Cover every call with the top insurance answering service
Help your insurance agents manage their incoming call volume with Sona,OpenPhone’s 24/7 AI agent. Capture every lead, take detailed messages, and answer your most common questions with the best phone system for growing businesses.
Trusted by over 60,000 businesses
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Get a more effective call answering alternative to voicemail
Give your callers a more interactive option instead of leaving an open-ended voicemail (if they even leave one). Sona is a 24/7 AI receptionist that can answer their questions or take down their information for your team to follow up. Customize Sona to your insurance firm — share your services, pricing, and more.
Why Sona is a better virtual receptionist for your insurance agency
Here’s how Sona is more capable compared to traditional live answering services:
1. Works seamlessly in your business phone system
OpenPhone is a modern business phone platform built for growing insurance agencies that need to manage high volumes of client interactions efficiently. Track policy inquiries, claims calls, and renewal conversations all in one place while keeping your team aligned on client needs.
Sona integrates directly into OpenPhone, which means every conversation appears in your shared workspace immediately after calls end. When a client calls about adding a driver to their car insurance or filing a claim, Sona records those details. Your team can see the full context along with the client's existing policy information and conversation history so they can save time following up.
Traditional answering services create information gaps that slow down your response time. They can't see your client's policy history or past conversations, forcing your team to manually match answering service messages with client records. They might miss important details about coverage questions or claims that need to be processed quickly.
2. More cost-effective
Insurance answering services typically charge $175-$300 per month for basic packages with restrictive minute limits, plus hefty per-minute fees that can push your monthly costs even higher.
Sona's pricing starts at $49 per month for 50 calls, with additional calls at $0.99 each. With per-call billing, your callers can have conversations with Sona for any duration, and it won’t affect your bill. This predictable pricing model can help you budget effectively without worrying about surprise overages when calls run longer.
One more thing: calls under 15 seconds (like robocalls or wrong numbers) don't count toward your usage. If Sona receives spam calls or wrong dials, you won’t be billed for them.
3. Consistent service
Insurance is complex, with constant changes in coverage options, carrier requirements, and state regulations. Your answering service needs to keep up with your agency's new products and talk about them correctly.
Train Sona on your agency's products, carriers, and processes in minutes. Upload your coverage summaries, FAQ documents, and carrier appointment information. When you add a new insurance product or update your claims process, simply update Sona's knowledge base, and it immediately reflects these changes in every conversation.
Live answering services require extensive training on insurance lingo and your specific offerings, yet errors are inevitable. With constant turnover in call centers, you're perpetually retraining new agents who may never fully grasp the nuances of insurance. Sona delivers consistent, accurate information every time, maintaining your agency's professional reputation around the clock.
Elevate your client experience
Customize Sona to your business in minutes. Assign it to your calls in seconds.
Bring Sona into your call flows
Drag and drop Sona into your call flows with our call flow builder. See where and when Sona handles calls with our visual canvas. You can add Sona to multiple flows based on time of day. Use it with OpenPhone’s other call routing features, like phone menus, ring order, and call forwarding.
Train Sona on your insurance business
Onboard Sona to your company. Share general information about your services and processes, answers to routine FAQs, and more. Sona learns about you in minutes so that it can give the right information to callers.
Get basic policyholder details
Help your agents save time in the client intake process. Sona asks follow-up questions based on specific keywords in its calls. It can ask clients about their desired insurance coverage and gather relevant details like age and household size.
Sync Sona calls with your CRM
Sona’s call summaries, transcripts, and messages automatically show up in your OpenPhone inbox after a call ends. Sync Sona calls with your CRM using our Zapier and Make integrations, or build a custom integration with our API.
Feature comparison
See how Sona compares to traditional call answering services.
Features
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Sona
Traditional answering services
Starting price per month
$49 for 50 calls, $0.99 per call for additional calls
~5x-7x the cost of Sona
Setup time
Instant
2-4 weeks
Brand voice and tone
Consistent
Highly variable
Monitoring
100% in OpenPhone
Custom solution or daily email summary
Integrations
HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier, Make, Jobber, and more
Limited integration options
How to set up Sona in four steps
It only takes four steps to get started with Sona:
- Start with a free trial.
- Try our free trial features, including calls and recordings.
- Configure your Sona settings and test Sona in OpenPhone’s call flow builder.
- Once you’ve confirmed it’s a good fit, activate your OpenPhone account and get the Sona add-on.
Why insurance companies choose OpenPhone
See why the insurance industry rates OpenPhone as the #1 business phone provider by customer satisfaction in G2.
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Get dedicated numbers for your insurance agents
Equip your agency with the phone numbers needed to build trust and accessibility. Give agents local numbers that match their area codes. Clients are more likely to answer phone calls from familiar numbers when you're following up on quotes or policy changes. Set up toll-free numbers for your claims department and general inquiries to project a professional, established presence.
Every OpenPhone plan includes a phone number for each team member, whether they need individual direct numbers or shared department numbers. Your team can keep clear work-life boundaries by keeping business calls separate from personal ones. They can still be available when big claims or important policy issues occur.
Need numbers for new agents or additional departments? Add them instantly for just $5 per number per month.
Collaborate better as a team
Keep your entire team aligned with OpenPhone's collaboration tools. Split responsibility for incoming calls and texts with shared numbers. That way, your team doesn’t miss calls from inbound leads, and they won’t move on to calling another insurance provider. When a client calls, any available team member can access the full conversation history with shared inboxes and provide immediate assistance. No more asking clients to repeat information they've already provided.
Use custom contact properties to store critical client information like policy numbers, renewal dates, carrier information, and coverage limits right in their contact profile. Store even more details about your clients as you build a relationship with them using contact notes.
Internal threads let your team work through client requests and follow up on action items in real time. Tag a colleague next to a customer interaction so they get full context and understand what needs to get done. Track who's viewed important messages with inbox viewers, ensuring time-sensitive matters like claim deadlines don't slip through the cracks.
Customize your call flows
Simplify your call handling process with OpenPhone. Design call flows that match your agency's operations with our visual call flow builder. Create separate flows based on time of day — give your callers more options during business hours and reduce after-hours options to prioritize efficiency.
Our call management features can be customized to your team’s preferences. Choose how your team prefers to receive incoming calls, either all at once or in a preset sequence, with ring groups. Set up phone menus that help your clients reach the right department immediately. Forward emergency calls to your on-call adjuster's mobile or direct them to Sona to collect initial claims information. Always answer the phone without worrying about team burnout.
Connect with clients over text
Modern insurance clients expect the convenience of texting, and OpenPhone helps you meet them where they are. Schedule appointments and send policy documents and claim updates by text message.
Set up automated text sequences for common insurance workflows with our Zapier and Make integrations. Once a client has finalized their policy, automatically text a welcome message with their policy number and agent contact information. Schedule renewal reminders 60, 30, and 7 days before expiration.
Take SMS and MMS automation even further. Use SMS auto-replies to acknowledge claims reported after hours and let clients know when you can get back to them. Create text snippets for frequently requested information like payment instructions, claim filing steps, or documentation requirements. And if a client reports a fender bender, they can send a photo of the damage directly in OpenPhone.
No more repetitive admin tasks
Optimize your team’s time and eliminate manual admin work with OpenPhone. Every call is automatically recorded (with proper consent), providing crucial protection for E&O purposes. If a client claims they were never informed about a coverage exclusion, you have the exact conversation on record.
AI-powered call summaries and transcripts mean agents don't waste time writing detailed notes after every conversation. Sync your call notes with your CRM of choice. Use our integrations with HubSpot and Salesforce, or build a custom integration with the OpenPhone API.
Leverage AI call tags to identify trends across your book of business. It uses AI to analyze your phone calls and assigns custom labels according to your specifications. Track how often clients ask about specific coverages, find common reasons for premium increases, or watch which carriers get the most service calls.
Talk to your clients anywhere, on any device
Whether your agents are in the office, at a client's location, or at home, OpenPhone travels with you. Your agents can use their preferred devices to access our apps so none of your communications happen outside our platform. OpenPhone is available on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and the web. All you need is an internet connection to get started.
Find out how much you’re investing in your business phone solution upfront on our pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
Can’t find the answer here? Check out our Resource Center.
An answering service is a professional business phone solution that handles incoming calls when your agency can't answer directly. It can be an in-house AI-powered tool like Sona that works within your existing phone system or an outsourced service with live receptionists. For insurance agencies, answering services primarily serve two functions: capturing time-sensitive information like first notice of a claim and answering routine questions about coverage, claims status, or office hours.
Insurance answering services offer three key advantages:
- Eliminate missed calls: A 24/7 AI answering service helps insurance agencies with lead capture at all times, making sure your missed calls don’t turn into missed opportunities.
- Accelerate your sales process: An AI voice agent like Sona can collect essential underwriting information upfront, like property details, driver information, past claim history, and current coverage limits. When your agents return calls, they're prepared with everything needed to provide accurate quotes immediately rather than playing phone tag to gather basic information.
- Answer common policyholder questions: Existing and potential clients often have questions about policy coverage. With an insurance answering service, you can accurately answer questions about policies and save your team time so they can focus on urgent calls instead.
Outsourced insurance call centers offer call center services to multiple insurance agencies simultaneously. They require extensive training and onboarding to become familiar with your agency’s needs. Updates about new policies or changed procedures often take weeks to implement, and quality varies significantly based on which rep handles each call.
In-house virtual receptionist services like Sona function as an integrated part of your agency's phone system. They have immediate access to your customized knowledge base, work within your existing workflows, and maintain all client communications in a centralized platform. Your team can review every interaction in context with the client's complete history, ensuring seamless handoffs and a personalized customer experience.
OpenPhone is not HIPAA-compliant. We recommend that you don’t share protected health information (PHI) through OpenPhone's platform.
In our biased opinion, Sona is the best insurance answering service for modern agencies. It's highly customizable, available 24/7, and integrates directly in OpenPhone’s platform. Unlike traditional telephone answering services, you can update Sona’s knowledge base in real time and see immediate results. Give it custom scripts and specific instructions on how to handle different claim interactions.
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