Most insurance agency websites make visitors do the same thing:
Fill out a contact form.
That’s fine when someone wants to talk to an agent. But when a visitor wants to know how much life insurance costs, asking them to submit a form and wait for a callback adds unnecessary friction.
There’s another option.
Insurance agencies can add life insurance quoting directly to their websites, allowing prospects and existing clients to enter basic information, view available life insurance options, and potentially begin an electronic application online.
For independent agencies, this can turn a website from a digital brochure into an actual insurance distribution channel.
This guide explains how life insurance website quoting works, what you’ll need to offer it, and how BackNine’s Quote & Apply™ can help an insurance agency add multi-carrier life insurance quoting without building its own quoting technology.
What Does It Mean to Add Life Insurance Quotes to Your Website?
Adding life insurance quotes to your agency website means giving visitors an online experience where they can enter information about themselves and receive estimated premiums for available life insurance products.
Instead of a page that says:
Contact us for a life insurance quote.
you can offer:
Get a life insurance quote now.
A typical experience might ask for information such as:
- Date of birth
- Gender
- State
- Coverage amount
- Term length
- Tobacco or nicotine use
- General health information
The quoting platform uses that information to display available products and estimated premiums.
Depending on the platform, the consumer may then be able to move directly from the quote into an electronic application.
The result is a much more useful website experience:
Visitor → Quote → Compare → Apply
rather than:
Visitor → Contact Form → Wait → Phone Call → Quote
A quote is an estimate based on the information and underwriting class entered. It is not a carrier offer. See Life Insurance Quoting Software for Independent Agents if that article is published.
Why Should an Insurance Agency Offer Life Insurance Quotes Online?
Your website is open 24 hours a day.
Your staff isn’t.
A prospective client might start thinking about life insurance after putting their children to bed at 10:30 p.m. A homeowner might search for coverage after closing on a new house. A business owner might research key-person coverage on a Sunday morning.
If the only action available is “Contact Us,” the consumer has to stop.
Online quoting allows the consumer to continue while their interest is high.
Provide Immediate Value
Consumers frequently begin insurance research with a basic question:
How much will this cost?
An online quoting experience can answer that question immediately. Quote & Apply can also start on a Life Insurance Calculator (needs analysis) page before quotes appear.
Convert More Website Traffic Into Opportunities
An educational article about term life insurance may attract a visitor from Google, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or another source.
If that visitor can immediately run a quote, your content has a natural next step.
Instead of simply reading an article and leaving, the visitor can become an insurance prospect.
Serve Existing Clients
Website quoting isn’t only about acquiring strangers.
For P&C agencies in particular, your existing client base may be the biggest opportunity.
A client who already trusts you with their home, auto, umbrella, or business insurance can visit your website and explore life insurance through the same agency. See Commercial Lines Agents.
Meet Consumers Where They Are
Some clients want an agent to walk them through every step.
Others want to research independently before talking to anyone.
A good digital insurance experience can support both. The agent and client can work in the same Quote & Apply application at the same time.
Who Can Benefit From Life Insurance Website Quoting?
Several types of insurance businesses can benefit.
Independent Life Insurance Agents
Independent agents can give prospects an immediate way to compare life insurance options after finding the agency online.
This is particularly useful for agents generating traffic through:
- Search engines
- Educational articles
- Social media
- Email marketing
- Online advertising
- Referrals
- YouTube
- AI assistants and AI search
Instead of sending all of that traffic to a contact form, the agent can send interested consumers into an actual quoting experience.
P&C Agencies
Property and casualty agencies may have an even larger opportunity.
Your agency already has relationships with clients who buy:
- Homeowners insurance
- Auto insurance
- Umbrella insurance
- Renters insurance
- Commercial insurance
Many of those clients also need life insurance.
Adding a life insurance quoting option to your website gives existing clients an easy way to explore coverage without requiring your staff to manually prepare every initial quote. You can also start quotes from PL Rating or AMS360.
Multi-Producer Agencies
An online quoting platform can also create a standardized life insurance process across an agency.
Instead of every producer using different carrier websites and quoting tools, the agency can provide a common starting point for life insurance opportunities. Quote & Apply supports a Select Agent start page, and larger agencies can use custom-domain links so each producer gets a branded URL without a separate webpage.
Digital Insurance Businesses
Agencies that acquire customers primarily online can connect their marketing directly to the life insurance transaction.
That creates a funnel such as:
Search / Social / Advertising
↓
Educational Landing Page
↓
Life Insurance Quote
↓
Product Selection
↓
Electronic Application
↓
Case Management
Three Ways to Add Life Insurance Quotes to an Agency Website
BackNine documents these implementations in 3 Ways to Add Quote & Apply. API integration is a fourth option for organizations that need a custom experience.
Option 1: Link to a Hosted Quoting Experience
This is generally the easiest approach, and BackNine reports that over 80% of Quote & Apply applications are completed on a BackNine Link.
Your website includes a button such as:
Get a Life Insurance Quote
When a visitor clicks it, they’re taken to a hosted quoting experience associated with your agency (for example, https://app.back9ins.com/apply/YourAgencyName). A BackNine Link is emailed when you create a BOSS account. You can create additional links in BOSS > Quote & Apply by clicking +.
Larger agencies can instead use custom-domain links (for example, https://life.youragency.com/AgentName) so producers stay on the agency domain. There is a one-time $1,000 setup fee; you can then issue as many pages as you like. Email eng@back9ins.com to start that setup.
The major advantage is simplicity.
You don’t need to build the quoting engine yourself, maintain carrier product data, calculate premiums, or develop an electronic application system.
For smaller agencies and individual producers, a BackNine Link may be all that’s necessary.
Option 2: Embed Life Insurance Quoting Into Your Website
A more integrated option is embedding Quote & Apply into your website.
In BOSS > Quote & Apply, open (or create) your Quote & Apply website, click Generate Embed Code, and paste the script into your page HTML. Use a width of at least 980 pixels and do not set a fixed height (the experience changes height by step). Sites such as Wix that do not support dynamic iframe resizing should add use-webapp="true" to the embed code.
The consumer remains within an experience associated with your agency while interacting with the life insurance technology.
For example:
could explain your agency’s life insurance services and include a prominent:
Get My Quote
call to action that launches the quoting experience. You can also set the Launch Quote & Apply URL in BOSS so internal launch buttons open your embedded page.
Option 3: Build a Custom API Integration
Larger agencies, insurtechs, fintech companies, and technology-focused organizations may want more control.
Instead of using a standard interface, they can integrate life insurance functionality into their own software using APIs.
An API-based implementation can allow an organization to create a custom user experience around:
- Data collection
- Quotes
- Product selection
- Existing customer information
- CRM workflows
- Lead routing
- Application initiation
- Internal applications
This approach requires more development work, but it provides considerably more flexibility.
BackNine offers API quoting and eApp creation, webhooks, and an embed recipe for web applications. Prefill parameters are documented at docs.back9ins.com.
You Don’t Need to Build a Life Insurance Quoting Engine Yourself
Building a multi-carrier life insurance quoting system is a much larger project than adding a calculator to a webpage.
An actual insurance quoting platform needs to account for changing:
- Carrier products
- Premium rates
- Issue ages
- States
- Underwriting classes
- Coverage amounts
- Product availability
- Tobacco classifications
- Product rules
- Carrier requirements
Then you have to maintain it.
And quoting is only the beginning.
If you want the consumer to continue after receiving a quote, you’ll also need to think about:
- Product selection
- Data collection
- Electronic applications
- Electronic signatures
- Carrier submission
- Contracting
- Case management
- Compliance
- Security
For most independent insurance agencies, building all of this internally doesn’t make economic sense.
Using an established multi-carrier platform allows the agency to concentrate on marketing, advice, and client relationships instead of maintaining insurance infrastructure.
How BackNine Quote & Apply™ Works
BackNine’s Quote & Apply™ is designed to connect multi-carrier life insurance quoting with electronic applications.
Rather than providing only a premium calculator, Quote & Apply can help move a consumer further through the insurance-buying process.
A typical journey can look like:
Agency Website
↓
Enter Client Information
↓
View Life Insurance Quotes
↓
Compare Available Options
↓
Select a Product
↓
Begin Electronic Application
↓
Complete and Sign Application
↓
Submit
↓
Agent Tracks the Case
That connection between Quote and Apply is important.
Generating a quote is useful.
Turning that quote into an application is what creates business. Most Quote & Apply cases use DocuSign for eSignature; some carriers require an ink-sign upload instead. Some products support an instant decision path.
Can Quote & Apply Be Added to an Insurance Agency Website?
Yes.
BackNine provides ways for independent agents and agencies to offer Quote & Apply through their online presence, documented in 3 Ways to Add Quote & Apply and How to Add Quote & Apply to your Website.
This allows an agency to provide a consumer-facing life insurance experience without independently building carrier integrations and an eApplication platform.
An agency might add calls to action such as:
Get a Life Insurance Quote
Compare Life Insurance Rates
See Your Life Insurance Options
Start Your Life Insurance Application
throughout its website.
The exact placement depends on the agency’s marketing strategy. You can also customize product types and limit carriers on each Quote & Apply website.
Where Should You Put Life Insurance Quoting on Your Website?
Don’t hide it on one page.
If selling life insurance is an important agency objective, create multiple entry points.
Main Navigation
Consider adding Life Insurance to your primary website navigation.
That gives existing clients an obvious place to find coverage.
Homepage
Your homepage can include a life insurance call to action alongside the agency’s other major products.
For example:
Protect more than your home and cars. Protect the people who depend on you.
Get a Life Insurance Quote →
Life Insurance Landing Page
Create a dedicated page explaining:
- Who needs life insurance
- Types of coverage
- How much coverage someone may need
- How the process works
- Why clients work with your agency
Then provide an obvious quoting call to action.
Educational Articles
This is one of the highest-leverage opportunities.
Suppose someone finds your article:
How Much Does $1 Million of Life Insurance Cost?
At the end—or even within the article—you can offer:
See what $1 million of coverage may cost you →
The content answers the question.
The quoting tool gives the reader the personalized answer.
Client Portal or Client Communications
P&C agencies can also promote life insurance quoting to existing clients.
Consider including the option in:
- Renewal emails
- New-client onboarding
- Homeowners follow-ups
- Annual reviews
- Client newsletters
- CRM campaigns
Your website quoting experience then becomes the destination for those campaigns.
Use Life Events to Drive Traffic to Your Quote
Life insurance needs are often triggered by events.
That gives agencies natural opportunities to promote online quoting.
Buying a Home
A new mortgage can create a significant financial obligation.
After binding homeowners coverage, consider asking:
If something happened to you, could your family continue making the mortgage payments?
Then provide a link to explore life insurance.
Having a Child
A new child can significantly change a family’s protection needs.
If your agency learns about the event while updating auto or homeowners coverage, it can trigger a life insurance review.
Getting Married
Marriage is another natural time to review financial protection.
Starting a Business
Commercial clients may have needs involving:
- Key-person insurance
- Buy-sell funding
- Business succession
- Loan protection
Annual Insurance Reviews
Life insurance can simply become part of your standard client review process.
Instead of waiting for the client to ask, make reviewing life insurance a normal part of the agency relationship.
Connect Your Content Strategy to Your Quoting Strategy
If you’re investing in SEO or content designed to appear in AI-generated answers, your quoting experience should be part of the same strategy.
Consider publishing useful articles answering questions such as:
- How much does term life insurance cost?
- How much life insurance do I need?
- Should I buy 20-year or 30-year term insurance?
- Can I get life insurance without a medical exam?
- What happens to my mortgage if I die?
- Do business owners need life insurance?
- What is key-person life insurance?
- When should new parents buy life insurance?
Each article can provide a natural path to:
Get a personalized quote.
That creates a complete acquisition funnel:
Question
↓
Google / AI Assistant / Social Media
↓
Your Article
↓
Quote
↓
Application
↓
Client
Educational content generates discovery.
Quoting technology converts discovery into action.
Can You Prefill a Life Insurance Quote With Existing Client Data?
This becomes particularly interesting for established agencies.
If you already know information about the client, requiring them to enter everything again creates friction.
Quote & Apply supports prefill parameters (about 30 optional fields), including name, birthdate, gender, and contact information. Use test=1 while you are building the integration. See the web application recipe.
A custom integration can pass existing customer data into the insurance workflow where supported and appropriate, subject to applicable permissions, privacy requirements, platform capabilities, and insurance regulations.
This is one reason API access matters for larger agencies and technology companies. Webhooks can also send eApp updates back into your CRM if BOSS is not your system of record.
Should You Require a Phone Number Before Showing a Quote?
This is partly a marketing decision.
Requiring extensive contact information before showing anything can increase lead capture but may also increase abandonment.
Think about the consumer’s expectation.
They clicked:
Get a Quote
If the next screen is effectively a lead form that provides no useful information until they surrender their contact details, the experience can feel different from what they expected.
A good strategy balances:
consumer value + lead capture + regulatory requirements + follow-up
Rather than optimizing purely for the number of leads, consider optimizing for qualified applications and placed policies.
A smaller number of consumers who genuinely engage with the quoting process can be more valuable than a large database of people who submitted a form because they couldn’t access anything else.
In Quote & Apply, once email and phone are entered, an eApp is created in BOSS. The agent can receive a lead notification, and the insured can receive an intro email from the agent.
What Happens After Someone Gets a Quote?
This is where agencies should think beyond the quoting widget.
The real question isn’t:
“Can my website show life insurance prices?”
It’s:
“What happens after someone wants to buy?”
Ideally, the process should provide a clear next step.
Depending on the product and carrier, that may be:
Continue Application
or:
Speak With an Agent
or:
Complete Additional Information
The agency should also have a workflow for following up with consumers who start but don’t finish the process, where appropriate and permitted. Incomplete and in-progress eApps appear in BOSS so staff can see what started on the website.
Unlicensed staff can use a Refer page to hand a prospect to a licensed producer instead of soliciting the sale themselves.
What Happens After the Life Insurance Application?
Life insurance usually doesn’t end when the consumer clicks Submit.
Depending on the carrier and product, underwriting may involve:
- Medical records
- Prescription information
- Identity verification
- Financial information
- Telephone interviews
- Additional questionnaires
- Paramedical exams
- Application corrections
- Other carrier requirements
Someone still needs to manage that process.
This is one reason an online quoting tool connected to a BGA can be more useful than a standalone quote calculator.
With BackNine, submitted business can flow into the broader brokerage process, while agents can use BOSS (Back Office Support System) to follow cases, requirements, documents, notes, and chat with case support.
The digital funnel therefore doesn’t stop at the application:
Website → Quote → Apply → Underwriting → Case Management → Policy
Do You Need Direct Carrier Appointments?
You don’t necessarily need direct distribution relationships with every life insurance carrier available through your quoting platform.
Independent agents commonly work through a Brokerage General Agency (BGA) such as BackNine. See What is BackNine?.
The BGA provides access to carrier relationships and can help with contracting, underwriting, application processing, and case management.
Agents still need the appropriate life insurance licenses (Quote & Apply will halt if you are not life-licensed) and must satisfy applicable carrier and state appointment requirements. Errors-and-omissions coverage is required before submitting a first case.
Complete contracting once in BOSS > Settings. Most states allow just-in-time appointments when you submit business. In pre-appointment states, Quote & Apply pauses eSign until the appointment is active.
What Does It Cost to Add Life Insurance Quoting to Your Website?
Costs vary by technology provider and implementation.
Possible pricing models include:
- Monthly subscriptions
- Annual licenses
- Per-user fees
- Quote fees
- Transaction fees
- Implementation fees
- API fees
- Enterprise contracts
There may also be development costs if you’re building a highly customized integration.
BackNine uses a distribution-based model for independent agents.
When BackNine serves as the general agency, agents can use Quote & Apply™ and BOSS without an agent software subscription fee. See pricing. Custom-domain links have a one-time $1,000 setup fee. Organizations that want to use their own general-agency contracts can license the software separately (SaaS).
BackNine receives compensation from insurance carriers for serving as the general agency, while agents receive their applicable commissions from the carrier.
For many independent agencies, that can make adding online life insurance capabilities substantially easier than licensing and integrating multiple standalone technologies.
How to Add Life Insurance Quotes to Your Website With BackNine
The exact implementation you choose depends on your agency and technology needs, but the process can be thought of in a few steps.
Step 1: Create Your BackNine Account
Create a BOSS account and complete the appropriate agent and agency information, including contracting in BOSS > Settings.
Step 2: Get Access to Quote & Apply™
A BackNine Link is emailed when you create the account. Open BOSS > Quote & Apply and become familiar with the consumer and agent quoting experience.
Before promoting it to clients, run through the process yourself. Many agents write a first policy on themselves or a family member.
Step 3: Choose Your Website Experience
Determine whether you want to:
- Link clients to a BackNine Link
- Embed Quote & Apply into your website
- Use custom-domain links for a multi-producer agency
- Build a more customized implementation using BackNine’s APIs
Smaller agencies may prefer the simplest implementation.
Larger or technology-focused organizations may want deeper integration.
Step 4: Build a Dedicated Life Insurance Page
Don’t simply add a button with no explanation.
Create a page that answers the client’s basic questions:
Why might I need life insurance?
How much coverage should I consider?
What types of policies are available?
What happens after I request a quote?
Then give the consumer an obvious way to begin.
Step 5: Add Calls to Action Across Your Website
Place relevant life insurance calls to action on:
- Your homepage
- Life insurance pages
- Blog articles
- Homeowners content
- Business insurance pages
- Client resources
Don’t force consumers to hunt for the feature.
Step 6: Create Internal Follow-Up Workflows
Decide what your agency does when someone:
- Generates a quote
- Begins an application
- Requests assistance
- Submits an application
Technology works best when your staff knows exactly what happens next. In-progress eApps appear in BOSS.
Step 7: Measure the Funnel
Track more than website traffic.
Measure:
Visitors → Quotes → Applications → Submitted Cases → Placed Policies
You may discover that one page or client campaign produces far more business than another.
Use that information to improve the experience over time.
A Website Quote Isn’t a Replacement for an Insurance Agent
Online quoting doesn’t mean eliminating the agent.
In many cases, it does the opposite.
It removes repetitive administrative work so the agent can spend more time where professional guidance matters.
Technology can answer:
“What might this policy cost?”
An experienced insurance professional can help answer:
“How much coverage does my family need?”
“Which product fits my objectives?”
“How could my medical history affect underwriting?”
“Should I consider term or permanent insurance?”
“How should this policy fit into my broader protection strategy?”
The strongest digital insurance experience combines convenient technology with access to knowledgeable people.
Turn Your Insurance Agency Website Into a Sales Channel
Your website shouldn’t only tell people that you sell life insurance.
It can help them start buying it.
With online life insurance quoting, an agency can give consumers immediate value, create a natural next step from educational content, cross-sell existing P&C clients, and generate opportunities even when the office is closed.
The technology already exists.
You don’t need to build your own multi-carrier quoting engine.
You don’t need to maintain dozens of carrier integrations.
And you don’t need to create an electronic application system from scratch.
A platform such as BackNine’s Quote & Apply™ can provide the insurance infrastructure while your agency concentrates on the relationship with the client.
Add Quote & Apply™ to Your Insurance Agency Website
BackNine Insurance and Financial Services, Inc.'s Quote & Apply™ gives independent insurance agents and agencies a way to offer multi-carrier life insurance quoting and electronic applications online.
Use Quote & Apply during agent-assisted sales.
Give existing P&C clients a way to explore life insurance.
Turn educational website traffic into quoting opportunities.
Or use BackNine’s technology and APIs to build life insurance into a more customized digital experience.
After an application is submitted, use BOSS and BackNine’s brokerage team to help manage contracting, underwriting, requirements, and case management.
Create a BackNine account and add life insurance quoting to your agency’s digital experience.