AI Chatbot for Insurance Agencies: Quote Intake Without Advice

It is 9:40 on a Sunday night. One visitor to your agency's website bought a car this afternoon and wants a quote before driving it home. Another needs a certificate of insurance for a job site at 7 a.m. A third was rear-ended an hour ago and asks whether the policy pays for a rental car. A chatbot can take the first two requests and send the third to the carrier's claims line, but it must answer none of the coverage questions.

This guide is for owners, office managers and producers at independent agencies. It sorts the questions, explains the licensing line, then sets the bot up in PepoChat, our AI support agent, menu by menu, plus a test script, costs and the cases where another tool fits better. The law firm guide applies the same pattern to attorneys.

PepoChat is our product; we include it where it fits and say where other tools are the better choice. Facts below were checked on vendor pages on 11 November 2026, and every regulator page was read the same day. This is general information about US rules, not legal advice; your state insurance department and counsel govern.

What questions does an insurance agency chatbot answer, collect or refuse?

An insurance agency chatbot answers questions about the agency from its own pages, collects quote, change and certificate requests for a licensed person, and refuses anything that interprets coverage, prices a policy or changes one.

An AI support agent is a chatbot that answers from your own knowledge base, takes set actions such as filling in a form or booking a call, and hands the conversation to a person when it cannot help.

The decline is one sentence plus a next step: "I can't advise on coverage in this chat, but a licensed agent can. Would you like to book a 15-minute call, or leave your email so we can follow up?" The chatbot permissions guide explains why it should never get write access to policies or payments.

Can a chatbot give insurance advice?

No. In the United States, selling, soliciting and negotiating insurance require a producer license, so a chatbot on an agency website should stay on the unlicensed side of that line: facts about the agency, intake, appointments and messages.

The NAIC's Producer Licensing Model Act says "A person shall not sell, solicit or negotiate insurance in this state for any class or classes of insurance unless the person is licensed for that line of authority." To negotiate, in the model's words, is "conferring directly with or offering advice directly to a purchaser or prospective purchaser of a particular contract of insurance concerning any of the substantive benefits, terms or conditions of the contract". A reply such as "yes, your policy pays for a rental car" is exactly that. The model exempts employees who earn no commission and whose work is "executive, administrative, managerial, clerical or a combination of these". That clerical zone is where a chatbot belongs. Each state enacts its own version, so read yours.

Florida spells the zone out. Rule 69B-222.060 of the Florida Administrative Code, adopted in 1993, says "Comparing insurance products; advising as to insurance needs or insurance matters; or interpreting policies or coverages" and binding coverage are "never allowable by unlicensed personnel". Rule 69B-222.040 lets them route callers, take messages, set appointments at an agent's direction, and explain claims procedures when that "does not require application of judgment or interpretation".

Those rules speak about personnel, not software; whether they reach a chatbot is a question for your counsel, and this is not legal advice. The cautious design treats the bot as your most junior unlicensed staffer in every state:

1. It never says something is or is not covered, or explains what a policy term means for the visitor.
2. It never recommends a coverage, limit, deductible or carrier, and never compares products.
3. It never quotes, estimates or guesses a premium, discount or claim payment.
4. It never says coverage is bound, added, changed or cancelled.
5. It ends every coverage conversation with a licensed person: a booked call, a callback or a live handoff.

It should also say plainly that it is an AI assistant; the AI disclosure laws guide covers the rules.

How do you set up the chatbot's instructions and knowledge base?

In PepoChat, open Widget Customization, scroll to the Agent instructions card, put a short persona in "How to sound and behave" (up to 4,000 characters) and the five rules in "Never do this" (up to 2,000), then click Save Settings.

PepoChat adds your text after its base rules, which still make the agent search your knowledge base first, never invent an answer and offer a person when it cannot help. Never do this items are declined briefly, with an offer of help instead. This example uses 934 and 856 characters:

How to sound and behave
You are the AI assistant for Maple Street Insurance, an independent agency. You are not a licensed insurance agent; say so in your first reply.
Answer questions about the agency: the insurance we offer, the states we are licensed in, the carriers we represent, office hours, each carrier's claims number and billing page, and booking a call.
Be brief and plain. Ask one or two questions at a time.
When someone wants a quote, collect the matching quote form, then offer a call with a licensed agent.
When someone wants to add or remove a car, driver or property, cancel, or get a certificate, collect the request and say a licensed team member will confirm it. Nothing changes until they do.
If someone reports an accident, fire, break-in or water damage, first ask whether anyone is hurt or in danger and, if so, tell them to call 911. Then give the carrier's claims number from our claims page and hand the conversation to the team.

Never do this
Never say whether something is or would be covered, or explain what a policy, endorsement or exclusion means for someone's situation.
Never recommend a coverage, limit, deductible or insurance company, and never compare insurance products.
Never quote, estimate or guess a premium, discount, rate change or claim payment.
Never say that coverage is bound, in force, added, changed or cancelled.
Never say whether a claim will be paid or how it will affect a premium.
Never ask for or accept Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, bank or card details, or health information. If a visitor starts to share them, ask them to stop and say a licensed agent will collect what is needed securely.
Never judge damage from a photo.
Never apply our blog articles to a visitor's own situation.
Never say or imply that you are a person or a licensed agent.

Then open Knowledge Base, click Add New and choose the website option to crawl up to 200 pages. Add two pages most agency sites lack: a claims page with each carrier's claims phone number and online claims link, and a billing page with each carrier's payment link. Copy both from the carriers' own sites and date them.

A blog post such as "What does homeowners insurance cover?" becomes answer material when a visitor asks about their own roof, so exclude /blog from the crawl or rely on the Never do this line. Write recurring service questions as Q&A pairs, a question stored with its answer so retrieval matches the way clients phrase it: "How do I get a new ID card?"

How should an insurance chatbot handle claims questions?

The chatbot asks whether anyone is hurt, gives the carrier's claims phone number or online claims link from your claims page, offers a person, and never takes the claim, judges it or predicts what it does to the premium.

The carrier, not the agency, decides a claim, so the fastest route is usually its own claims line. A first notice of loss is the first report of a claim to the carrier, which collects it through its own process, so the chatbot gathers no injury details or other-driver information.

Visitors will attach photos anyway: PepoChat's chat box accepts up to three images per message, the agent reads them, and attachments cannot be switched off. Hence the "Never judge damage from a photo" line.

For a repeatable flow, add a procedure, a step-by-step playbook of up to 15 steps with if/then branches that the agent follows for a named situation. Create it under Custom Actions with New procedure: "Visitor reports an accident or loss" asks about safety, asks which carrier insures the car or home, gives that carrier's claims contact, takes a callback request if the carrier is unknown, and hands over.

How do you set up insurance quote intake in a chatbot?

Create one data form per line of business, each with up to 20 typed fields, let the agent ask for them in the conversation, and have a licensed agent turn the answers into a quote.

In PepoChat a data form is a named list of fields that the agent fills in when a conversation matches a sentence you write. Open Custom Actions under Configure in the sidebar and click New data form: give it a name, answer "When should the agent collect this?" (up to 500 characters), and add up to 20 fields typed as text, number, email, phone, date or yes/no, each required or optional. The agent asks for one or two at a time and never guesses a value. Answers land on the Collected data page with CSV export and fire the collect_data.submitted webhook; Save answers on the contact also stores them as custom attributes. For the auto form, the "when" sentence can read: "When a visitor asks for a quote on a car, truck, motorcycle or RV, or wants to switch auto insurance."

Each list stops short of what a licensed agent collects on the call: ages, not dates of birth; year, make and model, not a VIN; a yes or no on accidents, not details. The guide to lead qualification questions shows how to make questions like these sound like a conversation.

What should an insurance agency chatbot never collect?

An insurance agency chatbot should never collect Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, bank or card details, or health information, because the bot needs none of them to route a request and every copy is one more to protect.

The principle is data minimization: collect only what the task needs. In PepoChat, typed text stays with the conversation, escalation emails quote the last three messages and the inbox's CSV export holds full transcripts. Replies come from OpenAI models under standard API terms, and PepoChat publishes no compliance certifications such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001. The workaround: a licensed agent collects identifiers and payment details through your agency's secure process.

The security rules that bind you are usually your state's. Section 505 of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act assigns enforcement, "in the case of any person engaged in providing insurance", to "the applicable State insurance authority", and the FTC's Safeguards Rule guidance covers institutions "that aren't subject to the enforcement authority of another regulator under section 505". The NAIC's Insurance Data Security Model Law, summarised on its cybersecurity page, "requires insurers and other entities licensed by state insurance departments to develop, implement and maintain an information security program"; whether it binds your agency depends on your state's adoption.

Three settings limit what lands in the chat and how long it stays. Warn in the greeting: "I'm Maple Street Insurance's AI assistant, not a licensed agent. Please don't type Social Security, license or card numbers here." Fill in Privacy policy link on Widget Customization. And set Data retention on the Team page, which deletes resolved conversations after 30, 90, 180 or 365 days and is off by default; check it against your record-keeping duties first.

How should certificate of insurance requests work in a chatbot?

A certificate of insurance is a document that shows a third party, such as a landlord or general contractor, that a policy exists; the chatbot collects the request as a data form and a person issues the certificate.

Additional insured status and waivers of subrogation depend on the policy, so the bot records them and a licensed person checks. Publish your turnaround so the bot can quote it.

How does the chatbot book calls and hand off to a licensed agent?

PepoChat books calls with a licensed agent from a connected Cal.com or PepoSmart calendar on every plan, and hands everything else to the team inbox with an alert.

For Cal.com, create an API key in Cal.com under Settings, Developer, API keys, then in PepoChat open Integrations, choose Cal.com under Scheduling, click Connect and paste it. Switch on the event types the agent may book and write a "when to offer this" note for each, such as "Auto quote review: visitors who completed the auto quote form" or "Commercial consultation: business owners asking about liability or workers' comp". The agent checks availability up to 14 days ahead and offers slots in the visitor's local time. On Cal.com it books only the key owner's personal event types, never paid, recurring or team ones, so an agency that rotates leads among producers is better served by PepoSmart's round-robin hosts. The appointment booking docs list every limit.

Human handoff is the moment the agent passes a conversation to a person, when it cannot answer from the knowledge base or the visitor asks for one. The team gets an email with the last messages and a link; the conversation.escalated webhook or the prebuilt Slack action can alert you elsewhere. On Widget Customization, the Lead Capture card's "Before handing off to the team" timing collects an email first, and When a new lead arrives sends new leads to Slack or a webhook on every plan and by email on paid plans.

The Team availability card sets what the agent promises. Choose "My team answers during business hours", set the timezone and weekly schedule, and write an Away message of up to 300 characters; outside your hours the agent uses it, asks for an email and hands over. This one uses 208:

Our licensed agents are in the office Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 Eastern, and reply by email the next business day. To report a claim now, call your insurance company's claims line. If anyone is hurt, call 911.

Replies typed in the team inbox are not emailed to the visitor, so answer after-hours requests with Reply by email. The human handoff guide covers what the person who picks up needs to see.

Can the same agent work as an AI receptionist for an insurance agency?

Yes, on PepoChat's paid plans: the same agent answers inbound calls on your own Twilio number or SIP trunk, with the same knowledge base, data forms, booking and handoff. Free has no voice or phone.

Open Voice & phone, switch on Voice calls in the widget, save and wait for the Ready badge, then click Connect a Twilio number or Connect a SIP trunk. Set Transfer phone calls to so a caller who asks for a person reaches a human; otherwise the agent takes a message. You can keep your listed number and forward all calls, or only missed ones, to the agent; then transfer to a different line, such as a producer's mobile, or the call loops back. The phone number guide covers each option.

Transcripts land in the team inbox tagged Phone; there is no call recording, outbound calling or SMS. Each started minute counts as 6 AI replies, so Starter's 1,000 replies cover about 166 minutes, and your carrier bills the line separately.

Every step above except phone works on the free plan, so you can create a free PepoChat workspace, build the forms and run the test script below before a client sees the bot.

How do you test an insurance agency chatbot before launch?

Run these 15 questions in the Test the agent drawer on Widget Customization, then save the riskiest as Agent tests and rerun them after every change to instructions or knowledge.

Agent tests, a page under Configure, are saved conversations of up to eight visitor messages that a judge model grades against a success criterion you write. Drawer chats are free, but bookings made there are real, so use a test event type.

What does an AI chatbot for an insurance agency cost?

PepoChat costs $0 on Free (100 AI replies a month, one member, no phone), $39 a month on Starter (1,000 replies, three members), $149 on Growth (5,000 replies, ten members) and $499 on Scale (17,000 replies, twenty members), with extra replies at $39 per 1,000.

Prices from PepoChat's pricing page and billing documentation, checked 11 November 2026.

The third row: 400 web chats at four replies each is 1,600 replies, and 80 calls averaging three started minutes is 240 minutes, or 1,440 replies. On Starter that is $39, plus 2,040 extra replies at $0.039 ($79.56), plus two seats beyond the three included at $15 each ($30): $148.56. Growth is $149 with ten members and about 2,000 replies to spare. Twilio bills separately, yearly billing is ten months' price, and there is no self-serve spend cap.

What can't PepoChat do for an insurance agency, and when is another tool better?

PepoChat does not connect to agency management systems or raters such as Applied Epic, AMS360, HawkSoft or EZLynx, so it cannot look up a policy, issue an ID card or certificate, take a payment or produce a quote; leads reach those systems by a person re-keying them, the lead.created webhook or a Zapier Catch Hook.

The other limits, each with its workaround:

• No compliance certifications. Keep identifiers, payment and health details out of the chat, as above.
• Channels. Web widget and phone today; WhatsApp and Messenger in limited rollout; no SMS, email channel, outbound calls or call recordings.
• Branding. The small "Powered by PepoChat" line shows on every plan.
• Maturity. PepoChat is a young product with few public reviews; run the test script before launch.

Tools tied to your agency system do what PepoChat cannot. Applied says its Service Portal, formerly Applied CSR24, runs "against live Applied Epic data" and lets clients view auto ID cards, pay invoices, submit a claim first notice, request a policy change and request a certificate. Vertafore's AMS360 page offers self-service through InsurLink, HawkSoft lists self-service certificates, and EZLynx mentions its Client Center. For the phone, Sonant sells an AI receptionist for property and casualty agencies that names Applied Epic, AMS360, HawkSoft and EZLynx among its integrations; its homepage describes calls only and publishes no price.

What to do next

• Write three pages before launch: carrier claims contacts, carrier billing links, and the states and lines you write.
• Paste the instructions above, build the auto, home and commercial data forms, and save the 15 test questions as Agent tests.
• To set up calls with a licensed agent step by step, see how to let an AI chatbot book Cal.com or Calendly meetings.
• Create a free PepoChat workspace to try every chat feature, then compare Starter and Growth on the pricing page when you add phone answering.