Phone Scripts for an Insurance Firm: 5 Sensible Insights

Phone Scripts for an Insurance Office: 5 Practical Insights

When someone has experienced damage, they do not want to listen to a legal handbook over the phone. Yet, I notice that well-thought-out phone scripts for an insurance office are still too often filled with formal disclaimers and complicated menus, purely for fear of forgetting something. This costs your office valuable time in repeated calls, and it only adds extra stress for a caller with water damage. Below, I explain in five points how you can handle this practically and effectively.

1. Start with the caller's immediate situation

An emergency options menu is a telephone route that prioritises urgent claims over general queries. In practice, people call a broker for two completely different reasons: an administrative question about a policy, or acute panic due to a collision or fire.

When someone is stranded by the roadside, a long introduction about office hours only causes frustration. Always place the option for urgent assistance or claims reporting as the very first choice. Only after that should options for quotes, premium payments, or office hours follow.

2. Remove jargon from your script

Insurance terms like 'franchise', 'regress', or 'subrogation' are everyday language in the office, but on the phone, they cause confusion. In the studio, I see texts with sentences like: "Press 2 for civil liability file management." Nobody talks like that to a neighbour or customer.

• Simply replace "reporting a claim" with "report a claim".
• Use "questions about your policy or premium" instead of "contractual administration".
• Only name your employees or departments if callers already know them; otherwise, choose recognisable topics.

A director's tip I often give: a voice actor reading a script immediately hears where a caller will stumble. As soon as a sentence has more than two subordinate clauses, the voice gasps for breath, and the listener loses track. Write short sentences you can read aloud without stumbling.

3. Choose the right voice tone for trust

The way a message sounds determines how calm someone remains while waiting. A tone that is too business-like or cold increases irritation, while an overly cheerful voice seems inappropriate for someone involved in a serious traffic accident.

For Flemish offices, we like to work with professional voices that sound natural and approachable. Voices like Brecht, Bernard, or Serge set a calm, reliable tone that immediately reassures people. If an office is looking for a voice with gentle authority, Goedele provides that exact balance between empathy and professionalism. For Dutch branches of an insurance group, voices like Ruben or Carolina ensure the same clear approach.

4. Give clear instructions during peak times

After a severe storm, an office's phone line rings off the hook. The biggest waste of time occurs because callers get through without the necessary details to hand.

Use your waiting message during such peak days to prepare callers in advance. Ask them to have their policy number, photos of the damage, and the exact time of the incident ready before they are connected. This shortens each phone call by several minutes and allows your employees to start many more claims in a day.

5. Don't treat out-of-hours voicemail as a mere formality

Many offices close their lines at five o'clock with a blunt message stating that the office is closed. For an insured person with an urgent need, that feels like a dead end.Make sure your night and weekend message clearly tells callers what they need to do immediately:

1. Clearly state the emergency number for the assistance centre for urgent breakdown recovery or medical help.
2. Provide the email address for non-urgent damage reports.
3. Indicate the exact time your office will be reachable by phone again the next business day.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should a phone menu for an insurance office be?

Limit the menu to a maximum of three or four options. Callers forget earlier choices if a menu lasts longer than thirty seconds.

Do we need to record a new script for each season?

That is not necessary for general messages. However, a specific emergency announcement during extreme stormy weather or collective closing days prevents your staff from being overwhelmed.

Can we combine multiple languages in one script?

In Belgium, this is often useful. In that case, let a caller choose the language first, before the selection menu starts. This way, the rest of the message sounds completely natural.

Do you want to see the exact wording we use in practice for telephony? Take a look at our sample texts to get inspiration for your office. Or feel free to ask us to review your texts before we record them.