Insurance Agency Increases Policy Renewals 34% with RCS Carousels

The 3-Second Version

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The Challenge: Renewals Lost in Email and Voicemail

Lakeside Insurance Group is an independent agency in Michigan representing 8 carriers across personal and commercial lines. They manage approximately 4,200 active policies. Every month, 300 to 400 of those policies come up for renewal.

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Their renewal process relied on email reminders and follow-up phone calls. The email open rate on renewal notices was 24%. The click-through rate to their renewal portal was 3.1%. Which meant that for every 400 renewal notices sent, approximately 12 policyholders took action from the email alone.

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The remaining 388 received phone calls from CSRs. Each call took 5-8 minutes between dialing, waiting, leaving voicemails, and playing phone tag. The 4-person CSR team spent 32 hours per week on renewal calls. That was 32 hours not spent on service, claims, or new business.

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The multi-policy problem was even worse. Many policyholders carried auto, home, and umbrella coverage with Lakeside. Renewing each policy required a separate communication and a separate action. Policyholders with 3 policies received 3 emails and up to 3 phone calls. The friction was so high that only 22% of multi-policy holders renewed all policies from the first notice.

The Solution: One Carousel, All Policies, One Tap Per Renewal

Lakeside implemented RCS through Signalmash with two primary use cases: policy renewal reminders and claims status updates.

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For renewals, the transformation was dramatic. A policyholder with auto, home, and umbrella coverage receives a single RCS carousel message. Each card in the carousel represents one policy: the policy type icon, the renewal date, the premium amount, and a "Renew Now" button. The policyholder swipes through their policies and renews each one with a single tap.

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For single-policy holders, a standalone rich card shows the policy details with the same one-tap renewal button. The Lakeside logo and verification badge appear on every message, immediately identifying it as a legitimate communication from their agency.

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For claims status, Lakeside sends proactive RCS updates showing the claim stage (Filed, Under Review, Adjuster Assigned, Estimate Approved, Payment Issued) with the current stage highlighted. Policyholders see exactly where their claim stands without calling.

The Results: First Full Renewal Cycle (6 Months)

Renewal completion on first notice improved 34%.

‍The one-tap renewal button eliminated the multi-step process of opening an email, clicking a link, logging into a portal, finding the policy, and completing the renewal. The rich card compressed all of that into a single tap.

Multi-policy renewal rates nearly doubled.

‍The carousel format changed the multi-policy experience from "3 separate emails and 3 separate actions" to "1 message, swipe, tap, tap, tap." The 86% improvement (from 22% to 41%) in multi-policy renewal completion represents significant retained premium for the agency.

Time to renewal action dropped from 6.2 days to 1.4 days.

‍Policyholders renewed within hours of receiving the RCS message rather than letting the email sit for days. The immediacy of a text notification combined with the ease of one-tap action compressed the decision timeline dramatically.

CSR phone time on renewals dropped 61%.

‍With more than half of policyholders renewing from the first RCS notice, the volume of follow-up calls dropped proportionally. The CSR team redirected 19.5 hours per week from renewal calls to service and new business activities.

Claims status inquiry calls dropped 62%.

‍Proactive RCS claims updates answered the "where is my claim?" question before policyholders needed to call. Inbound claims inquiry calls dropped from approximately 185 per month to 71.

Key Takeaways for Insurance Agencies

Carousels are the killer feature for multi-policy households.

The ability to present multiple policies in a single swipeable message and allow one-tap renewal per policy is an experience that email and phone simply cannot replicate. If your agency has multi-policy households, RCS carousels should be your first priority.

Proactive claims updates reduce call volume dramatically.

‍Every "where is my claim?" call that does not happen is 5-8 minutes of CSR time recovered. At 114 fewer calls per month, that represents over 15 hours of monthly capacity returned to the team.

Independent agencies can move faster than carriers.

Lakeside went from decision to live deployment in under 4 months. Their carrier partners have not yet deployed RCS for policyholder communications. This gives independent agencies a differentiation opportunity: the policyholders they communicate with directly experience the modern format while carrier-direct communications remain in the SMS era.

Verification badges build trust in an industry plagued by impersonation. ‍

Insurance phishing texts are common. The Lakeside logo and verification badge immediately distinguish their messages from scams, which improves both engagement rates and policyholder confidence.