Ultra Insurance Leads Glossary of Insurance Sales & Marketing

Annuity leads:

Annuity leads are prospective insurance buyers who are looking to buy annuity insurance.

Auto responders:

These are software packages that enable you automate a number of e-mail functions. For instance, they can respond automatically to incoming e-mail with standard messages. If you are on vacation, your auto responders can respond to incoming e-mail with the message that you are on vacation and will respond on your return. They can also be programmed to send messages at specified intervals of time to specified recipients and therefore vital to drip marketing where messages have to be sent out over a period of time.

Catastrophic illness:

Catastrophic illness refers to a major illness that could threaten your life or cause serious permanent disability. Catastrophic illness is generally accompanied by large medical bills.

Coinsurance:

In every case where the insured is required to bear a portion of the cost along with the insurance carrier, he is called the coinsured because he participates in his own insurance. Generally goes along with a deductible where the insured is required to meet a specified portion of the expense before the insurance company steps and to share the burden.

Conversion and conversion rate:

A conversion is said to have taken place when a prospect is “converted” to a customer. Conversion is therefore a measure of how successful you are in your sales campaign and is normally expressed as a percentage. For instance, if you convert four out of 10 prospects into customers, your conversion rate is 40 percent. A rule of thumb acceptable conversion rate for the insurance industry is around 20 percent.

Customer relationship management:

Customer relationship management is defined as the process of organizing, planning and managing all activities related to a customer. These can include various aspects of customer servicing such as follow-up, reminders and tracking of business received from the customer. It is an aid to dealing with customers in a planned and methodical fashion. There are plenty of software packages that are available to assist in the process.

Deductible:

The is the amount that the insured must contribute towards his medical bills before the insurance company will step in. After the deductible is met, the insurance company will pay a specified percentage of the medical bills.

Exclusive leads:

These refer to leads that are sold only to one insurance agent as opposed to shared leads that are sold to two or more agents. This means that you can follow up on the lead without having other agents breathing down your neck. However the exclusivity is limited only to the lead provider and the customer is free to look elsewhere and shop for its insurance needs.

Filters:

Filters refer to software settings by which the insurance agent can set specifications for the leads to be provided. These can normally be set by family status, age, income, zip code, status and so on. These ensure that the agent does not waste money on leads that obviously unsuitable. However, setting too many filters can choke off the supply of leads besides being expensive.

Group health insurance lead:

This refers to a prospect who is shopping for health insurance cover for a group of people. If this is normally an employer seeking to provide an incentive to his employees though it could well be any group of people who are looking for discounted health insurance.

Incentivized leads:

Refers to people who provide data about themselves in return for some form of incentive. Because these people are signing up for the incentive rather than because they are looking for insurance, they tend to be extremely poor prospects. Reputable online lead provider’s look on this process as bribery and will not incentivize leads so as not to compromise on quality.

Internet leads:

Internet leads refer to prospects who go shopping online to look for their insurance requirements. Online lead provider’s use SEO and PPC techniques to direct this traffic to their Web sites where they can gather information on the needs of the prospects who register.

Individual health insurance leads:

This refers to individuals who are looking for health insurance for themselves and their families. Increasingly common these days as employers look to cut or restrict benefits to their employees and families in order to save costs.

Return on investment:

Return on investment is a measure of the profit made on a particular investment. It is often used to determine where to invest when several alternative modes of investment are available. Generally expressed as a percentage. For instance, if an investment of $100,000 fetches a return of $20,000 per year, the return on investment is said to be 20 percent.

SEO:

This is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimisation and involves the techniques that promote the ranking of a particular website in the search results produced by the search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Involves the strategic use of “keywords” which are then presumably picked up by the search engines. The ultimate objective is that when a particular keyword is entered into a search engine, your Web site should show up on the first page of the results. SEO is mostly educated guess work since the exact nature of the search algorithms is proprietary and highly confidential.

Uninsurable leads:

Uninsurable leads are leads who cannot obtain insurance because the insurance carrier refuses to underwrite the risk. For instance in the case of health insurance, there may be an existing illness or a pre-existing condition which makes insurance company reluctant to undertake the risk. While these leads may not be prospects for insurance sales, they may be prime candidates for discount plans or discount programmes that can help them to lower their health-care costs.