How to vet an insurance lead vendor

How do you vet an insurance lead vendor?

You vet an insurance lead vendor by testing its written terms, not its sales pitch. Ask for six documents or answers before you fund anything: the consent record behind a sample lead or call, the price list with its billing trigger, the return or credit policy, the definition of exclusive, the minimum order and refund terms, and the rules for how lead data may be stored, reused or resold. A vendor that sells real traffic can answer each one quickly, because those rules already run its business. Then confirm the basics a buyer can check alone: a legal business name, a physical address, and a phone line that a person answers. Finally, buy the smallest order allowed and compare what arrives with what was promised. The checklist below applies to aged leads, real-time leads, live transfers and inbound calls alike, and the examples come from policies vendors publish on their own sites.

What belongs on a lead vendor checklist?

A vendor that clears every row is not automatically a good source, but one that fails a row has told you something important for free. Keep the written answers, because they become your evidence if a dispute comes up later.

What consent evidence should a lead vendor show you?

A vendor should show you the consent record behind a sample lead before you buy. Under the FCC's rule at 47 CFR 64.1200(f)(9), prior express written consent is a signed written agreement that clearly authorizes the seller to deliver telemarketing calls using an autodialer or prerecorded voice to a stated phone number. An electronic signature counts where federal or state law recognizes it.

• The exact disclosure text the consumer saw, and the seller names it listed.
• The page or form where consent was captured, with a timestamp.
• A third-party session record where the vendor uses one. PX Local, for example, shows each lead's source, consent timestamp, TCPA consent status and an independent Jornaya record before purchase.
• For calls, how the caller was prompted. Falcon FEX discloses which tiers come from outbound prospecting and which come from web forms or paid traffic.

Read the terms for who carries the duty. Aged Lead Store's terms place prior express written consent and National DNC scrubbing on the buyer and do not represent that its leads were collected with required consent. That is a clear statement, and it tells you the compliance work is yours. TCPA basics explains how the rule touches call buyers.

What should a return or credit policy say?

A fair return policy names the reasons, the window, any cap and the form the credit takes, in writing. Published policies differ widely, which is why you compare them line by line.

Ask what happens to a duplicate: a consumer you already bought, sent again. Duplicate calls, explained covers why the definition matters, and how call disputes work shows a credit process from request to decision.

How should prices and billing rules be written?

Prices should be written down per unit, with the event that makes a unit billable. For calls, that event is a buffer: a minimum stretch of connected time. Ask when the clock starts, at ring or at answer, and what happens when a voicemail or IVR picks up. On Callmart, connected time starts when your line answers and ringing never counts, but time in your own IVR or voicemail after it answers does count.

Look for a written list of calls that will not be billed. Falcon FEX publishes buffer guidelines that name drop reasons it does not bill, such as not interested or no active bank account, and says giving any price or quote makes a call billable. If one product shows two prices, ask which governs: LeadSwitch's product pages say its live price list is the final word. Connected time billing explains the mechanics.

What does exclusive mean, and how do you check it?

Exclusive should mean one buyer per consumer for a stated period, and the contract should say so. Vendors define it differently: EverQuote's FAQ says shared leads go to up to three agents and that exclusive leads require also taking shared ones, while LeadSwitch's homepage says its calls are never resold.

Callmart calls are not exclusive. Unless a Campaign Order says otherwise, Callmart may route similar calls to other buyers. Whatever a vendor promises, check it in your own data by looking for the same phone numbers arriving more than once.

How should a vendor handle your data and the consumer's?

A vendor should state what you may do with the records you buy and how it protects what you give it. Aged Lead Store's terms license leads for a three-month period, bar resale and require deletion at the end, a clear example of written data rules.

• Card details should go to a payment processor, not the vendor. LeadSwitch takes cards on a Stripe-hosted page. On Callmart, card and bank details are collected and stored by Stripe, and Callmart never stores full card numbers.
• Ask where call recordings are stored, who can play them, and how long they are kept.
• Ask whether your agency's name is shown to the traffic source. Callmart never discloses a buyer to a publisher or a publisher to a buyer.

What are the red flags in a lead vendor?

• No consent record available for a sample lead.
• A price you can only learn on a sales call, with no written rate after it.
• A return policy that exists only as a verbal promise.
• "Exclusive" with no written definition.
• Large prepaid packages that cannot be refunded, with no small first order.
• Pressure to decide before you have read the terms.

1. 01Collect the documentsTerms, price list, return policy and a sample consent record.
2. 02Score the checklistMark each row pass, fail or unclear, and ask about every unclear row.
3. 03Buy the minimumUse the buying guide to size and track a first order.
4. 04Compare promise with deliveryCheck duplicates, states and durations against what the vendor wrote down.

Weighing one vendor against a marketplace of many sources is a separate decision, covered in call marketplace vs single vendor.

Common questions