Life insurance leads come in more formats than any other line, because each life product sells a different way. Final expense sells by phone or at a kitchen table to people in their 50s to 80s. Mortgage protection starts with a mailer to someone who just closed on a loan. Term and IUL start with an internet quote form. The leads worth buying are built for the product you sell, reach you before anyone else, and come with a consent record that names your agency. Judge each by cost per issued policy that stays on the books, not by price per lead.
We don’t sell leads. OwnersLift builds outbound and front-office systems for insurance agencies, and our own insurance work is in property and casualty, with a commercial brokerage. Everything below about life leads comes from vendors’ own pages and regulators’ own documents, as listed on October 31, 2026. For auto, home and commercial lines, leads for insurance agents compares every source across the board.
The short version
- Final expense. Call-verified leads and live transfers if you sell by phone, direct mail reply cards if you sell in person. Aged final expense leads are cheap practice for a new agent.
- Mortgage protection. Direct mail built from new mortgage records is the standard format. Read the mailer before it goes out with your name on it, because lender lookalikes have drawn regulators’ orders.
- Term life. Internet quote forms, plus referrals from mortgage lenders and realtors.
- IUL and annuities. The most expensive leads per record. A CPA or estate attorney who refers clients usually beats a bought lead, if your state allows the arrangement.
- A property and casualty agency adding life. Your book holds better life leads than any vendor sells. Start there.
Every type, side by side
| Type | What you get | Published price, Oct 31, 2026 | Who else gets it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Final expense, internet | A form from someone asking about burial coverage | $50 exclusive, $70 contact-verified at InsureLeads | Nobody buys that vendor’s copy |
| Final expense, live transfer | A screened caller on your line | $110 at InsureLeads; $250 to $300 for transfers pre-sorted by underwriting tier | Nobody, if exclusive |
| Final expense, direct mail | Reply cards from a mailing you pay for in your territory | Quoted per 1,000 mailers. Need-A-Lead publishes the structure, not the dollar figure | Nobody |
| Mortgage protection, direct mail | Reply cards from recent borrowers | $825 to $1,000 per 1,000 mailers at Aria Insurtech, 1,000 minimum | Nobody for 30 days, at Aria |
| Mortgage protection, internet | A borrower’s quote form | $55 exclusive at InsureLeads; $69 or $20 at Aria, depending on detail | Nobody buys that copy |
| Life, internet | A life quote form, term included | $65 exclusive, $90 contact-verified at InsureLeads | Nobody buys that copy |
| Life live transfer | A screened shopper on your line | $160 at InsureLeads | Nobody, if exclusive |
| IUL and annuity | A form or transfer for permanent life or retirement income | $125 exclusive for either; $275 per IUL transfer, $300 per annuity transfer, at InsureLeads | Nobody buys that copy |
| Aged life and final expense | Old forms, resold | $4.50 down to $0.25 at Aged Lead Store, $100 minimum; $4 down to $0.60 at InsureLeads | Everyone who bought before you |
Each type, one at a time
Final expense leads
Final expense is a small whole life policy that pays for a funeral and burial. The buyer is older, often on a fixed income, and often already on Medicare. Vendors filter for that: Financialize targets final expense buyers aged 50 to 85, and its published range for exclusive life leads of every kind runs from $9 to $225.
InsureLeads publishes the clearest rate card: $50 for an exclusive final expense lead, $70 for one whose contact details were verified, and $110 for a live transfer. It also sells “pre-vetted” transfers at $250 for guaranteed issue and $300 for level and graded, sorted by which policy the caller qualifies for before the handoff.
Direct mail is the other route, built for agents who sell in person. You pay per thousand mailers for printing, postage and the list, and the reply cards that come back are yours alone. Need-A-Lead sells it on a flat rate per 1,000 with a 1,000-piece minimum, and like most mail houses it gives the dollar figure only on request.
Two rules need attention here. Ads and mailers aimed at seniors cannot look like a government benefit, which the rules section below covers. And if you also sell Medicare Advantage, keep the conversations apart. During a Medicare Advantage personal marketing appointment, the CMS rule at 42 CFR 422.2264 says an agent may not market “non-health related products, such as annuities.” Book final expense on its own.
Mortgage protection leads
Mortgage protection is life insurance sized to pay off a home loan, sold to people who just took one out. Most leads come from mailers built on public mortgage records. Aria Insurtech says its premium plan “targets new and refinanced mortgage data up to 1 week old,” with a 1,000-mailer minimum, 30 days of exclusivity, and prices from $825 to $1,000 for the first 1,000 pieces. Its “Retro” plan, built on loans six or more months old, starts at $750 per 1,000.
Aria’s page claims a 2 to 8% response for the premium plan. That is the vendor’s figure, not a benchmark we can check. The arithmetic still helps: at $1 a mailer, a 2% response puts each returned card at $50, about the price of an exclusive internet lead, and 8% puts it at $12.50.
The format works because a letter about your new mortgage looks important. That is also where it goes wrong. In 2014 the Massachusetts Division of Banks ordered a mortgage protection marketer to stop after its envelopes read “Important Documents Enclosed” and showed the borrower’s bank name through the window, over a yellow “Mortgage Data Card” listing the loan amount and closing date. The bank had not authorized the use of its name. Massachusetts law lets a solicitation use public loan information only if the front page says in bold type that the sender is not sponsored by or affiliated with the lender. Before a vendor mails in your name, ask to see the envelope.
Internet mortgage protection leads run $55 exclusive at InsureLeads. Aria’s marketplace sells new leads at $69 for its Gold tier, which records age, health conditions and smoker status, and $20 for Silver. Aged mortgage protection leads run $5 down to $0.75 at InsureLeads, and sit on the same price grid as aged life leads at Aged Lead Store.
Term life internet leads
Term buyers shop online and compare, so these behave like auto leads: whoever calls first frames the quote. InsureLeads lists $65 for an exclusive life lead and $90 contact-verified, without splitting term from other products. The big shared marketplaces publish no life rate card on their agent pages, EverQuote’s included. Shared leads turn every term inquiry into a dialing race, which exclusive vs. shared insurance leads covers in full.
IUL and annuity leads
These cost the most per record, because the policies and the commissions are larger. InsureLeads lists both IUL and annuity leads at $125 exclusive and $175 contact-verified, with transfers at $275 for IUL and $300 for annuities. Aged IUL leads run $12 down to $2 at InsureLeads, and $6 down to $2 for leads 181 to 500 days old at Aged Lead Store.
The buyer here is often someone a CPA, estate attorney or financial planner already advises. A referral from one of them arrives with trust a $125 lead cannot buy. Whether you can pay that referrer depends on your state, which our all-lines guide covers.
Live transfers
A call center screens the shopper and connects them to you while they are still on the line. InsureLeads lists $160 per life transfer, $110 for final expense and $150 for mortgage protection. Lead Heroes publishes no transfer price and transfers only to teams with at least three agents available, which tells you what the format demands: someone free to answer every time.
Get three answers in writing before you buy: what counts as a billable call, what you pay when a transfer reaches voicemail, and what the screener asks before connecting.
Aged life leads
Old internet forms, resold. Aged Lead Store sells shared life and final expense leads from $4.50 each for 3 to 30 days old down to $0.25 for 86 to 365 days old in large orders, with a $100 minimum, and says plainly that “aged life insurance leads are shared records.” InsureLeads lists aged life at $4 for 30 to 90 days down to $0.60 past a year, with no minimum, and says they are “not exclusive unless they have genuinely never been resold.”
They are good practice for a new agent and a volume source for a call center. The consent behind an old form is the weak point, covered in our guide to aged insurance leads.
Leads through your IMO or upline
Many life agents buy leads through the marketing organization they contract with. Family First Life’s agent help center, in a lead program guide dated 2023, lists mortgage protection leads at $74.45 to $87.77 each and final expense at $45 to $67 depending on the state, sold exclusively by county. Its FAQ says agents are billed as leads arrive and remain responsible for leads that trickle in after they cancel.
These terms are at least public. Before you sign with any upline for its leads, get the price sheet, the billing terms, what happens to leads still in the pipeline when you leave, and whether you may buy elsewhere.
Leads you build
Your own book
If you run a property and casualty agency with life appointments, your customers are the best life leads you will find. A homeowners policy names the mortgage lender, which makes every insured homeowner with a loan a mortgage protection conversation. A driver added to an auto policy is a new family member or a teenager. A commercial client has a key person and a buy-sell question.
The calling rules are friendlier too. A customer who bought from you in the last 18 months has an established business relationship with your agency under the Do Not Call rules, so a sales call to them is not a telephone solicitation. That does not replace written consent for autodialed or prerecorded marketing calls and texts. Our insurance agency work builds this cross-sell lane on the systems an agency already runs.
Referral partners
Mortgage lenders and realtors meet term and mortgage protection buyers the week they close. CPAs, estate attorneys and financial planners meet IUL and annuity buyers. The price is service: quoting their client the same day, every time. Paying a referral fee to someone unlicensed is a state question, so check before you promise one.
Local search and content
A complete Google Business Profile that names life insurance among your lines, reviews from clients, and pages that answer the questions people ask you on the phone. It is slow, and it gets cheaper the longer you keep at it. Getting insurance leads without buying them walks through it.
Outbound
Mail to your own territory, calls scrubbed against the Do Not Call registry, and email under CAN-SPAM. The rules are in the all-lines guide. For life, outbound works best aimed at a group you can name, like business owners who need key person or buy-sell coverage.
The rules that bite on life leads
The consent rules are the same as in every other line: prior express written consent that authorizes your agency for autodialed or prerecorded marketing calls and texts to cell phones, opt-outs honored within 10 business days at most, and Do Not Call scrubbing. Our all-lines guide covers each with its primary source. This is not legal advice. Life adds three problems of its own.
Mailers, ads and scripts are advertising. The NAIC’s model regulation on life insurance advertising, which states adopt in their own form, counts direct mail, telemarketing scripts, internet ads and “prepared sales talks” as advertisements. It bars an ad that resembles a government program closely enough to mislead, and an ad that implies a government entity recommends the policy.
Regulators enforce it. In 2024 the Massachusetts Attorney General settled for $50,000 with a life insurer over mailers formatted to suggest a government affiliation. In January 2026 New Jersey’s Department of Banking and Insurance charged a producer with circulating 15,000 mailers that did not name the producer, the insurer or the product. If a vendor mails or calls in your name, its copy is your problem.
Medicare and final expense do not mix in one appointment. The CMS rule quoted above bars marketing non-health products during a Medicare Advantage personal marketing appointment.
What a life lead is worth
A $50 lead and a $1 lead cannot be compared until you know how many of each it takes to issue a policy. Life adds a second step: many carrier contracts advance commission at issue and charge it back if the policy lapses early, so only a policy that outlasts your chargeback period counts.
The arithmetic, with placeholder ratios rather than benchmarks: if one in ten $50 final expense leads issues a policy, a policy costs $500 in leads. If one in four of those policies lapses inside the chargeback window, each policy you keep cost $667. We won’t quote a close or lapse rate we cannot source, and we found no life lead benchmark with a published method. Put your own numbers into the insurance lead cost calculator.
Working the leads you get
Whoever filled in an internet form may be hearing from several agents that hour, and the first one to reach them usually frames the quote. Decide how each lead type gets its first touch: a call within minutes for internet leads and transfers, a call the day a mail card arrives, and a text only where the consent record allows it. Then keep a dated next step on every lead that did not answer. Speed to lead for insurance agencies covers the first hour, and what an insurance agency CRM should do by itself covers what the system should carry after it.
How to evaluate a life lead vendor
- What product and age is it built for? A final expense lead sold to a term agent is wasted money. Ask for the filters: age band, state, product, income where offered.
- Where does it come from? The vendor’s own forms or mailers, or leads bought elsewhere and resold?
- Whose name is on the consent? Ask for the record for each lead, and check that it authorizes your agency.
- Can you see the mailer or the script? For anything sent in your name, read it for lender or government lookalikes before it goes out.
- What counts as a billable transfer? And what you pay for voicemail, a dropped call or a caller who cannot qualify.
- What are the minimums and the exit? Aged Lead Store’s minimum order is $100; Aria’s is 1,000 mailers. Know how you leave before you start.
Our comparison of insurance lead companies runs these questions against the vendors agents ask about most.
What to do this month
- If you run a property and casualty agency with life appointments, pull every homeowners client with a mortgage and no life policy.
- Pick one product and one lead type, buy one month of it, and track cost per issued policy after chargebacks.
- Read every mailer and script a vendor will use in your name.
- Measure your real response time before you blame a vendor.
- If you’d rather work your own book than buy, tell us how leads reach you today. We build the follow-up that turns a P&C book into life conversations, and we will tell you if it does not fit.
Common questions
What are the best life insurance leads?
The best life lead is one built for the product you sell, that you can reach before anyone else, from a source whose consent record names your agency. For most agents that puts their own customers and referral partners first, exclusive leads or live transfers matched to their product next, and shared or aged leads last. Judge each by cost per issued policy that stays on the books.
How much do life insurance leads cost?
As listed on October 31, 2026, InsureLeads charges $65 for an exclusive life lead, $160 for a life live transfer, $50 for an exclusive final expense lead, $55 for mortgage protection and $125 for IUL. Aged Lead Store sells shared aged life and final expense leads from $4.50 down to $0.25 each, with a $100 minimum order.
What are final expense leads?
Final expense leads are people asking about small whole life policies that pay for a funeral and burial. Vendors filter them by age, commonly 50 to 85, and deliver them as internet forms, call-verified leads, live transfers or direct mail reply cards. They suit agents who sell by phone or at the kitchen table to older buyers.
What are mortgage protection leads?
They are homeowners who recently took out or refinanced a mortgage and answered an offer of life insurance that would pay off the loan. Most come from mailers built on new mortgage records. A mailer must not look like it came from the lender. In 2014 Massachusetts ordered one sender to stop after its envelopes showed the borrower's bank name.
Are life insurance live transfers worth it?
They are when someone can answer every transfer during the vendor's calling hours and your cost per issued policy stays below what the policy pays you. InsureLeads lists $160 per life transfer and $110 per final expense transfer as of October 2026. Before buying, ask what counts as a billable call and what you pay when a transfer reaches voicemail.
How do I get free life insurance leads?
Free leads cost time instead of money. The best sources are your own customers, especially auto and home clients if you run a property and casualty agency, referral partners such as mortgage lenders and CPAs, a complete Google Business Profile, and pages that answer the questions people ask you on the phone.
Can I text or autodial life insurance leads?
Only with prior express written consent that authorizes your agency, under the TCPA rules for autodialed or prerecorded marketing calls and texts to cell phones. A bought lead's consent record has to name you. Opt-outs must be honored within 10 business days at most, and calls must avoid numbers on the Do Not Call registry unless an exemption applies.
