The short answer
Insurance agencies win on fast callbacks to quote requests and steady contact with their existing book. Do that with DNC and litigator checks on every dial and consent you can prove. Keep Medicare Advantage and Part D separate: CMS bans unsolicited contact and requires recording every TPMO sales call.
How insurance teams use the phone
Most agency calling falls into three motions.
Quote requests. A lead comes from your website, a comparison site or a purchased lead vendor, and the agency that calls back first usually gets the conversation. These leads are often sold to several agencies at once, so a slow callback can mean losing the client before you've spoken to them.
The existing book. Renewal reviews, coverage gaps and cross-sells from auto to home, or home to umbrella, are the cheapest revenue an agency has. These calls go to people who already know you, and they're the ones a busy agency most often lets slip.
Commercial lines. Calls to business owners about general liability, workers' comp or fleet coverage are business-to-business. They follow different Telemarketing Sales Rule rules from calls to households, but state and TCPA rules on autodialed calls to cell phones still apply.
A good setup handles all three. It dials quote requests the moment they arrive, works the renewal list every day, and keeps each household's policies and history on one record.
Consent on a shared lead
Under the FCC's rules, telemarketing calls made with an autodialer or a prerecorded voice need prior express written consent. In 2024 the FCC tried to require that each consent name a single seller. That one-to-one rule was vacated by the Eleventh Circuit in January 2025, before it took effect.
That doesn't mean any shared lead form will do. If a consent form lists dozens of companies and never names your agency, it's weak evidence in a dispute. The Telemarketing Sales Rule also requires sellers and telemarketers to keep consent records for five years. Those records include a copy of the request exactly as the consumer saw it, along with call details such as time, duration and outcome. Ask lead vendors for the consent language and timestamp with every lead, and store them with the contact.
Medicare Advantage and Part D follow a different rulebook
If you sell Medicare Advantage or Part D plans, CMS rules sit on top of everything above.
- No unsolicited contact. You can't make unsolicited calls, texts or voicemails to beneficiaries. That includes calls to people referred to you, calls to anyone who attended a sales event, and calls to check a mailer arrived. Returning a call the beneficiary started, or responding to a reply card, is allowed.
- Scope of appointment. You must agree and record the scope of an appointment before a personal marketing appointment. It's valid for 12 months. From contract year 2027 the old 48-hour wait between the scope of appointment and the meeting is gone.
- Recording and retention. Third-party marketing organizations must record every marketing and sales call in full and keep the recordings for six years. The first three years must be audio.
- The disclaimer. On sales calls, the TPMO disclaimer must be read before any benefits are discussed.
This is why a cold-calling cadence should never be pointed at Medicare prospects. Use GrowOutly for inbound calls, scheduled appointments and callbacks the beneficiary asked for, and record every call. GrowOutly keeps recordings and transcripts for the life of your subscription and lets you export them. Keep your own archive as well, so the full six years is covered even if your tools change. The cold-calling playbook for insurance covers the property, casualty and life side of outbound.
Calling your existing book
The Telemarketing Sales Rule lets you call a number on the Do Not Call registry if you have an established business relationship. That means the person bought from you within the last 540 days, or asked about your products within the last 90. Renewal reviews and cross-sells to recent clients usually qualify.
Two limits still apply. A client who tells your agency to stop calling must be honored, whatever the relationship. And the relationship exemption is a Do Not Call rule. It doesn't replace the consent needed for autodialed or prerecorded calls to cell phones. For most agencies, the practical answer is a power dialer for renewal and cross-sell lists, which rings one client at a time for a rep who is ready, and the parallel dialer only for fresh quote requests with clear consent.
Setting up an agency in GrowOutly
A typical setup:
- Run DNC and litigator checks automatically before every call and text. Upload your agency's internal do-not-call list as a suppression list.
- Turn on recording for every line that handles Medicare calls, and on others where your state's recording-consent law allows it.
- Use local numbers in the states where your agents are licensed, so callbacks reach the right person.
- Send quote-request leads straight into a calling queue, and schedule renewal lists by expiry month.
- Book reviews on the call with calendar booking, and let a missed call create a callback task.
The TCPA compliance checklist covers the controls every outbound team needs. The steps above add what's specific to insurance.