Note taker for insurance agents: listen to the client, get the notes in your own format

A note taker for insurance agents records your conversations with clients — a first talk about coverage, a renewal review, a call about a claim — so you can listen instead of typing, and then turns each one into notes. Dalm is a Mac app: it records a video call without joining it, and a call on your phone when the phone is on speaker beside the Mac. Speech is recognised on your Mac and the audio is not sent anywhere; the transcript, as text, goes to our servers automatically, and a language model from a third-party provider reads it to write the summary. There is a Free plan.

What an agent needs from a call with a client

Most of an agent’s work with a client is talk, and much of it happens on the phone. A first conversation about coverage is where you learn who lives in the house, who drives which car, what the business does and what worries the client. A renewal review is about what changed since last year — a new driver, a new roof, a second location. A call about a claim comes when something has gone wrong, and the client needs you to listen. Each time, what you need afterwards is the client’s own words, what they decided, including what they chose to leave out, and what you promised next: a quote, a change to the policy, a call back. A transcript of the call is not that note; it is what the note is made from. This page is about property and casualty work — home, auto and small business. If your client conversations are about investments and a financial plan, the page for financial advisors covers them.

Phone calls on speaker, video calls and meetings in person

Dalm runs on your Mac, so a call on your phone is recorded with the phone on speaker next to it, through the Mac’s microphone — the same way as a meeting across a desk or at a client’s kitchen table. Start it with ⌃⌥M or the Meeting button. On a video call, the app takes what your microphone hears and what the call app plays, and nothing joins the call, so the client sees no bot; when Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack or FaceTime takes the microphone, it offers to record. On speaker, your voice and the client’s both come through the microphone, so after the call you can mark which voice is yours and give the other the client’s name. The recording does not stop when the call ends: stop it before the next one, or the next conversation lands in the same recording. Step by step: a phone call, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet.

A coverage call, a renewal review, a claim call: what you get after each

Dalm reads each conversation, decides what kind of meeting it was and writes that at the top; the label is not yours to pick, and a conversation it cannot place gets a general one. A first talk about coverage, a renewal review and a call about a claim are each labelled by what was said in them, and which documents the app offers follows from that label.

Whatever the label, you get the transcript and a summary written without being asked, where each point keeps the client’s words it came from, and a date or a name nobody mentioned is left blank rather than guessed. Fix any line before you rely on it. Limits, deductibles, premiums and dates in a summary come only from what was said or what you typed in your notes — the model that writes it sees the transcript and your notes, nothing from a carrier or your agency’s system — so check every figure against the policy or the quote before it goes anywhere. Which coverage to suggest stays your call.

The note in your own format is the part to set up once: describe it in your own words as a template and tick the box to build it after each new meeting. For example:

The call	What you might ask your template for
A first talk about coverage	Who and what is to be insured, as the client described it; what they asked you to quote; what you promised to send, and by when
A renewal review	What changed since last year, in the client’s words; what they added or chose to leave out; what is left to do before the renewal date
A call about a claim	What happened, where and when, as the client told it; who else was involved; what you told them happens next

A ticked template is built after every new meeting, whatever the call was about, so one agent’s note that fits all three usually serves better than three separate ones. Check what it wrote against the transcript before you file it. A letter to the client after the call is covered on the client recap page.

What happens to what a client tells you on a call

Speech from the call is recognised on your Mac, and no audio is sent anywhere. The audio is deleted once the text exists. The text is what leaves. The transcript is synced to our servers automatically — there is no setting that keeps it on the Mac — and a language model from a third-party provider reads it, with your notes, to write the summary and the documents you ask for. On our servers the text has no expiry date: it stays for as long as your account, or the agency workspace the call was filed in, exists, unless you delete it. So a client’s address, the cars in the driveway and the story of a claim are text we hold as well as you. What is kept where is on the privacy page.

Keeping clients apart from each other and from the agency

Give each client, or each household on your book of business, a tag — one of eight colours or one you make — and their calls come together in one list; narrow it by person, by period or by the kind of meeting. Search goes through transcripts, call names and descriptions and the text of documents, though not your notes, so the name of a driver or a date mentioned months ago turns up again. If you work in an agency, your personal workspace and the agency’s team sit side by side: a call is filed in whichever was selected when you scheduled it or started recording, and it cannot be moved later, so look at the switch before you dial. In the agency’s workspace, who else sees a call depends on their role and on the kind of meeting the app filed it under; the team page explains the roles. If you are removed from the agency’s team, the calls you recorded there stay with the agency, and your dictations go with you.

From the call to your agency’s system

Everything you say lands in one archive you can search: meetings, phone calls, conversations in the room, and what you dictate to a model. Dalm’s assistant answers questions about one meeting at a time, and asking one question across all your records is in development. What you agreed to do in a call goes into one list of tasks by due date, and decisions into a log by month; calls of some kinds stay out of both. In the summary, each point keeps the words the client used. Every quote shows you where it was said — open it and the transcript opens at that place. Getting the note into your agency’s own system is your step: copy the text, save a document as a Word, PDF or Markdown file, or dictate — hold the right ⌘, speak, let go, and the words are typed into whatever field your cursor is in, the note field of that system included. Dictations are kept as text on our servers too.

How to tell a client their call is being recorded

Dalm says nothing to the people on a call and adds nothing to it, so letting the client know is up to you; before your first meeting, the app reminds you. Whether your agency, the carriers you work with or the rules where you and the client are let a call be recorded and its text kept by an outside service is not something this page decides. What it can give you is an accurate way to put it, for example:

“I’m going to have my Mac take notes on this call. It turns what we say into text on my computer and doesn’t hold on to the sound, other than a few seconds of each voice until I label it. The text is kept on the app’s servers, where an AI model run by another company reads it to write up the call.”

If someone from an insurance company joins the call, the same goes for them. If the client would rather not, take notes by hand that time. The rules on recording consent differ by place, and the rules state by state are set out separately.

When Dalm is not the right fit for an insurance agent

• When your agency, or a carrier you are appointed with, approves the tools that touch client conversations and has not approved this one. Ask them first; nothing on this page answers for them.
• When a client’s conversation may not be held by an outside service, even as text. The transcript goes to our servers, and a language model reads it.
• When a call has to be kept exactly as it happened — the audio, or a transcript nobody can change. The audio is deleted once the text exists, and a transcript can be edited afterwards.
• When notes must land in your agency’s system without you. They come out as text you copy, a Word, PDF or Markdown file, or words you dictate into the field yourself.
• When most of your calls happen away from a Mac — in the car, between appointments. Dalm records on the Mac, and a phone call only on speaker next to it.
• When you or your agency work on Windows or on an Intel Mac. Dalm needs a Mac with Apple Silicon · macOS 15.0 or later.
• When the call is a quick one: a recording under 100 words — a payment confirmed, a date checked — is not counted as a meeting.

Free for one agent, Team for an agency

Calls, transcripts and summaries cost nothing on the Free plan, which is a plan of its own rather than a trial. An agency that works in a team shares one dictionary of terms — carrier names, policy forms, the words your clients use — one set of tags, and one set of templates, so every agent’s note after a renewal review follows the same format. Who sees whose calls is on the team page; what the paid plans add is on the pricing page. Dalm needs a Mac with Apple Silicon · macOS 15.0 or later and an account, and until it is public, the waitlist is the way in.