.

Advantages of Buying Exclusive Insurance Leads

As an agent, buying exclusive lead gives a major advantage due to the fact that there is no competition. Even if you are delayed for a few minutes in contacting the prospective customer, the customer will not be sold by another agent.

On the other hand, the customer does not have any choice in this case. Hence buyers of exclusive leads must exercise diligence and follow up with the lead and provide the best possible services at reasonable price.

It is also important to keep in mind that the price of an Exclusive Insurance Lead is significantly costlier than the shared lead. If you don’t follow up promptly and convert the exclusive leads quickly, you will be losing money like crazy!

Exclusive Lead is Not Always Exclusive!

Even if you have paid a high price to buy an internet generated Exclusive Lead from an insurance lead vendor, there is no guaranty that the lead is exclusive! What the heck?

If you understand how the internet works, probably you would not be so shocked. Many large lead vendors buy(?) leads from other small vendors and services providers; these companies are known as Affiliates or Publishers. These affiliates will have their own network of websites and collect insurance quote requests from consumers and sell these leads to the large lead vendors. While the large companies vet the affiliates and put in place lot of checks and balances, the affiliates can always sneak in and sell the leads to multiple vendors.

Another major issue is the small and / or specialty lead providers, who generate their own internet leads or buy leads from major vendors claiming that the leads are for their own business. They will in turn resell the leads to multiple agents. For example, if a major vendor has sold an insurance lead for 4 agents, one of the agent might resell it for 4 other agents! Eight agents would have got the same lead! Imagine the plight of the prospective customer, when 8 agents start calling them within minutes of receiving the lead information!

Another scenario where exclusive leads are not exclusive is when the lead is sold as an aged lead. Even if the lead is only 24 to 48 hours old, you can fairly label the same as a non-exclusive lead.

Beyond all the above cases, the consumer is very tech savvy in this social media world. They might submit their contact and request information to more than one web site. In such a case, a lead will be captured by more than one lead vendor and there is no way that they know the customer has submitted another request to  another vendor.

This discussion is not to discourage buying exclusive leads. On the other hand, be aware of all the scenarios and take these factors into account in your lead buying budget and business operations.

Insurance Lead Vendors

If you do a search on insurance lead vendors, dozens of lead provider details will turn up.  It is very difficult to differentiate one from the other and label one better than the other supplier. What works for one for a specific occasion may not work the next time or for another lead type. There are so many variants in the internet, it is difficult to zero in on a specific reason why some leads are converting well and others will not.

Hence assessing the lead vendor and choosing an established firm is a good starting point. However, the more established the lead generation companies are, the prices may be high for a given type of leads. As mentioned earlier, there are a number of insurance lead vendors; here some leading service providers (not in any particular order). Note that there is a consolidation going on in the insurance lead generation industry and some firms may merge with others as the time goes.

• InsureMe (a Bankrate company) 
• AgentInsider (a INSWeb property)
• NetQuote (now a Bankrate company)
• InsuranceLeads.com (recently bought over by AllWebLeads)
• AllWebLeads
• InsuranceAgents.com
• HomeTownQuotes.com
• ProspectZone

Criteria for Insurance Lead Buying

How to Track and Manage Insurance Leads

The blog will cater to all insurance types including individual and group insurance leads. Health, Home, Life, Auto, Renters, Business / Commercial, Annuities, Seniors, LTC, and other insurance segment related discussions and resources will be included.

Following lead management areas will be addressed:

• Insurance lead generation
• Buying internet generated leads from insurance lead vendors
• Leveraging SEO, PPC and Social Media strategies for lead acquisition
• Automating lead Capture processes
• Choosing lead providers
• Lead quality issues
• Integrating multiple lead sources
• Choosing and deploying insurance lead management software system
• Automating insurance lead distribution and routing to agents
• Choosing right distribution rules and procedures
• Drip emails and autoresponder messages for lead nurturing
• Lead follow-up processes
• Integrating lead quote engines in agent web sites
• Performance Analytics
• Engaging customers in the long term

Please do stop by often when you have few minutes.