If you were to ask any successful LTC insurance agent what the secret to their success is, they’ll likely tell you that it’s in the steady flow of qualified LTC leads that they receive.  Unfortunately, finding a good quality long term care insurance lead may seem like playing a game of “Where’s Waldo” sometimes.  In a mass of potential prospects, there are only a select few LTC prospects that are legitimately interested in buying the product that you have to offer.  The following are some ways to find the quality LTC leads that are vital to your success as an LTC agent.
 
By far the best place to look for a long term care insurance lead is on the Internet.  This is simply the place where most consumers interested in LTC insurance go to do their research. If you start your search there, you’ll find LTC insurance lead sales companies to choose from. Additionally, you will see how you can generate your own LTC insurance lead as you will see the methods used–banner ads, pay per click ads, editorial stories,etc.  The way you generate a long term care insurance lead is by attracting the consumer to something you offer.

Always remember that when you contact along term care insurance lead sales company, you’ll be talking to a salesperson just like you, and that they’ll try to get you to buy as much as they can right from the start.  If you’re just starting out, don’t buy as many LTC leads as you can afford.  You need to spend some time building your business’s marketing and follow up systems before you make your way to the prime time. Start at a reasonable pace (e.g. 20 leads per week).

Screening a long term care insurance lead company is one of the smartest and most essential actions you can take with your business.  If you get stuck using an LTC lead company that provides you with under-performing or fraudulent leads, you’ll quickly come to realize that you’re in a tough situation.  You’ll be stuck paying for LTC leads that won’t convert to sales, you’ll waste lots of time trying to make them convert and, in the meantime, your business will suffer because you won’t be making any new sales.  If you can, try to avoid this situation by doing your due diligence before you buy or contact your long term care insurance leads. 

On the other hand, if you have no interest in buying long term care insurance leads, you can always generate your own LTC leads.  To do this, set up a website that showcases what your specific skills are and your unique selling position.  Your unique selling position, or USP, is what you use to differentiate yourself from the masses of other insurance agents that will be grasping for your prospect. For example, you may want to communicate to your long term care insurance lead that you are an independent agent that can help them shop from among 10 LTC companies.  If you don’t establish what’s unique about you, your service or your offer early, then you’ll just disappear into the crowd like all of the other non-performing agents that call up this long term care insurance lead with the sole intent of selling insurance.

Within this website, you’ll need to develop a thorough form that your prospect can fill out to request that they be contacted, whether via email or phone, so that they become a worthwhile long term care insurance lead.  The form should also ask for their number, name and address, and should also include questions like age.

As the population of the United States gets older, their needs for health and long term care insurance at a decent cost increases as well.  Of course, every one of these people are possible prospects for a good long term care insurance agent that knows how to close sales.

LTC insurance leads are great if you know how to find them and work them.  The residuals form these policies can have you in the top 2% of American earners if you devote 10 years to this field.  These interested prospects are usually focused on finding out more information about long term care insurance, and you should be more than happy to give it to them. So the first rule of seeking LTC insurance leads is to get leads where the prospect seeks INFORMATION and don;t be fixated on those that have filled in a request for a quote. Think about it–those that have filled in a form for a quote are the price shoppers–are these the LTC insurance leads you want?
Those that seek information (e.g. offer a booklet such as “Six Mistakes to Avoid When Buying Long Term Care Insurance) are usually seriously interested. These clients have proven, time and time again, to be able to cut to the chase and tell the agent exactly what they want in terms of insurance.  This is good because it will save you time and effort that could be spent building the foundation of the business you’re running.
When you start to look at different companies that offer LTC insurance leads, you should ask a few questions. 

The first – probably the most important – is that you ask whether or not the company that you’re using sells shared or exclusive LTC insurance leads.  If you have some experience in the industry, you always want to be using exclusive leads.  This way, you’re not fighting against all the other insurance agents that purchased the lead at the same time.

Along the same lines, ask the question of how quickly your exclusive leads expire, if not exclusive.  Most exclusive leads will expire over time and become shared leads, and it’s important that you know the specific time frame that you’ll have to close the sale before every agent across the land comes charging in and soliciting your lead.

Once you have a short list of LTC insurance lead companies, you should check with the Better Business Bureau, as well as the company’s local chamber of commerce.  You should be able to perform a quick Internet search and find out the lead company’s online reputation by visiting insurance agent forums or websites. The BEST test you can do is try the two LTC insurance lead companies that look best to you because your own experience is far better than relying on another.

A word of caution.  Some agents make the mistake that the LTC insurance lead company offer some guarantee that the prospect is insurable.  At first, this may seem like a good idea but you will lose business in the long run.  Accept the fact that some LTC prospects may not qualify for insurance.  But maybe the husband will.  Maybe the prospect refers you to a neighbor or asks you to give a talk at their garden club.  Don’t be nearsighted.  Meeting one nice person can lead to a lot of business

Finally, you should attend some industry trade shows and talk with the people there to see what products and solutions they offer.  While you’re at the trade show, ask around about the best places to find LTC insurance leads.  Remember that some insurance carriers and long term care insurance wholesalers can help you find the better LTC insurance lead sources. You’ll find that while a lot of people consider you to be their direct competition, a lot of people are willing to help you anyway out of the goodness of their hearts.
 
Finding a good LTC insurance leads company takes a little investigation and its worth it.   Once your appointment calendar is full, then you leverage each new prospect into referrals and you are off to growing a big LTC insurance practice.