How Long Should You Train New Insurance Agents Before They Start Quoting?

21 Jan 2026 Andrew Filar Sales, Sales Management

Whether you’re hiring your first salesperson or trying to fix your training process, you’re probably asking the wrong question.

It’s not just about how long you train them. It’s about what you train them on, how you structure it, and what happens after those first two weeks.

We’ve trained hundreds of producers at Peachy Insurance and through Next Call Club. We’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. Here’s what we’ve learned after scaling from startup to over $45 million in premiums in just 7 years.

The Real Trade-Off Nobody Talks About

There’s tension in every training program. On one hand, you want people producing fast. Salespeople want commissions. You want revenue. Everyone’s ready to go.

On the other hand, if you put someone on the phone too early, they burn leads, make mistakes, and create service problems for your team.

Most agencies pick one extreme. They either rush people onto the phones in three days or drag training out for six weeks.

Both are wrong.

Our answer: 10-12 days maximum.

But here’s the key – you need to be smart about what you’re training them on.

Focus on What Actually Sells

If 80% of your business is home and auto, train on home and auto first. Master those. Get them quoting. Then work on the other 20% later.

Think crawl, walk, run.

Don’t try to teach someone everything about commercial lines, umbrella policies, and flood insurance before they ever quote their first auto policy. You’ll overwhelm them and waste time.

Train on your bread and butter. Get them producing. Build from there.

The Three-Week Training Framework

Here’s exactly how we structure insurance agent sales training at Peachy Insurance:

Week 1: Build the Foundation

Days 1-3 are all about telemarketing. We put new hires on aged leads right away. They’re working the phones, handling opening objections, learning how to get people engaged.

This does three things:

Builds mental stamina
Shows us their work ethic and coachability
Reveals who can actually win leads over and who can’t

We’re watching closely. Do they struggle to build rapport? Do they freeze up on certain objections? Can they adjust when we coach them?

Days 4-5 are corporate training. Product knowledge, compliance, systems.

Week 2: Practice Everything

This is where the real work happens. We’re doing:

Product training and mock quotes
Value building and storytelling (roleplay)
Bundling strategies and objections (roleplay)
Closing strategies and objections (roleplay)
Sales scorecard training (roleplay)
Shadowing tenured agents
Five complete mock quotes on re-quote opportunities
Follow-up and post-call processes

Notice how much roleplay happens here. That’s not an accident.

Week 3: Go Live (But Not on Your Best Leads)

Day 11 is all shadowing and mock quotes. Day 12, they start quoting real leads.

But not your fresh leads. That would be stupid.

The Ramp-Up System That Protects Your Fresh Leads

When new agents go live, they don’t touch fresh leads. They work our “Ramp Up” pull – leads that are at least a week old.

This is where they learn the system, build confidence, and master objections without burning your best opportunities.

Once they sell five bundled households from the ramp-up pull, they graduate to fresh leads.

Once they sell $40,000 in premium on new leads, they unlock access to transfers and cross-sales.

It’s an earned progression. Top performers get the easy wins. New people earn their way up.

The Biggest Training Mistakes We See

Mistake 1: Not Checking Quotes and Notes

This is the one that kills close rates.

Agents rush through training, learn the skills, get on the phones. Everyone listens to calls and gives feedback. But nobody actually looks at what they’re doing on the screen.

If you’re not reading their notes and checking their quotes, you’re missing everything.

Data entry errors, incorrect dispositions, coverage mistakes – these are the difference between closing 20% and closing 5%.

Take 15-20 minutes every day to check every quote your new person ran. It’s tedious but it’s high ROI.

Mistake 2: Ignoring Opening Objections

Most agencies spend all their time training on closing. They assume opening objections are easy.

They’re not.

If your rep can’t get past “I’m not interested” or “Just send me a quote,” nothing else matters. They never get to show off their closing skills.

Give them the opening objection packet early. Roleplay it every single day for the first month.

The difference between winning 20% and 50% of pickups is a MASSIVE difference in items, policies, and revenue.

Mistake 3: Stopping Training After Week Two

The agencies that struggle treat training like an event. Two weeks of onboarding, then you’re done.

The agencies that win treat training like it never ends.

Weekly call reviews. Objection roleplays. Feedback that’s specific and actionable. It’s a culture, not a calendar item.

How to Know Someone’s Ready

Before we let anyone quote real leads, they need to prove a few things during mock quotes:

Navigate the quoting platform without getting lost
Explain coverages correctly with stories where needed
Build at least some rapport to keep customers engaged
Show they can fight through opening, bundling, and closing objections
Hit the major parts of our sales scorecard

When they shadow experienced agents, they need to be able to score the call and give feedback on what went well and what could be improved.

If they can’t do that, they’re not ready.

What About Experienced Agents?

Whether someone comes from Allstate, State Farm, Farmers, or an independent agency, we train them the same way.

We don’t know how well they were trained before. We want them to learn our processes and meet our standards.

For independent agents hiring producers, the training should be similar. You might need extra time for them to learn multiple quoting platforms and understand when to shop all carriers versus one or two.

The key for training P&C insurance agents on the independent side is teaching them where to place risk. With all those carrier options, knowing your best 2-3 choices drives efficiency.

For captive agents, focus on teaching them how to sell your brand and competitive advantages.

What Close Rates Should You Expect?

Close rates tell you if training is working. Here’s what we see:

Weeks 1-2: 8-12% close rate Week 4: 12-16% close rate Week 6: 20% or higher

Quick note on how we measure this: items sold divided by policies quoted. Not sales divided by conversations or some other fuzzy metric. We use this because we know for every 10 quotes we do, we’ll get x amount of items.

We’re not expecting 20%+ out of the gate because pipelines take time to develop, skills take time to develop, and new reps are working lower-quality leads while they learn.

These numbers vary by state, geography, and marketing quality. But if you’re nowhere close to these benchmarks, something’s broken.

The Mix That Actually Matters

Training P&C insurance agents includes all the usual stuff – product knowledge, quoting software, scripts, shadowing. But the mix is what matters.

Product knowledge and systems are table stakes. You need to know what you’re selling and how to use the platform.

But the real work is roleplay and objection handling. That’s where reps build muscle memory for real conversations.

Here’s where most agencies get it wrong: they spend 80% of training on product and systems, and 20% on objection handling.

Flip that ratio.

Week 1 is about exposure and fundamentals.

Live dialing early to build stamina and comfort talking to strangers
Real-time coaching on opening objections as they come up
Product, compliance, and systems to support the basics

Week 2 and beyond is where objections get mastered. That’s when training becomes repetition. Roleplay the common pushbacks, drill the responses, and keep running it until handling objections is automatic, not something they try to remember mid-call.

What Happens After Week Three

Training doesn’t stop when someone starts quoting.

For the first 3-4 weeks, new agents shadow tenured producers 1-2 times per week. We’re watching for bad habits and identifying strengths and weaknesses fast.

We use their strengths to boost confidence. We roleplay and practice to fix weaknesses.

Shorter training sessions happen almost daily – talk paths, objections, rapport building, follow-up processes. Whatever the data shows they need.

Most new agents start closing a few deals in weeks 2-3. By weeks 4-6, they should be binding regularly and cross-selling.

But truly hitting their stride? That happens between months 3-6.

How Next Call Club Fits Into This

Our lead system is built around this training framework.

New hires train on aged leads (4+ days old). Lower pressure, more practice, no risk of burning fresh opportunities.

Once they prove themselves, they graduate to fresh leads. Higher intent, higher stakes.

Top performers earn the low-hanging fruit – cross-sales and x-date call-ins. It’s a reward system.

We also offer resources to help new producers get off to a strong start:

Nothing kills a new producer’s confidence faster than calling bad leads all day and getting nobody on the phone.

For agencies that want more support, we offer LSP boot camps and dedicated agency training where you can bring your entire sales team on for custom help.

One Thing That Could Save You Six Months

If you’re hiring your first salesperson tomorrow, here’s what you need to know:

Invest in creating a real training program the first time. Add to it, modify it, get feedback on what worked and what didn’t. Build something you can use again.

Set standards. Set timelines. Stick to them.

If people aren’t hitting goals, move on. The one exception is if their attitude and work ethic are a 10 out of 10. Maybe you give them more time.

But holding onto a bad producer too long costs real money. You’re paying salary for no production. They’re burning leads that your better producers could close. It compounds.

Not hiring also costs money. But hiring the wrong person and keeping them too long costs more.

The Bottom Line

Training insurance agents isn’t about cramming product knowledge for a month. It’s about getting them competent on what you actually sell in 10-12 days, then refining their skills for months.

Focus on home and auto first. Use roleplay more than you think you need to. Check their quotes and notes daily. Don’t stop training after week two.

And for the love of everything, don’t put them on fresh leads until they’ve proven they can close on aged inventory.

If you want help building a training program or need leads at every stage of your ramp-up process, we’ve done this a few hundred times.