Key takeaways
- ✓Clients let agents request and compare quotes, and every gap in a quote comes back as an email
- ✓Phone calls work less well: the details sit with the client's agent, not in their head
- ✓Whoever supplies their information most clearly decides what picture the client's agent takes away
- ✓Companies that use agents of their own, which know the terms and the client's file, answer faster and more completely
A test with home insurance
This article builds on an opinion piece our CEO wrote in De Tijd on 24 September 2026. It starts from a test of his own. For the fire insurance of his new house, he had AI agents search the market, request quotes, follow up and put the answers side by side, until he could truly compare like with like.
The result: 35 emails in 4 weeks for one policy. 16 from him, 19 from the brokers.
Why this matters now
When Meta presented its personal AI assistant Muse in September 2026, the stock markets got a fright. Shares of telecom companies, insurers and travel companies fell, because such an assistant compares prices for consumers and helps them switch to a cheaper alternative.
A personal agent works on its own on behalf of the client. It looks up providers, fills in forms, sends emails, reads the replies and follows up by itself when things go quiet. The client gives the task and judges the result.
Not a single quote was complete
The emails were rarely about price. What one insurer included as standard was optional or missing at another. Is home assistance included? Is the garden covered? Are the contents insured proportionally or on a first loss basis? What happens in a natural disaster while the house is still being built? On that last point one broker wrote that all insurers exclude it, while another insurer confirmed the opposite in writing the same day.
Each of those questions became an email. A client rarely asked for all those details before. An agent does, at every provider, without getting tired.
Why calling no longer works
A few brokers suggested a quick call. Understandable, but the details of the comparison sit with the agent that follows the file, not in the client's head. Our CEO read the final comparison carefully and at most skimmed the emails that led to it.
That made the rule simple: what is not answered completely and in writing does not make it into the comparison.
Playing poker with open cards
Transparency is what clients always wanted, but they often lost out to small print and information only the company had. An agent lays the cards on the table anyway, through questions, reminders and a full mailbox. Business models that live off clients who do not compare come under pressure.
Blocking does not help much. The American comparison site Insurify blocked Muse, partly out of fear that prices get separated from cover and conditions. That fear is justified, but an agent that finds nothing in one place looks elsewhere. The company that supplies its own information most clearly decides what picture the agent takes away.
A conversation between two agents
Customer service is turning into a conversation between two agents: one for the client and one for the company. The hardest part is the transition, when a person answers the questions of an agent. That agent asks more questions, more precisely and faster than a client ever did, and keeps following up until everything is answered. We already see that pressure growing at insurers.
In that new relationship, the company with the best context wins. An insurer whose agent knows its terms and the client's file thoroughly spots risks and opportunities faster than a competitor that handles every file the same way.
Two things you can do
First: deliver quotes and answers that leave little to ask. Every gap comes back as an email, and with an agent on the other side it always comes back.
Second: put agents of your own on those questions, agents that know the terms and the client's file and back every answer with its source. Companies that do not risk drowning in extra email and losing quotes to whoever answers faster and more completely.
A task for whole sectors
There may also be a task here for a sector as a whole. A shared standard for quotes, with the same headings at every provider where possible and a clear statement of what is not included, makes comparing on an equal footing possible. That is more efficient than dozens of emails back and forth, even when agents handle most of them.
Where to start
Start with the questions that come back most often and take the most searching. Make sure your terms, files and earlier communication are in one place, so an agent can answer from them reliably. And keep a person in the loop for answers that are a commitment, such as confirming cover.
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