How to research insurance leads with Claude, step by step
- Open Claude and load the free lead prep skill. Open Claude Cowork on your desktop. A skill is a reusable set of instructions, like a binder of standard operating procedures Claude follows. request it through wheretobegin.ai/contact to get the free lead prep skill, then add it to Claude.
- Give Claude the prospect's website. Type a short request naming the prospect's website, for example justinbetman.com wants insurance, what should I offer him? That phrase triggers the lead prep skill automatically.
- Let Claude build its own checklist. Claude writes a checklist for the job: research the website, search for reviews and additional business details, analyze the risk exposures, generate a Word doc, and deliver the final file and summary.
- Run a second prospect at the same time. In Claude Cowork you can start another chat while the first runs. Type lemonbarbakery.com wants insurance to trigger the same skill again and research a second prospect in parallel.
- Review the prepared Word document. Open the Word doc Claude creates. It includes the business owner, location, phone, website, hours, industry, top lines of business, key services, and the risk profile and exposures specific to that prospect.
- Use the tailored first-call questions. Scroll to the questions at the bottom of the doc. These are written for that prospect's profession, covering current coverage, renewal dates, and past claims, so you walk into the meeting ready.
What lead research with Claude actually does
Lead research here means studying a prospect you already know before you reach out or meet. You hand Claude a website and ask what coverage to offer, and it does the homework for you.
In Ben's demo, the prospect was justinbetman.com, a commercial photographer who wanted workers' comp for his sets. Claude ran the lead prep skill, researched the site, searched for reviews and additional business details, then analyzed the risk exposures.
The result was a four-page Word doc Ben could use during the first meeting. It listed the business owner, location, phone, website, hours, and industry, then the top lines of business: workers' comp, inland marine, and general liability. Claude correctly noted the photographer is a high-end advertising photographer based in Los Angeles, represented by an agency in New York, all of which Ben confirmed was true.
Why a skill makes research repeatable
A Claude skill is a set of instructions Claude triggers when you use a particular phrase. Ben compares it to a binder of standard operating procedures for a team member you trained. When you say you need to prep for a lead, they know to research, write a prep document, and analyze the business exposures.
Because the recipe is the same every time, the output stays consistent prospect after prospect. You are not rewriting a prompt or remembering steps. You name the website and Claude knows, from the context of your chat, to load the lead prep skill and run the same standard operating procedure.
Running two prospects at once in Claude Cowork
Claude Cowork lets you start a second job while the first is still working. Once Ben kicked off the photographer's research, he opened another chat and typed lemonbarbakery.com wants insurance, which was all it took to trigger the skill again.
Claude built a fresh checklist for the bakery: research the business, analyze the exposures, generate the Word doc, and deliver the file. The bakery doc surfaced workers' comp, general liability, and a business owners policy, plus product liability and food safety, premises slip and fall, off-premises exposure from catering, and hired and non-owned auto because they deliver. Each line came with a priority rating.
The key takeaway is time. Ben prepped two different commercial prospects in about three minutes, and could have walked away from the computer while it ran.
Why the prep beats cookie-cutter questions
The questions Claude writes for the first call are specific to each prospect's profession, not a generic template. For the photographer, the doc asked about equipment loss, client disputes, and on-set incidents.
It also covered the basics any agent wants answered: whether the prospect currently has commercial insurance, when current coverage renews, and whether there have been any claims in the past three years. That mix of tailored and standard questions is what makes the prep usable in a real meeting rather than just background reading.