The entire insurance industry spent nearly all of 2024 preparing for a new FFC rule to go into effect in January of 2025.
As it turns out, that rule won’t see the light of day… at least for now.
Referred to as the “1:1 Consent Order”, this rule would have required lead generators to acquire consent from leads for each individual agent who contacted them. Though this rule ultimately was tossed out before it took effect, all that preparation and planning turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
EverQuote spent last year implementing and testing our exclusive leads system that matches agents with motivated customers who need their services, but with the added benefit of the customer’s information not being shared with any other agents. To our surprise, exclusive leads turned out to be far more profitable for agents than we could have imagined.
The success of our exclusive leads system is encouraging, so we’re keeping the option available for agents—FCC rule or not—and that means you have a new option to consider. Read on to discover whether your agency could benefit from one-to-one, low-competition leads.
Exclusive leads—as you’ve probably assumed from the name—are leads that only get passed to one agent at a time.
A customer fills out a form online to signal that they’d like to speak to someone about a policy, and our team validates the customer’s information and passes all the details on to you. At that point, you can reach out to the customer to help them find the policy they need.
Most other traditional lead generation methods collect the customers’ information and then pass it to multiple agents at a time. While EverQuote limits the distribution of our shared leads to 3 agents maximum (and maintains an average share rate of 1.7 agents per lead), other vendors may share a lead with 5+ agents. This means your competition can be fierce if you aren’t the first agent to get the potential customer on the phone. Additionally, an insurance shopper may have even filled out multiple quote request forms during their online research, which can lead to the consumer’s information being shared with multiple agents a number of times over.
Unfortunately, it also can lead to customers getting overwhelmed with phone calls, texts, and emails from numerous agents, which sometimes causes them to stop responding at all.
From your perspective, the process of working exclusive leads is going to feel almost identical to working any other list of purchased leads. The only difference is that your list may be shorter, since the pool of exclusive leads is typically smaller by nature.
Though a smaller list of leads might not seem like a good thing if you’re used to working in volume, it’s actually a welcome change from the status quo for most agents.
For one thing, you don’t have to worry about dialing endless numbers until your fingers bruise, only to be told that the customer has already gone with another agency. For another, the customer isn’t likely to be overwhelmed by a bombardment of calls and texts, which means they’re often going to feel more motivated to speak with you when you call.
In comparison to traditional shared leads that multiple agents may be working at the same time, you can expect your conversions from exclusive leads to be far higher.
The exact results you’ll see may vary based on your outreach schedule and sales techniques, but we’ve had more than a few agents switch to using exclusive leads…well…exclusively! The combination of having fewer leads to call—which translates to less work on your part—plus the higher average bind rates makes exclusive leads an attractive option if you’re trying to get the most bang for your buck and save some time in the process.
We see smaller agencies in particular (even freelance agents working on their own) benefitting from exclusive leads. You can bet that the big-name brands with nearly unlimited resources at their disposal are purchasing endless lists of leads and dedicating entire teams to outreach. That makes it extremely hard for smaller operations to compete under normal circumstances.
What we’ve found is that exclusive leads allow small agencies and one-person teams to better level the playing field.
Exclusive leads take a slightly higher up-front investment, but they require less effort to work and they typically result in a higher ROI than traditional lead lists. You’ll make back your investment and then some when you no longer have to compete with ten agents from other huge-name corporations calling the same customer you’re trying to contact.
With that in mind, we do recommend having a strategy in place before going all-in on exclusive leads. While we can guarantee that we’re selling each customer’s information to you and only you, what we can’t guarantee is that our website is the only one the customer has visited. If they also submitted their information to three other lead services, they’ll still be contacted by other agents. In other words, you can reduce your competition with exclusive leads, but you can’t always eliminate it entirely because you can’t control the customer’s behavior.
For that reason, it’s a good idea to still reach out in a timely fashion and have your talk tracks ready to go. We see successful agents, even tiny teams of just one or two people, truly excel at working exclusive leads when they develop a process to maximize their results.
One simple step you can take is to set up a phone line that rings automatically when you receive a new lead submission. You’ll answer the phone at the same time the customer is also receiving a phone call from you. You’ll both be instantly connected, with no time for other agents to swoop in before you can dial the phone.
The best thing about exclusive leads is that they’re just as good for your customers as they are for you.
Your prospective customers won’t have to deal with the typical onslaught of agents reaching out at all hours of the day and evening. They’re also more likely to develop a meaningful, ongoing relationship with you and your agency, since they’re not also talking with tons of other agents at the same time. This means you can help them find the policies they need right away, and they’ll also be more likely to return to you in the future when they need coverage for something else.
Exclusive lead relationships are also great for customers who worry about their data privacy. It’s unnerving to fill out one form and then have a dozen people contact you within an hour. It makes you wonder, where is your private information being shared, and is it available to anyone who wants to pay for it?
Exclusive leads put the customer in control of who receives their private information. If they choose only one person to receive their contact details, they don’t have to worry about their name, address, and phone number being up for grabs across the internet.
Finally, exclusive leads provide a path for high-intent customers to find an agent to work with them right when they need help. They can fill their information out online, receive a call from you a few minutes later, and have the exact policy they were looking for within an hour or two. It’s one of the simplest ways for motivated buyers to find you, and for you to find motivated buyers.
The FCC is now tossing around the idea of bringing the discarded rule back. Opting for exclusive leads now means you won’t be caught by surprise when/if that happens.
It’s tough to predict how the legal landscape of insurance sales and outreach may change in the coming years. Circumstances may remain largely the same, or we could move to a system where one-to-one communication is mandatory.
If a rule like that does take effect, the last thing you want is to be left scrambling to catch up with everyone else who has already made the switch to exclusive leads.
Going exclusive now can help you future-proof your agency against potential FCC ruling changes—and it just happens to be a great way to boost your profits and hone your competitive edge in the meantime.
Contact EverQuote to sign up for a steady influx of highly motivated leads today!