Inbound Call Leads Close Better. Here's How Insurance Agents Can Take Advantage

How does a 100% contact rate on every single batch of leads sound?

What about a 30% or higher average close rate?

And how would you feel if you could accomplish all that without even dialing any numbers or sending any texts?

If you’re used to calling endless lists of leads only to be told it’s not a good time, those results probably sound too good to be true. And if you’ve opted for a live transfer lead system—which is often promoted as the best lead generation method the industry has to offer, with industry averages typically around a 10% close rate—you might be wondering how you can improve on a system that’s already working fairly well.

That’s why we’re excited to introduce EverQuote’s inbound call leads program.

EverQuote is bringing you one of the easiest, most convenient ways to generate new business that we can dream of. The customers will come to you, and all you have to do is take the call.

One of the best aspects of a consumer-initiated inbound calls campaign is that it’s customizable. Your exact experience will vary based on the preferences you set when you join, but in general, you can anticipate the following.

You’ll maintain a 100% contact rate.

With most types of leads, you’re the one in charge of reaching out. You have a list of names and numbers in front of you, and you dial until your fingers hurt, day in and day out.

These customers may have filled out a form online indicating they’re interested in buying insurance, but that’s all the guarantee you have that they’ll want to talk. You’ll likely hear “I’m in the middle of cooking dinner right now,” or “Please stop calling me, I’ve already found a policy” a fair few times—when you get an answer at all.

With consumer-initiated calls, the script is flipped.

The customer needs an insurance policy, so they dial the phone wanting to speak to an agent. They get transferred directly to you, so you and your team can answer the call. You can rest assured that it’s a good time for the customer to talk and that they’re highly motivated. After all, they called you.

From there, all you have to do is sell, sell, sell.

Consumer-Initiated Inbound Calls see an average close rate of around 30%.

What does it mean when you receive calls from customers who are already motivated to buy and have already taken the first step by calling?

It means your close rate is about to go through the roof.

Close rates range from 25 to 33% in most agencies, but we’ve seen some outstanding performers blow past that threshold. At the end of the day, you’ll get out of it what you put into it; the key is that you’ll be in an excellent position to make some sales to highly motivated buyers.

You’ll set your own campaign parameters.

When you sign up to receive inbound calls from EverQuote, we’ll walk you through the setup process. You’ll be able to choose things like:

• How many calls you want to receive per day
• How many agents you’d like to assign to answer the phone
• Your ideal working hours to receive calls
• Your target geographical area
• Your ideal customer demographics
• And any other parameters you’d like to set

You can adjust these anytime and tailor your experience to meet your agency’s fluctuating needs.

You’ll take calls on your terms—but with our guidance.

Though you can set as many or as few hours as you’d like, choose your most convenient time of day to receive calls, and conduct your conversations however you want, we do have some best practices that we recommend following if you want optimal results.

For one thing, we advise doing a quick, two-minute qualification check at the beginning of every conversation.

Use the first 120 seconds of each call to narrow down whether the customer would be a good fit for your services or whether you should politely cut them loose.

Have your qualifying questions prepped beforehand—everything from “Do you have a valid driver’s license?” to “Do you have any tickets or accidents on your record?” Getting these questions out of the way up front means you can end conversations that won’t lead to a sale quickly and move on to answer other calls.

Secondly, try to keep your hours as open as possible.

We understand the impulse to choose an hour or two here and there to receive calls in between your other important work, especially at first. But allowing as much time as possible for the calls to roll in will set you up for the best chance of success.

In fact, building a daily routine around answering inbound calls can help your team get into the swing of it more quickly. When the whole team knows who will be answering calls, when those calls will come, and for how long they’ll be sitting by the phone, they can get into a good rhythm. This means they’ll be prepared and ready when it’s “go” time rather than being caught off-guard by a customer call they weren’t expecting.

You’ll be able to follow up easily with all your prospects.

While you’re in the two-minute qualification window of your conversation, make sure you take the prospect’s name, phone number, email address, or any other information you’d like to have on-hand for followup purposes. Since you don’t have a list of leads with contact information in front of you, the only way you’ll be able to reach back out to these prospects is if you ask for their information up front.

Then, based on how the conversation goes, you can sort your prospects into buckets for followups:

Prioritize your high-intent prospects:
“I’m about to sign on the dotted line, I just need to talk to my spouse first.”

Keep your medium priority contacts close at hand:
“This sounds like a great deal. Can I sleep on it?”

Save your low priority contacts for a rainy day:
"This isn’t a good fit right now, but I’ll look you up next time I purchase a vehicle.”

Since you’ve already had a one-on-one conversation with each of these folks, you’ll have the beginnings of a rapport—not to mention all the customer’s personal details and shopping requirements—that will help to set you up for a fruitful interaction in the future.

Get access to helpful EverQuote resources.

At EverQuote, we work with hundreds of insurance agents every day. And because we love helping our clients build their businesses in any way we can, we often pick the brains of our expert agents and put together resources packed with advice and practical tips.

For example, if you want to make the most of your inbound calls campaign by using some-tried-and-true sales scripts from expert agents, check out the free resources below. They’ll help you pivot from “Hi, thank you for contacting us at X Agency” to selling multiline policies in no time.

Mastering Consumer-Initiated Inbound Calls For Growth In 2025

Home Insurance Lead Scripts Proven To Grow Your Agency’s Business

Time-Tested Tips & Real-World Scripts For P&C Agents Expanding Into Life Insurance

Contact EverQuote to get started right away.

After all that, we have some more good news: This isn’t something you have to plan out for weeks or even months to be successful.

You can start building your book with customer-initiated inbound calls right away. All you need is the time and the staff to answer the phone and write some policies.

Just contact EverQuote and let us know you’re interested in receiving inbound calls. We’ll walk you through the campaign setup, and we’ll be here to answer your questions and give guidance as you get up and running!

Give us a shout here.