What 400 Mystery Shopper Calls Just Taught Us About Quality in the Insurance Industry

Lauren Alexander

April 9, 2025

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And why the best agents don’t just sell policies—they educate, clarify, and earn trust.

In today’s climate of rising premiums and disaster-driven risk, buying homeowners insurance has become more than a transaction—it’s an exercise in trust.

But how often do agents really help customers understand what they’re buying?

To uncover how agents are communicating in real-world scenarios, we launched a Call Center QA Mystery Shopper study focused on homeowners insurance conversations. We partnered with mystery shoppers to place more than 400 calls to major insurance carriers across six of the most disaster-prone states in the U.S.—including Texas, North Carolina, Louisiana, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Alabama. These conversations uncovered clear patterns in how agents communicate coverage, risk, and exclusions.

The data revealed something deeper than what a satisfaction score could ever show.

Why We Did This Study

Homeowners today are navigating unprecedented uncertainty:

Carriers are pulling out of high-risk areas
Critical exclusions—like flood and wildfire coverage—are often unclear or unstated
And consumers are left asking: “Am I really protected?”

We launched this insurance Call Center QA Mystery Shopper study to explore a key question: What does great agent communication look like in today’s insurance environment—and how often does it happen?

‍As our Head of Insurance Innovation, Stephanie Behnke—who spent 20+ years leading teams across Claims, Underwriting, and Policy Servicing—put it:

“The homeowners market today is full of uncertainty. We need to know exactly what consumers are experiencing when they purchase coverage in high-risk areas.”

Her perspective helped shape the direction of this study: not just to measure satisfaction, but to understand what’s actually being said in conversations that shape coverage decisions.

What We Found

One thing became immediately clear: customer experience is wildly inconsistent—even within the same brand.

Two shoppers called the exact same national insurance carrier hotline.

One said:

✅ Positive Experience

📞 Chris, Mystery Shopper | Score: 100 | Extremely Satisfied

“Shelly was wonderful and such a joy to speak with! She was smart and knowledgeable… What a wonderful experience.”

Another, just days later, had the opposite experience:

❌ Negative Experience

📞 Angela, Mystery Shopper | Score: 60 | Extremely Dissatisfied

“It was really disappointing. The associate was unable to provide any information. He looked up a local agent for me, but then was not able to transfer me directly.”

Same process. Same number. Two entirely different outcomes.

That variability didn’t always show up in survey data. One shopper gave their call a 66 out of 100—but still said they’d recommend the carrier.

In fact, 22% of shoppers who gave a failing experience score still said they’d recommend the carrier. These are the contradictions that traditional customer surveys can’t detect—blind spots that hide inconsistent service, vague answers, and friction-filled calls.

“When a shopper gives a failing score, but still says they’d recommend the brand—it’s a red flag,” explained Stephanie Behnke, MaestroQA’s Head of Insurance Innovation. “That tells me we’re not capturing trust accurately. We’re measuring how nice someone sounded, not how clearly they educated the customer or explained exclusions. And in high-risk areas, that gap in understanding could be devastating.”

Our Approach: How We Measured What Surveys Can’t

From the start, we knew mystery shopper surveys alone wouldn’t tell the full story. That’s why our insurance Call Center QA Mystery Shopper study combined human insight from mystery shoppers with AI-powered conversation analysis across 100% of calls.

Using MaestroQA’s platform, we applied insurance-specific LLM classifiers—built using advanced models like Gemini and Nova—to evaluate each interaction across five critical dimensions:

Clarity – Did the agent explain coverage in clear, accessible terms?
Explanation – Did they help the shopper make a confident, informed decision?
Proactive Disclosure – Were exclusions or limitations shared before being asked?
Friction – Did the call flow freely—or was help gated behind quoting or personal data?
Transparency – Did the agent explain how quoting and eligibility decisions are made?

This methodology gave us a deeper, more objective view into the conversations themselves—not just how they felt, but what was said, missed, or avoided.

The Best Agents Didn’t Just Quote—They Educated

In the top-performing calls, agents acted less like sellers and more like guides.

One Oklahoma agent explained how older roofs affect insurability, tied it to local hail risk, and offered inspection advice.
A Colorado rep proactively discussed wildfire exclusions and explained how their company uses “fire line scores” to determine eligibility.
In a standout call, the agent began with:

‍“The two most important factors in your policy are dwelling coverage and deductibles. Let me explain how they work together.”

These weren’t sales pitches—they were teachable moments.

Our data shows that agents who scored high on Explanation, Risk Guidance, and Transparency were 3x more likely to receive “Satisfied” or “Extremely Satisfied” survey ratings.

What Gets in the Way

Unfortunately, many calls showed consistent breakdowns in trust-building:

Agents deflected critical risk questions
Coverage details were withheld unless the shopper provided personal information
Exclusions weren’t mentioned unless explicitly asked about

“It felt like I was being asked to do my own research. The agent seemed rushed and irritated… The message was ‘Take it or leave it.’”

“I asked about wildfire risk and she immediately redirected to quoting. No actual answers.”

These low-scoring calls were 2x more likely to result in “Would not recommend” or “Would not proceed” responses.

As Behnke added:

“Some of the friction we saw wasn’t overt—it was agents withholding coverage information unless the shopper provided personal details. That erodes trust. If a customer asks about wildfire or flood, and the answer is ‘I can’t tell you that unless I quote you,’ we’ve already lost them.”

These moments matter. And when they show up across dozens of calls—regardless of brand or geography—they point to something systemic. That’s why we’re publishing this report—to give the industry a clearer lens into what quality actually looks like in a high-risk, high-stakes market.