The Playbook
The Playbook: AEO, AI, and compliance for insurance agencies.
Build guides, explainers, analysis, and original research for insurance agencies. Every post is anchored to named data and written to be cited by AI engines. The badge on each card tells you which kind it is, and every build guide is collected on one page.
Why Your AI Can't Read Conversations in a HIPAA GoHighLevel Sub-Account
Turn on HIPAA in a GoHighLevel sub-account and the messages endpoint returns 401 CONVERSATIONS_HIPAA_RESTRICTED. Nothing in HighLevel's docs says so. We ran the test on our own accounts: what still works, why your follow-up AI went quiet, and the architecture that never needed that endpoint.
Sep 9, 2026
AnalysisWhy Google Suspends Insurance Agency Business Profiles
Google's own guidelines name insurance agents directly as individual practitioners with a specific naming rule, and its 2025 Trust & Safety Report says it removed over 13 million fake Business Profiles. Here's the mechanism most multi-producer offices break, sourced live, and the fix.
Sep 8, 2026
AnalysisWhy Your Insurance Agency's Review Funnel Could Get Fined
The FTC's Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule bans routing customers to a public review based on their star rating. The reputation template built into most agency CRMs does exactly that, sourced live from the FTC and Google.
Sep 7, 2026
ExplainerWhy Insurance Agents Can't Buy Google Verified Ads
Google retired the Google Guaranteed and Google Screened badges for a single Google Verified badge in 2025, but its own Local Services Ads documentation still lists insurance agency as California and Florida only. Here's the mechanism, sourced live.
Sep 6, 2026
AnalysisWhy Your Agency's GoHighLevel Texts Stopped Sending
Your CRM shows the follow-up text as sent, but it never reaches the phone. GoHighLevel and Twilio's own docs confirm unregistered numbers face extra carrier fees and heavier filtering. Here's the A2P 10DLC registration step, sourced live, and how to fix it.
Sep 5, 2026
AnalysisWhy Google Keeps Blocking Your Insurance Ads Before AEP
Google won't run a health, Medicare, or ACA insurance ad without a separate G2RS certificate, and it takes about 14 days to clear. Here's the exact mechanism, sourced from Google, CMS, and the FTC, and the timeline that gets you running before October 15.
Sep 4, 2026
AnalysisDoes Your Agency's AI Have to Admit It's Not Human?
California and Utah already require some AI bots to admit they're not human, and Oregon just gave consumers the right to sue over it. Here's exactly what reaches an insurance agency's AI receptionist or chat widget, sourced from the enrolled bill text, and what still doesn't.
Sep 3, 2026
AnalysisDoes an llms.txt File Get Your Agency Cited by AI?
A study of nearly 300,000 domains found no link between having an llms.txt file and getting cited by AI, and Google says plainly it ignores the file. Here is what actually decides whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, or AI Overviews name your agency.
Sep 2, 2026
ExplainerWhy AI Mode May Never Cite the Same Page AI Overviews Do
Ahrefs analyzed over 500,000 query pairs and found just 13.7% URL overlap between what Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode cite for the same question. Being cited in one tells you almost nothing about the other, sourced live from Google, Ahrefs, Surfer SEO, and SparkToro.
Sep 1, 2026
ExplainerWhy Texas Insurance Agents Still Need Schema Markup, Even Though Google Says They Don't
Google's own 2026 docs say AI Overviews need no special schema. That statement is scoped to Google. Texas alone had 4.17 million ACA shoppers this year, and ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude were never part of that sentence.
Aug 31, 2026
AnalysisWill Switching Websites Cost Your Insurance Agency Rankings?
A study of 892 domain changes found average recovery takes 523 days. That study measures a full domain change, not the same-domain platform swap most agencies actually need. Here's the real risk, sourced live, and the safe migration checklist.
Aug 30, 2026
AnalysisWhy Your Insurance Website Doesn't Show Up in AI Overviews
Google's own docs say one meta tag can block a page from AI Overviews even while it ranks, and Google just added a site-wide opt-out switch too. The mechanism, sourced live, and how to check your own site.
Aug 29, 2026
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