Mortgage protection is one of the most straightforward life insurance products to sell. Someone just bought a house, they have a mortgage, and you call them to make sure their family is not stuck with that payment if something happens to them. The product sells itself when you reach the right person at the right time.
The hard part is finding those people. The mortgage protection lead market is crowded, confusing, and full of vendors who will happily take your money for recycled garbage. This post breaks down the lead sources that actually work, what to pay, and what to avoid.
The Three Types of Mortgage Protection Leads
There are fundamentally three categories of MP leads, and understanding the difference will save you thousands of dollars.
County-sourced homeowner data. This is the gold standard. When someone buys a house or refinances, that transaction is recorded as a public record at the county recorder's office. Companies scrape these records to build lists of recent homeowners. You get the homeowner's name, property address, mortgage amount, lender, and recording date. This is not a "lead" in the traditional marketing sense. Nobody filled out a form. Nobody asked to be contacted. It is public data about someone who just took on a mortgage.
Internet leads (form fills). These are generated when someone fills out an online form expressing interest in mortgage protection insurance. They might have clicked an ad on Facebook, Google, or a comparison site. The lead typically includes name, phone, email, age, and sometimes mortgage amount. The person has expressed some level of interest.
Aged leads. These are internet leads or county records that are 30 to 180 days old (or older) and are being resold at a discount. They were either never contacted, contacted but not sold, or sold to multiple agents already.
Why County-Sourced Data Wins for Mortgage Protection
Here is the counterintuitive truth about MP leads: internet leads, where someone explicitly asked for information, actually convert worse than county records for most agents. Why?
Timing. When you work county records, you are calling someone who closed on a home in the last 7 to 30 days. The mortgage is fresh. They are still thinking about the financial commitment they just made. They are in a mindset where protecting their family's home makes intuitive sense. The conversation is natural.
Internet leads have a timing problem. The person filled out a form, maybe on impulse, maybe out of curiosity. By the time an agent calls them, the moment has passed. They do not remember filling out the form. They are not in buying mode. They might have filled out five forms and already talked to three agents.
Exclusivity. County records are public data. Anyone can access them. But in practice, only a handful of agents in any given market are actively pulling and working these records. Internet leads, by contrast, are routinely sold to three to five agents simultaneously. You are racing against other agents who got the same lead at the same time.
Data quality. County records come directly from government filings. The names are correct. The addresses are real. The mortgage amounts are accurate. Internet leads are self-reported by the consumer and often contain fake phone numbers, incorrect names, or inflated mortgage amounts.
Cost. County records typically cost $0.15 to $0.50 per record depending on the vendor and the data included. Internet leads cost $15 to $45 each. You can buy 100 county records for the price of one or two internet leads.
What Good County-Sourced Leads Look Like
When you buy county-sourced MP data, here is what you should be getting:
Full homeowner name (first and last, sometimes both spouses if on the deed). Property address. Mortgage amount. Recording date. Lender name. Sometimes phone number and email if the vendor appends that data from public records and consumer databases.
The recording date is critical. You want records that are 7 to 30 days old. Anything fresher than 7 days means the homeowner is still in the chaos of moving and is not ready to talk about insurance. Anything older than 60 days means they have either already been contacted by other agents or the urgency has faded.
Phone append rates vary. Some vendors deliver records with phone numbers already attached at 60% to 80% match rates. Others sell the raw records and you need to run them through a skip tracing or phone append service yourself, which adds $0.03 to $0.10 per record.
Where to Buy and What to Pay
Several vendors specialize in county-sourced mortgage data for insurance agents. Prices vary, but here are reasonable benchmarks as of early 2026:
Raw county records without phone numbers: $0.15 to $0.30 per record. You will need to skip trace these yourself.
County records with phone and email appended: $0.35 to $0.75 per record. This is the most common product and the best value for most agents.
Internet leads (exclusive): $25 to $45 per lead. "Exclusive" means sold to one agent only. Verify this claim carefully. Many vendors say exclusive but are not.
Internet leads (shared): $12 to $20 per lead. Sold to two to five agents. Your speed to call matters enormously here.
Aged leads (90+ days): $1 to $5 per lead. You get what you pay for. These have been called multiple times by multiple agents. Expect contact rates under 10% and conversion rates under 1%. But at $2 per lead, the math can still work if you are dialing at volume.
What to Avoid
Vendors who will not tell you the source. If a vendor cannot explain exactly where their data comes from, walk away. "Our proprietary system generates high-intent leads" is marketing speak for "we bought a list from someone who bought a list from someone."
Guaranteed appointments. Some vendors sell "appointments" where they claim to have already spoken to the homeowner and confirmed interest. In our experience, these are wildly inconsistent. The "appointment" is often a confused homeowner who does not remember agreeing to anything. If you go this route, pay on a per-appointment basis with a clear refund policy for no-shows.
Leads with no geographic targeting. If a vendor sells you 500 MP leads and they are scattered across 30 states, something is wrong. Good MP data is pulled by county and state. You should be able to specify exactly which counties or metro areas you want.
How to Work MP Leads Effectively
The lead source matters, but how you work them matters more. Here is what separates agents who convert at 5% from agents who convert at 15% on the same data.
Speed. Call county records within 7 to 14 days of the recording date. After 30 days, conversion drops significantly. Call internet leads within 5 minutes. Literally. Five minutes. After 30 minutes, your odds of reaching the lead drop dramatically.
Volume. Plan to call each lead five to seven times over two to three weeks. Most agents give up after one or two attempts. The sale is in the follow-up.
Script. Do not lead with "I am calling about mortgage protection insurance." Lead with something that acknowledges their recent home purchase: "Congratulations on the new home on Maple Street. I work with homeowners in your area to make sure their mortgage is covered if something unexpected happens." Make it about them, not about you selling a product.
Multi-channel. Call, text, then call again. Agents who use a combination of calling and texting see higher contact rates than those who only call.
Closd integrates county-sourced lead data directly into the platform through its lead marketplace, and FirstTouch AI can begin calling new records automatically as they are delivered. But regardless of what tools you use, the fundamentals are the same: fresh county records, fast follow-up, and persistent outreach. That is the formula for MP leads that actually convert.