Automating The Chase Converts Written-Off Leads Into Booked Conversations

Insurance agencies that grow on purchased data leads can pay anywhere from $5 to $100 each, and the agents working those lists only have so many hours in the day. The freshest ones tend to get called right away, since an agency's own team usually wants that work. Leads from a week ago can sit while the new batch arrives, so some of that spend ends up on names no one's working. Faster follow-up on the older ones is one way to recover a little of it, and the decision left to a sales leader is how much of the chase still requires a human.

Nick Sanchez is Head of Sales at Mav, an AI platform built for property and casualty insurance agencies that texts leads, qualifies the ones who answer, and hands the live call to a licensed agent. He joined in May 2025, after advisory roles at two employer solutions firms and sales leadership at the real estate platforms Homeward and Home Bay. Sanchez spent 15 years in sales and operations management, including profit and loss responsibility for commercial property and fitness clubs, before he moved into technology.

"If you're buying a thousand leads a month and you stop reaching out after day seven, that's a lot of revenue you're just lighting on fire," says Sanchez. His case for automation starts with the leads an agency has already paid for and stopped calling. What it takes over is the chase, and the conversation that follows stays with the salesperson.

Reviving the written-off

New leads usually go straight to the sales team, because someone who has just filled out a form asking to be contacted is the most likely to answer. Sanchez puts the transfer rate on those at around 10%, and the rate on a lead that filled out a form two weeks ago at closer to 2%. The second number covers leads his clients had largely written off. "That's an extra 2% that your business can get in revenue at the end of it that you probably would have thought was just a dead lead already," says Sanchez. "That's where we see a big lift with most of our clients."

Covering more of a purchased lead list has usually meant hiring another caller, since the list runs longer than one rep can dial. Sanchez prices the automation at about half the cost of an employee, and it works the list at a volume no single rep could reach. He brings that comparison to an owner weighing another hire. "If you have one SDR that can only reach out to 200 people a day because they're just picking up, making phone calls, you'll have conversations," he explains. "But then you have something like a Mav or an AI that can send out text messaging and then actually have those responses built into it as well that lead to a conversation."

Text first, then the transfer

Every first contact at Mav goes out as a text message, and the company's voice product comes in a step later to place the call that connects a prospect to an agent. Sanchez draws that line deliberately, and he finds people readier to reply to a message than to pick up a call, his mother in her late 60s included. "I don't personally think AI voice is where we need it to be right now, to where it's able to handle serious level conversations, overcome objection and know that it can also read a room," he says.

The text thread collects very little: make and model of the vehicle, whether the person rents or owns, and whether they want to talk now. Nothing in it tries to sell. A "yes" to the last question sets the voice system dialing, and it puts the prospect straight through to the agency, with no scheduling link in between and none of the no-shows that often follow. The agent picks up a call that should be ready to quote.

The objection Sanchez fields most often is whether those messages sound like a machine. He notes that most recipients can tell, and the exchange isn't pretending otherwise. Its only job is to confirm the basics and pass the prospect along. "We're not trying to trick anybody. We're not trying to say, 'Hey, this is Susie, just answer all these questions for me,'" he notes. "We're just trying to make sure that we're verifying information. After we verify information, we're going to get you to a human so you could actually talk to somebody."

Keeping the sales floor

Churn is a familiar problem on sales development teams. Median annual turnover in the role sits around 40%, with average tenure under two years. Sanchez explains how automation takes the oldest leads off a rep's list, and no cuts need to be made to pay for it. "It helps retention of your sales team, because burnout's a real thing, especially in a sales role when you're making 2, 3, 400 dials a day and you're not having those conversations that you really want," he notes. "Instead of you having to make 400 dials a day, maybe you're making 200 quality dials a day."

Speed is the part agencies tend to underrate. An agent sitting with a client may not answer a prospect's text for an hour, and that hour is usually enough for the prospect to get a quote somewhere else. Mav keeps replying while the agent is working and transfers the call once they're free. Speed to lead still comes down to whoever is free to answer. "Everybody has a CRM that can send out bulk text messaging. My question is, who's responding and how quickly are they responding?" adds Sanchez.

Agencies weighing the software ask Sanchez whether it ends up replacing their reps. The owners he sees growing fastest are the ones willing to try the newer tools. "I still have SDRs on my team that I wouldn't replace for the world. I still have AEs on my team that I wouldn't replace for the world," Sanchez concludes. "I'm a firm believer in how can we make things better, not necessarily replace it."