Insurance leads in the UK: what you are actually buying
Most UK insurance leads are shared, resold and minutes old by the time you call. Here is how the market actually prices them, why contact rates collapse, and what generating your own from the public record does and does not solve.
Insurance lead generation is one of the oldest paid-acquisition markets in the UK, and one of the least transparent. A broker buying leads is usually buying one of three quite different things without being told which. This is what separates them, roughly what each costs, and where building your own from the public record fits.
The three things sold as an insurance lead
The word covers products that behave nothing alike:
- A shared lead. Somebody filled in a comparison form and their details go to several brokers at once, commonly four to eight. You are racing everyone else who bought it. Cheapest per lead and by far the hardest to convert.
- An exclusive lead. The same form fill, sold once. Several times the price of a shared lead, and the quality still depends entirely on how the enquiry was generated.
- A self-generated lead. You identified the company yourself and approached them directly. No auction, no shared timer, and the cost is your time plus whatever data you used.
Most complaints about bought insurance leads are really complaints about the first category. A shared lead is not a bad product, it is an auction, and it is priced like one.
Why contact rates fall off a cliff
Two things drive the disappointment brokers report with bought leads.
The first is speed. A shared lead is worth most in its first minutes, because the person is still at their desk and still expecting calls. Brokers who cannot ring within the hour are buying the tail end of somebody else's conversation.
The second is intent drift. A form filled in to see a price is not the same as a decision to change insurer. Comparison traffic skews heavily toward people shopping a renewal they may simply let roll over.
Neither problem is fixed by paying more per lead. They are properties of how the enquiry was created.
Every lead is a real UK company with the director named, a checked website and a working email, plus a dated reason to be in touch. 25 free to start, no card.
Commercial lines are a different market entirely
Almost everything written about UK insurance leads is about personal lines: motor, home, life. Commercial is structurally different, and it is where the public record starts to matter.
- A limited company is on the public record from the day it incorporates, with its registered office, its trade code and its directors named.
- Commercial insurance need is often triggered by an event you can actually see: a company forming, moving premises, appointing a director, filing its first accounts.
- There is no comparison-site auction for most of it, so there is no shared-lead timer to race.
That does not make it easy. It makes it addressable, which is a different claim.
What the public record can and cannot tell you
Being straight about this matters more than the pitch.
It can tell you: that a company exists and is still trading, when it incorporated, where it is registered, what trade code it filed under, who the directors are, when its accounts and confirmation statement are due, and whether it has charges registered against it.
It cannot tell you: what the company currently pays for insurance, when its policy renews, who its current broker is, how many staff it employs, or whether it is unhappy. Headcount in particular is not a field on the register, whatever a data vendor implies.
So the honest use is timing and relevance, not renewal-date targeting. A haulier that incorporated three weeks ago needs cover before the first load, and that is knowable. The renewal date of an established firm is not.
What a self-generated commercial lead costs
The arithmetic is different from buying. There is no per-lead auction price; there is the cost of identifying the company and reaching a named person.
On our own pricing, one lead is one lead: the Companies House record, the director named, a verified website, a working email and a dated reason to be in touch, from £29 a month for 900 of them. That is pennies per company rather than pounds per shared enquiry. The trade is that nobody raised their hand first, so you are writing a cold introduction rather than returning a call.
Which is better depends entirely on whether you would rather compete on speed or on relevance.
A working approach for a commercial broker
- Pick the trades you actually underwrite well, and find their SIC codes rather than guessing at keywords.
- Watch for the events that create a need: incorporation, a registered office change, a first set of accounts.
- Write to the named director inside the window while the decision is still open, not months later.
- Keep the approach compliant. A limited company is a corporate subscriber, so legitimate interest is the basis, with a written assessment and a working opt-out.
- Measure replies, not opens. Everything else flatters.
If you sell to brokers or work in the sector, our page for brokers and IFAs covers how the same public record feeds an agent that does this every morning.
The honest summary
Bought insurance leads are not a scam and self-generated leads are not magic. Shared leads are an auction you win on speed. Exclusive leads cost more and still inherit the intent of the form that made them. Self-generated commercial leads cost least per company and demand the most from your writing, because nobody asked you to get in touch.
Most brokers who are unhappy with their lead spend are buying the wrong one of the three for the way they actually sell.
Start free with 25 leads and no card, and see what a traceable commercial lead looks like before you decide.
Common questions
Are shared or exclusive insurance leads better value?
It depends on how fast you can respond. A shared lead goes to several brokers at once, so it rewards whoever rings first and punishes anyone who cannot. An exclusive lead removes the race but costs several times more and carries the same intent as the form that created it. If you cannot reliably respond within the hour, exclusive or self-generated will suit you better.
Can you find out when a company's insurance renews?
Not from the public record. Renewal dates, current premiums and the incumbent broker are not filed anywhere public, and any list claiming them is either inferred or bought from somewhere that should not have sold it. What the record does give you is timing of a different kind: the company forming, moving, appointing directors or filing accounts.
Is cold emailing UK companies about insurance legal?
Emailing a limited company or an LLP is permitted on a legitimate-interest basis, because those are corporate subscribers under PECR rather than individuals. You still need a documented assessment, clear identification, and an opt-out that works in every message. Sole traders and ordinary partnerships count as individual subscribers and need consent instead.
How many insurance brokers are there in the UK?
Several thousand firms are registered under the insurance and pension auxiliary trade codes on the public record, though the count moves constantly as firms form, merge and dissolve. The register is the only source that stays current, because every change has to be filed. Our SIC pages carry the live counts by code.