March 11, 2002

...Meanwhile, InsuranceOnly has announced an agreement with iPipeline to provide agencies with access to InsuranceOnly’s "exclusive" leads and lead management system via iPipeline’s back office systems.

According to Seattle-based InsuranceOnly, under the agreement, InsuranceOnly will provide leads, application requests and LeadBoss, a proprietary lead management system. iPipeline will provide back office tools that allow agencies to quote, sell and facilitate the fulfillment process.

"Using iPipeline’s ‘My Agency’ online processing tools, agencies in the national InsuranceOnly network will be able to easily receive, record and respond to customer inquiries for new life insurance and long term care policies, as well as annuities," says InsuranceOnly.

"We’re going to integrate our systems for leads and service," explains InsuranceOnly CEO Patrick Wedeking. No money is involved and no payments have been made up front, he adds.

According to Wedeking, leads from InsuranceOnly come from the Internet via "40 or 50 different promotions." These include opt-in e-mailing, in which customers agree to receive e-mail information on special offers from affiliated sites. "We have different deals with financial sites," he added. "It evolves and changes."

InsuranceOnly says its online Web resources include www.InsuranceOnly.com, www.TermOnly.com, www.AnnuityOnly.com.

Wedeking says InsuranceOnly has "a database that is proprietary that is designed to gather and distribute leads and application requests to our network." This is based on geography and insurance type, and the system screens for possible duplicate leads, he adds. "We have agents and call centers who subscribe to our service that call on the leads."

Subscribers--primarily independent brokers--pay $15 to $18 per lead, plus 10% to 20% in revenue-sharing arrangements, or the agents can write their business through InsuranceOnly, says Wedeking.