A quote request that waits until Monday is somebody else's policy
Insurance is the most comparison-shopped product a small business sells: the caller has three tabs open and is working down them. Vandial answers on the first ring, takes everything you need to actually run a quote, and routes a claim straight to where a claim belongs, without saying one word about coverage.
From $99 a month · Robocalls are never billed
Incoming callWanjiru Kamau“I'm shopping around for car insurance. My renewal's gone up a lot.”
Quote request: auto + home bundle, agent callback booked 9am
- Three tabs
- is what a shopping caller has open. The agency that answers is the one that quotes
- Renewal date
- captured on every quote call. The fact that decides when the sale actually closes
- Never a premium
- No number, no range, no ballpark. Quoting requires a licence
This is what your callers hear
The same receptionist a insurance agency gets, answering as the trades we already run. Yours is in the middle — press play.
One insurance agencies call, and what it left behind
Answered on the second ring. Every field below was captured during the call — nobody typed it in afterwards.
“I'm shopping around for car insurance. My renewal's gone up a lot.”
Classified: new quote · personal lines · auto + home bundle0:17
Captured: 2 drivers · 2 vehicles · clean MVR · bundle · current renewal date0:54
Booked: agent callback Tue 9:00 · quote sheet pre-filled1:02
Quote request: auto + home bundle, agent callback booked 9am
Read the whole insurance agencies call, line by line
- 0:02Wanjiru Kamau: I'm shopping around for car insurance. My renewal's gone up a lot.
- 0:07Vandial: We can look at that. Is it just the car, or would you want the home quoted too?
- 0:15Wanjiru Kamau: Both, actually. Might as well.
- 0:17Classified: new quote · personal lines · auto + home bundle
- 0:23Vandial: How many drivers and vehicles, and any accidents or violations in the last five years?
- 0:33Wanjiru Kamau: Two of us, two cars. Clean. What sort of price am I looking at?
- 0:38Vandial: I'm not licensed to quote. The agent will have the actual numbers. She's got nine tomorrow morning, does that work?
- 0:54Captured: 2 drivers · 2 vehicles · clean MVR · bundle · current renewal date
- 1:02Booked: agent callback Tue 9:00 · quote sheet pre-filled
Answered, understood, booked
One number, picked up on the second ring — at 2am, on a Sunday, while you're already working. By the time the caller hangs up, it is in your calendar.
It answers
The quote call is answered on the first ring, including at seven in the evening when the renewal notice was opened and the shopping actually happens.
- 0:00Incoming call
- 0:02Answered by Vandial2 rings
- 0:05“Hello, Marlow Plumbing.”
It understands
It qualifies properly on lines, drivers, vehicles, property, claims history, renewal date and referral source, and says nothing at all about price or coverage.
- Job
- Water heater — leaking
- Where
- 14 Marlow Street
- Access
- Side gate, dog in yard
- Urgency
- Today if possible
- Still on
It books
The producer gets a booked callback with the sheet already filled in, and a claim caller gets the carrier's number before anything else is discussed.
Text to Dave · 13:01
You’re booked for today, 1–2pm. Reply R to move it.
It asks what you would ask
These are the questions the agent runs for insurance agents, and the operational reason each one exists. Change them, add your own, or take them out — they are configuration, not code.
Personal or commercial?
The first branch, and it decides which producer takes it. A personal auto quote and a contractor's general liability are different licences, different carriers and different people.
Which lines: auto, home, life, umbrella?
A bundle is worth several times a monoline policy and the caller usually mentions only the one that made them ring. Asking is the difference between one policy and three.
When does your current policy renew?
The single most useful fact on the call. It sets the urgency, tells the producer when the sale actually closes, and stops a quote being run six weeks before anyone can act on it.
Any claims, accidents or violations in the last five years?
It decides which carriers can even be approached. A producer who discovers it after quoting has to walk the number back, which is where trust goes.
Are you calling about a claim, or about a policy?
Asked early and deliberately. A claim is not a sales call and must not be handled as one. It goes to the carrier's claims line immediately.
Who referred you?
Most agency business is referral and almost none of it is recorded. Asking on the call is the only reliable point at which it can be.
More than a insurance agency answering service
An answering service takes a message and charges you for it. Vandial knows your prices, your patch and your diary — so it books the job, or puts a real emergency straight through to you.
It picks up out of hours, and while your line is busy
Shopping calls arrive in the evening, after the renewal notice has been read, and the agency that answers is the one that gets to quote. This is the most literally first-come market any of these trades operates in.
It knows your prices, your patch and your hours
Bundling starts on the first call. A caller ringing about auto who is asked about home turns one policy into two, and that question is the cheapest revenue increase available to an agency.
What it knows
Lines written
Auto, home, umbrella, commercial
States licensed
Configured per agency
Premiums quoted
Never. Licence required
Claims
Carrier line, immediately
What matters reaches you. The rest waits
The refusals are absolute, which protects the agency rather than limiting it. No premium, no coverage opinion, no eligibility answer. Those are the three places an unlicensed conversation creates real exposure.
Your rule: if they say gas, flood or no heat — ring Sam, then me.
Every call written up, tagged and searchable
Claims are routed to the carrier immediately rather than being absorbed by your office. After a storm that is the difference between a functioning agency and a phone system nobody can get through.
Dave Whitfield · Sunday, 4m 12s
Water heater, leaking
Leaking from the base. Booked for Tuesday 1–2pm. Side gate open, dog in the yard. Asked whether the service call fee applies — told $99, waived on repair.
Renewal season, and the week after every storm
Two peaks with completely different callers. Renewal notices arriving in a market that has raised rates produce weeks of shopping calls from people who have never shopped before, the highest-intent inbound an agency gets all year. Then a hail storm or a hurricane produces the other kind: claims, all at once, all urgent, all from existing clients, and every one of them arriving while the office is also trying to answer the shoppers.
When it happens · Renewal cycles, and the week after any major weather event
A normal month, then a surge month
- Billed per minute
- Your baselineTriples with the calls
- The bill peaks in the same week your phone does.
- Billed per call, like a human service
- Per call, every callEvery extra call, billed
- Including the robocalls and the wrong numbers.
- Vandial
- From $99 a monthThe same
- Call flows are unlimited on every paid rung, and there is no per-minute billing. The rungs differ only in how many unique customers you answer for — and a surge is mostly more calls from the same people.
Robocalls and sales calls are identified and zero-rated on every plan. They never count toward your included customers and never create a customer record.
What it will never do
You are handing your phone to something that talks to your customers when you are not there. These are the lines it does not cross in insurance agencies, and the words it uses instead.
It never quotes a premium
Not a range, not a ballpark, not “most people in your situation pay”. Quoting insurance requires a licence, and a number said out loud on the phone is the number the caller compares your producer's real quote against and feels misled by.
What it actually says
“I'm not licensed to give you a premium. The agent will have the actual numbers for you. Let me get you booked in with her.”
It never advises on coverage or eligibility
Whether something is covered, whether a limit is adequate, whether a claim will be paid, whether somebody qualifies. Every one of those is licensed advice and every one of them is a potential errors-and-omissions exposure for the agency.
What it actually says
“I don't want to guess at whether that's covered. It's exactly the kind of thing the agent should walk you through properly.”
A claim goes to the carrier, not into a queue
Somebody who has just had an accident is not a lead. The agent gives the carrier's claims number immediately, notifies the agency, and does not attempt to take claim details or reassure anybody about the outcome.
What it actually says
“For a claim you'll want to call the carrier directly and I've got that number here. I'll let the agency know you called as well.”
The job lands where you already work
Google, Outlook, Apple, Exchange, CalDAV — whichever calendar you already keep. Then your payments, your CRM, and whatever you automate with.
…and a lot more besides
- Warm transfersWarm transfersAnnounced — who is calling and why, before you take the line.
- Spam never billedSpam never billedRobocalls are spotted, zero-rated, and never become a customer.
- A number per sourceA number per sourceVan, yard sign, Google listing — see which line brings the work.
- Team & on-callTeam & on-callTries you, then a second number, then whoever is on call.
- Run it by textRun it by textReply to a text to move a job, block a morning, clear a day.
- Clear a day, everyone toldClear a day, everyone toldCall off a wet Tuesday; every customer is told and re-offered.
- Never invents an answerNever invents an answerNo price or slot it was not given. It takes a message instead.
- Any trade, no codeAny trade, no codeGoal, questions and guardrails are settings, not a rebuild.
What insurance agents say before they say yes
Three objections, in the words they are usually put in. Where the objection is right, it says so.
“Nothing useful can happen on that call without a licence.”
The quote cannot. Everything before it can, and it is most of the work: lines, drivers, vehicles, property, claims history, renewal date and who referred them. Your producer opens a pre-filled sheet instead of spending the first fifteen minutes of a call collecting facts.
“Our clients ring us about claims and they need a person.”
They need the carrier, in the first sixty seconds, which is the one thing an agency phone system reliably fails to deliver at 8pm. The agent gives the claims number immediately and tells you it happened. It does not take claim details, because an agency taking claim details is a delay dressed as service.
“Insurance is relationship business. It has to be personal.”
The relationship starts once somebody is a client. The call this handles is the one before that: a stranger comparison-shopping with three tabs open, who will buy from whichever agency answered. Nothing personal is happening on that call today because nobody is picking it up.
Insurance agencies questions, answered
What insurance agents ask before handing over their phone number — and what a insurance agency answering service can and cannot do for you.
Can it quote a premium?
No, and not a range either. Quoting requires a licence, and an unlicensed number said on the phone becomes the figure the caller feels misled by when the real quote arrives.
What does it do with a claim call?
Gives the carrier's claims number straight away and notifies the agency. It does not take claim details, and it does not tell anyone whether something will be covered.
Does it handle commercial lines as well as personal?
It branches on that first, because the qualifying questions and the producer are different. Which lines you write and in which states is configuration.
Can it service existing policies?
It handles the routine service calls: ID cards, a certificate request, a mailing address change, an appointment with a producer. It routes anything that changes coverage to a licensed person.
What about the week after a hailstorm?
Same product, same price. There is no per-call billing, so the week your call volume multiplies does not multiply the bill, which is precisely when a per-call answering service is at its most expensive.
What does it cost?
Three paid rungs. Starter, Professional and Business differ only in how many unique customers you answer for in a month. A client who rings five times through a claim is one, not five.
Already decided you want AI to answer it?
Then the question is which one, and that is a different page: what a generic AI receptionist gets wrong on a insurance agencies call, and what is configurable about this one.
Not your trade?
The agent's questions, urgency rules, escalations and vocabulary are all configuration. Nothing about a trade is hard-coded, which is why there are 31 of these and not one.