Drilling for the Key Elements of an Insurance Quote: What Most Agents Miss in Discovery
Hosts of The Insurance Dudes Podcast — 1,000+ episodes helping insurance agents build elite agencies
There is a version of the insurance quoting process that is technically complete and practically useless. You collected the information. You ran the quote. You presented the number. The prospect said they'd think about it. And now you're wondering why someone who seemed genuinely interested is not returning your calls.
The answer is usually not in the quote. It's in what happened before the quote, specifically, what information you didn't get, what context you didn't establish, and what priorities you didn't surface before you moved into presentation mode. Jason Feltman's approach to quoting starts with drilling, not rating. The rating system is the last step. The drilling is the work that makes the rating meaningful.
What Drilling Actually Means
Drilling is not interrogating. It's not a checklist of required fields for the application. Drilling is the deliberate practice of asking the right questions in the right sequence to understand the prospect's situation at the level of depth required to make the quote relevant to their actual life.
Most agents spend three to five minutes in discovery before they move to the rating system. Jason's observation, based on years of watching his own conversion data, is that the conversations with the best outcomes consistently spend more time in discovery, not less. Not because the extra time is inherently valuable, but because the prospect's answers to later discovery questions almost always contain information that changes the nature of the quote or the angle of the presentation.
The agent who skips to the rating system at minute four has a quote that is technically accurate and emotionally irrelevant to the prospect. The agent who drills until they understand what this prospect actually cares about has a quote that solves a problem the prospect has already articulated in their own words.
The Elements Most Agents Miss
The claim history conversation. Most agents ask "have you had any claims in the last five years?" as a data collection question. Jason asks it as a discovery question. What was the experience like? How did the carrier handle it? Were there coverage gaps that the claim exposed? The answers to those questions tell you exactly which coverage elements to emphasize and which carrier attributes to highlight. A prospect who had a bad claims experience with their previous carrier cares intensely about claims handling. Lead with that.
The life change trigger. Why is this person shopping for insurance right now? The answer is almost never "because I felt like it." There's a trigger, a new home, a new vehicle, a life event, a rate increase they felt was unjust, a neighbor's bad experience. The trigger tells you what emotional context the prospect is bringing to the conversation and what problem they're trying to solve. Most agents never ask. They get the surface-level inquiry details and skip over the underlying motivation that would make their presentation infinitely more targeted.
The budget conversation, done right. "What's your budget?" is a question that produces defensive answers because prospects have learned that saying a number in an insurance conversation means getting anchored to that number. Jason's approach frames it differently: "If the coverage we put together made sense and solved the problem you described, is there a number that would make the decision easy, and a number that would make it harder?" This framing gets honest information without triggering the anchoring defensiveness, and it gives you the range you need to calibrate the presentation.
The decision process. Who else is involved in this decision? Is there a spouse, a partner, a business partner, a parent who has an opinion? Not asking this question is how agents get caught in the "I need to talk to my wife" stall at the close. Ask it during discovery, bring the relevant parties into the conversation, and arrive at the close with everyone who needs to say yes already informed.
The Sequence That Works
Jason's discovery sequence is built to flow naturally, a conversation, not an interview. It starts with the prospect's current situation, moves to their history, surfaces the trigger, explores priorities, covers the budget territory, and ends with the decision process question. Each piece connects logically to the next. When executed well, the prospect doesn't feel like they're being processed. They feel like they're being understood.
The key to making it conversational is actually caring about the answers. The agents who do discovery well aren't reciting questions from a list. They're listening to the answers and following the threads that matter. The list is a backup for the moments when the conversation goes quiet, not the operating model for the whole interaction.
What This Means for Your Agency
Record your next five discovery conversations and time the discovery phase. How long from "hello" to opening the rating system? What percentage of the quote-relevant information did you actually use in your presentation? How often did a prospect say something in discovery that you didn't follow up on?
The answers will tell you exactly where your quoting process has room for improvement, and it's almost always in the drilling, not the rating.
The Bottom Line
The rating system is a tool. Discovery is the work. The agents who drill well before they rate produce quotes that land differently, present in a way that actually resonates, and close at a rate that reflects the quality of the conversation that preceded it. Drill before you rate.
Catch the full conversation:
About Jason Feltman: Jason Feltman is co-host of The Insurance Dudes podcast and co-author of The Million Dollar Agency. He runs a high-volume independent insurance agency and is known for making the business of insurance both practical and genuinely entertaining.
Level up your agency:
Listen to The Insurance Dudes Podcast
Get more strategies like this on our podcast. Available on all platforms.
Related Episodes
Craig's Corner: Why Process Beats Sales Goals for Insurance Agency Growth
Process Selling: How to Build a Repeatable Insurance Sales System That Closes Consistently
The Script Proposal: How to Get Out of the Dog House and Into the Deal With Better Sales Language
Feelings Feel Fantastic Forever: Emotional Intelligence for Insurance Agency Owners
2 Must Dos (or Don'ts) for Insurance Agents Right Now — Quick Wins for Agency Growth