Two-Party Consent States: Call Recording Rules for Insurance Agencies

Two-party consent states, also called all-party consent states, require every person on a call to agree before it is recorded. The core group is California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington. Several more states, including Connecticut, Nevada and Oregon, apply all-party rules in some situations. If your agents dial across state lines, the safe operating rule is simple: treat every call as an all-party call.

This guide is written for agency owners, sales managers and licensed agents who run outbound or blended phone floors. It covers the state list, where published lists disagree, what federal law adds, and how to build consent into the call itself instead of leaving it to each agent’s memory.

TL;DR

• Federal law sets a one-party consent floor. States can go stricter, and a group of them requires consent from everyone on the call.
• Published lists of all-party states differ by a few states because Connecticut, Nevada, Oregon, Michigan, Hawaii, Maine and Missouri have situation-specific rules.
• When callers and agents sit in different states, get consent from all parties or follow the strictest law that might apply.
• Announce recording at the start of every call, log how consent was given, and stop recording when someone objects.
• Build the notice, the consent record and the stop-recording step into your dialer workflow so compliance does not depend on the agent.

Table of Contents

• One-party vs. two-party consent in plain terms
• The two-party consent states
• Why the lists matter less than your calling pattern
• What the penalties look like
• What consent and notice look like on an insurance call
• AI scoring, summaries and transcripts raise the stakes
• Perspective: build it into the dialer, not the agent
• Setting this up in RevRing
• Calls with mixed states, objections and edge cases
• A short compliance checklist for agency owners
• FAQ
• Sources

One-party vs. two-party consent in plain terms

Under a one-party consent rule, a participant can record a call without telling anyone else. A third party can also record if one side knows and agrees. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press explains that federal law supplies this one-party baseline for in-person conversations, phone calls and electronic communications.

Under a two-party (all-party) rule, one person’s consent is not enough. Everyone on the call has to agree. On a three-way call with a prospect, a spouse and your agent, that means all three.

The federal wiretap statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2511, sets the one-party standard for wire, oral and electronic communications. State laws then act as a supplement or, in many cases, a stricter requirement. When a state demands more than the federal floor, a business has to meet the state standard to avoid criminal and civil liability.

Two more federal points matter on a sales floor:

• Federal law prohibits recording with a criminal or tortious intent, even where one-party consent otherwise applies.
• Consent rules often hinge on a reasonable expectation of privacy. A Justia 50-state survey notes that places where recording is obviously occurring may be exempt in some jurisdictions. A one-on-one sales call with a consumer is not that situation. Assume privacy applies.

The two-party consent states

Here is the practical list for a call floor. The first group is where nearly every source agrees. The second group is where the rules depend on the type of conversation or the source you read.

States that require all-party consent

The Reporters Committee lists these as the principal all-party states: California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington. It also covers Michigan in at least some third-party situations.

California deserves its own note because of how courts read it. Section 632(a) prohibits intentionally recording a confidential communication without the consent of all parties. In 2021 the Supreme Court of California held that section 632.7 applies to parties as well as nonparties, covering calls to or from cellular or cordless telephones. In plain terms: a party to the call cannot rely on being the one holding the phone.

States where it depends

This is why different sites publish different counts. The Reporters Committee counts about 11 states as primarily all-party. A July 2024 Kilpatrick chart of the all-party group also includes Connecticut, Nevada and Oregon, for 13. A National Law Review piece counts eleven all-party states and notes that Connecticut is one-party for criminal matters, while Oregon is one-party for electronic communications but all-party for in-person conversations.

The Reporters Committee adds more detail on the split:

• Missouri and Oregon: all-party for in-person conversations, one-party for phone calls.
• Connecticut and Nevada: generally the reverse pattern.
• Hawaii and Maine: all-party in particularly private places, otherwise generally one-party.
• Michigan: covered in at least some third-party circumstances.

There is no completely uniform nationwide list. A single chart is a starting point, not a legal opinion. For your own compliance policy, ask your agency’s attorney to confirm the states where you hold licenses and the states where your leads live.

Why the lists matter less than your calling pattern

If you sell Medicare, final expense, ACA or life products to leads across the country, you will reach consumers in all-party states every day. Two things make the “which states” question less useful than it looks.

Lead location and agent location are rarely the same. A licensed agent in Texas may call a prospect in Pennsylvania. The Digital Media Law Project states that when participants are in different states, it can be unclear which law controls, and its safe recommendation is to get consent from all parties. When both sides are in the same state, you can rely on that state’s law with more certainty.

Phone numbers lie. Area codes no longer tell you where someone lives. A prospect with a 305 number might be in Ohio today. Local-number presentation makes this worse, which is why your dialing and compliance settings should be designed together. See our write-up on compliance-first local presence dialing.

The practical conclusion is the one most compliance guidance reaches: follow the strictest rule that might apply, or get consent from all parties. Kilpatrick’s chart says the same for interstate calls.

What the penalties look like

Recording without the needed consent is not a paperwork issue. Under federal law, a violation can bring up to five years’ imprisonment and civil claims for compensatory or punitive damages, attorney fees and costs. State civil statutes often mirror the federal act with a private right of action for damages, injunctive relief and attorney fees.

In all-party states, recording a conversation without every participant’s consent is typically illegal and carries state-specific criminal and civil penalties. Because those penalties attach per recording, a floor that records thousands of calls a week multiplies its exposure fast. Our own breakdown of call recording compliance for IVR and dialers goes deeper on the fine side.

There is also an evidence angle. In a two-party state, if one side did not know about the recording, the recording may not be usable in a dispute. A recording you cannot use is a recording that does not protect the agency when a customer disputes what an agent promised.

What consent and notice look like on an insurance call

The 2024 guidance from the Independent Agents & Brokers of America says to give notice and obtain consent before recording or monitoring business calls in Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania, whether the call is incoming or outbound. A notice such as “This call may be recorded or monitored for quality assurance purposes” may support implied consent if the caller stays on the line. The same guidance says recording is prohibited if the caller objects. The all-party principle applies to agency staff and other participants too.

Zendesk’s call-recording guidance lines up with this. It recommends complying with the strictest potentially applicable consent law, announcing recording at the beginning, confirming agreement where appropriate, keeping records of how consent was obtained, and respecting a participant’s decision not to be recorded.

A workable call-floor routine

1. Announce at the start. The disclosure comes in the first seconds, before any quote or health question. Inbound lines can use a recorded message. Outbound agents need a scripted line.
2. Confirm when the risk is higher. On outbound calls to unknown locations, ask: “Is it okay if we record this call?” A verbal yes is a clean record.
3. Stop when someone objects. Agents need a one-click way to pause or stop recording, and a rule for what happens next. Some agencies continue the call unrecorded; others reschedule. Pick one and write it down.
4. Log it. Store the consent event with the call record: time, number, disclosure played, and the answer. This is the record you will want if a recording is challenged.
5. Cover three-way calls. When an agent adds a spouse, a carrier line or a family member, repeat the notice for the new participant.
6. Audit. Sample calls each week for the disclosure. Missing notices are almost always a training or script problem, and they show up in a score before they show up in a complaint.

Recording consent is not the same as telemarketing consent. Permission to record says nothing about permission to call or text. For that side, see our guides on express written consent and DNC compliance rules.

AI scoring, summaries and transcripts raise the stakes

Call scoring, transcription and AI summaries all start from a recording or a live audio stream. Ogletree Deakins has observed that with new record-and-transcribe tools, employers face increased risk because accidental or unauthorized recording has become easier, which calls for clear internal policies on how and when employees record calls.

For an agency, that means three habits:

• Do not let agents run personal recording or note-taking apps on calls. Use the recorded line, where the notice and the consent log live.
• Make sure the disclosure covers what you actually do with the audio, such as quality assurance and coaching.
• Check consent before you automate anything downstream. We cover that in AI call summaries and consent checks and in AI compliance monitoring for regulated call teams.

Perspective: build it into the dialer, not the agent

We work with phone-driven insurance floors, and the pattern is consistent. Agencies rarely get in trouble because nobody knew the rule. They get in trouble because the rule lived in a training deck and a good agent skipped it on a busy Tuesday.

Our view is that consent handling belongs in the infrastructure. The disclosure plays or is prompted on every call. The recording notice is part of the call flow. The consent record sits on the contact in the CRM. Calling hours, DNC and litigator checks run before the dial, so the recording rule is one of several checks, not a lone manual step.

And we tell owners to pick the strictest standard for the whole floor. Splitting scripts by state sounds efficient, but it fails on exactly the calls that matter: the prospect who moved, the cell number with an old area code, the three-way call with a family member in another state. One all-party script is cheaper than a state-by-state matrix and cheaper than one bad dispute.

The list of two-party states will keep shifting in the details. Your floor should not need to be rebuilt each time.

— Marc

Setting this up in RevRing

RevRing is built for agencies that live on the phone. Compliance runs before and during the call: DNC and litigator checks, calling-hours rules by time zone, TCPA consent records and recording notices. You can run the CRM natively with RevRing CRM or keep your existing CRM and connect it at no extra cost. Dialing options include the Power Dialer and the Predictive Dialer, and calls feed AI scoring so managers can check disclosure language across the floor instead of listening to a handful of calls.

Published pricing starts at $49.99 per seat per month for Basic Dialer, with Scale at $139.99 and Pro at $189.99 per seat per month. Usage fees apply: AI call scoring is $0.20 per scored call, and outbound calls run $0.03 per minute, or $0.05 per minute via the Power Dialer. See the full pricing page for plans and add-ons. If your floor sells final expense, the final expense CRM and dialer page shows how the workflow fits that line of business.

Calls with mixed states, objections and edge cases

The caller is in an all-party state, the agent is not. Treat the call as all-party. The agent’s location does not remove the prospect’s protections, and the law that controls can be unclear.

The prospect says no to recording. Respect it. The IABA guidance says recording is prohibited when the caller objects, and Zendesk’s guidance says to honor a participant’s decision not to be recorded. Stop recording, note it in the CRM, and decide whether the call continues.

A manager listens in live. Monitoring is not the same as recording, but the notice language commonly covers both (“recorded or monitored”). Use that wording.

A lead vendor sends you recordings. Do not assume the vendor’s consent covers your use. Ask what disclosure was given, and whether it named your agency. Lead buyers working through the Lead Marketplace or any other source should keep the consent evidence next to the lead.

Agents call from personal phones. That moves the call outside your notice, consent log and recording controls. Route calls through the platform.

A short compliance checklist for agency owners

• Adopt one all-party standard across all scripts and all states.
• Put the disclosure in the first 10 seconds of every call, inbound and outbound.
• Store consent events in the CRM with the call record. Our post on CRM call logging covers the fields worth capturing.
• Give agents a stop-recording control and a script for objections.
• Review the disclosure in a weekly call sample.
• Revisit the policy with counsel at least once a year. State rules and court readings change.

This article is general information, not legal advice. For your specific states, scripts and lead sources, confirm with an attorney who handles telemarketing and privacy law for insurance agencies.

FAQ

Which states are two-party consent states?

The principal all-party states are California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington, with Michigan covered in some third-party situations. Some charts also include Connecticut, Nevada and Oregon, because those states apply all-party rules in certain settings. Sources differ, so confirm the current rule for any state you call into.

Is a recording notice enough, or do I need a verbal yes?

Industry guidance says a notice such as “this call may be recorded or monitored for quality assurance” may support implied consent if the caller stays on the line. It also says recording is prohibited if the caller objects. Asking for a clear verbal yes on outbound calls gives you a stronger record.

What happens if my agent and the customer are in different states?

It can be unclear which state’s law controls. The safest course is to get consent from all parties, or follow the strictest law that could apply. That is why many agencies run one all-party script nationwide.

What are the penalties for recording a call illegally?

Federal law allows up to five years’ imprisonment and civil claims for compensatory or punitive damages, attorney fees and costs. State civil statutes often add a private right of action for damages and fees. Penalties vary by state, so ask counsel about the states where you operate.

Sources

• Kilpatrick Townsend wiretap laws chart, July 2024
• Supreme Court of California opinion, 2021
• Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Introduction to the Reporter’s Recording Guide
• National Law Review, Challenges in State and Federal Wiretap Act Differences
• Independent Agents & Brokers of America, recording or monitoring business phone calls, 2024
• Digital Media Law Project, Recording Phone Calls and Conversations
• Zendesk, Best practices for call recording
• Ogletree Deakins, record and transcribe tools
• Justia, 50-state survey on recording calls and conversations