39% of Your Inbound Calls Are Going Unanswered. Here's What That's Costing You.
Most insurance brokers assume their phones are getting answered. The data says otherwise. For the average brokerage, more than a third of inbound calls go unanswered and nearly all of those callers are gone for good.
Insurance is a relationship business. That's what every MD will tell you. And it's true, until the moment a prospect tries to call your brokerage and nobody picks up.
IBISWorld and Invoca research into the insurance industry consistently shows that 39% of inbound calls at the average brokerage go unanswered. That number gets worse outside business hours, which is when 47% of insurance enquiries arrive according to IIABA research.
The voicemail problem
When calls do go unanswered, most brokerages assume callers leave a message and wait. They don't. 80% of callers who reach voicemail hang up without leaving a message, according to call handling research from Dialzara and Ambs Call Center. They move on. Usually to a competitor who answers.
The compounding problem is the marketing budget. If your brokerage is spending on Google Ads, comparison sites or any form of paid lead generation, every missed call is a double loss. You paid for that lead. Then you didn't answer when they called.
The speed problem is separate
Even among brokerages that do answer most calls, speed to response is a critical and largely unaddressed problem. Research from InsideSales.com and MIT Sloan Management Review found that businesses are 21 times more likely to qualify a lead if they contact them within five minutes compared to 30 minutes. The average brokerage response time? 42 hours.
What this actually looks like in revenue
A mid-sized brokerage taking 500 calls per month is missing roughly 195 of them. If 40% of those callers had genuine intent and the brokerage closes at 25%, that's 19–20 policies every month leaving through the back door. At an average commission of £800–£1,200 per policy, the monthly revenue leakage runs into five figures before marketing waste is even factored in.
The good news is that this particular problem is entirely solvable with technology. An AI voice system answers every call in under three seconds, qualifies the caller using insurance-specific questions and books appointments directly into advisor calendars. The missed call problem disappears on day one.
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