Why Not Every Insurance Shopper Is Ready for the Same Conversation

• September 23, 2026

By Ethel Rio Cohen

Independent insurance agents are taught to respond quickly to insurance shoppers, and for good reason. When someone asks for help, waiting too long can mean losing the opportunity.

But another part of that first contact deserves just as much attention: What kind of conversation is the shopper actually ready to have?

Most insurance intake tells us what a person is looking for: auto, home, life or business coverage. It may tell us where they live, what they currently have and how to reach them. That information helps an agent prepare. It does not tell the agent what the person needs from the conversation.

Three people can submit nearly identical requests for auto insurance and be in very different places. One may be trying to understand whether their coverage is enough. Another may already know what they want and is comparing options. A third may have done the research and want to decide today.

On paper, those can look like the same opportunity. On the phone, they are three different conversations.

There’s always a small communication gap between a person asking for help and an agent deciding how to help them. Having spent time on both sides of this problem, first helping build and sell an insurance agency and now working on the insurance-shopping side, I’ve seen how that same moment can look very different to the shopper and the agent. That gap is where assumptions can creep in.

A shopper fills out a form, so an agent may assume they are ready for a quote. They ask about price, so the agent may assume price is their main concern. The shopper hesitates, so the agent may assume they are not serious. Those assumptions may be right. But when they are wrong, the conversation can move in the wrong direction before either person realizes it.

To bridge that gap, an agent only has to ask a couple of questions at the beginning of the conversation: 

• “What are you hoping to figure out today?”
• “Are you still looking at your options, or are you hoping to make a decision soon?”
• Or simply, “What would make this conversation helpful for you?”

If someone is early in the process, a full quote conversation may be more than they are ready for. They may first need help understanding a coverage choice or knowing what information matters. If someone has already done that work, too much explanation can feel like starting over. If they are ready to buy, they probably want the agent to help them move efficiently.

The product may be the same. The first conversation isn’t. That matters to independent agents because they can explain, compare and help a shopper understand choices that may not be obvious from a screen or a price alone. But that expertise has more value when the agent knows what the person actually needs.

Agents also have limited time, and not every conversation becomes a customer. Understanding intent early can help prevent the agent and shopper from spending the first part of the conversation solving different problems.

As insurance shopping becomes easier online, this skill may become even more useful. A consumer can research coverage, ask questions, compare information and learn insurance terms before ever speaking with an agent. Another person may arrive having done almost none of that. But both may submit the exact same type of request.

Technology will continue making it easier to collect information and move people through a process. That makes it even more important to recognize the information technology cannot always show you: what the person thinks they need right now.

People asking for insurance help do not always know the right insurance words. They may not know exactly what coverage they need. But they usually know what they are trying to accomplish. Before moving into the conversation you are prepared to have, find out which conversation the shopper came to have.

Ethel Rio Cohen is the founder and CEO of Ensurance Incorporated, a U.S. insurance-shopping company that helps people shop for better insurance prices and coverage options through one protected request. She is also the author of the upcoming book, “The Room I Built.”