The FCC Dropped Its One-to-One Consent Rule. Four States Kept Theirs.
For most of 2024, every insurance agency running renewal calls or payment-reminder texts was bracing for the FCC's "one-to-one consent" rule. It would have required a separate, documented opt-in for every single seller before an autodialed call or text could go out, even to a customer who already had a relationship with the agency. Then, on January 24, 2025, the Eleventh Circuit struck it down in Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC, ruling the FCC had gone beyond what Congress wrote into the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The FCC formally pulled the rule that July.
A lot of agencies read that as the end of the story. It wasn't. The federal rule died, but several states had already written their own versions into law, and those did not go anywhere.
The states that kept their own rule
Florida's Telephone Solicitation Act (FTSA) requires prior express written consent for any autodialed or prerecorded sales call or text, and that consent has to name the specific number the customer is authorizing. The statute carves out an exemption for licensed insurance agents from a separate licensing law, the Telemarketing Act, but not from the FTSA's consent requirement itself. If your agency calls or texts Florida numbers, that distinction matters.
Oklahoma's Telephone Solicitation Act mirrors Florida's structure almost exactly: written consent, a specific number, no blanket exemption for insurance. Maryland's telemarketing law covers any automated dialing system or recorded message used in an organized calling campaign to Maryland residents, insurance outreach included. Washington goes further and bans commercial robocalls and voicemail drops outright, plus requires telemarketers to register with the state before they call at all.
Why this is an insurance problem specifically
Renewal reminders, payment-lapse follow-up, and quote callbacks are the three calling patterns almost every independent agency runs, and all three are exactly what these laws regulate. A script built around the federal rule's old assumptions (one documented consent covers the relationship, additional outreach is fine) can still violate a state law that never changed. The exposure isn't theoretical: the FTSA alone has produced a steady stream of class-action filings since it opened a private right of action with statutory damages per violation.
None of this means agencies should stop calling customers. It means the compliance question moved from "did we handle the FCC rule" to "do we know which of our calling states has its own rule, and does our consent language match it." Those are two different answers, and a lot of agencies currently have the first one memorized and not the second.
What to check before your next outreach push
A short audit, state by state, for anywhere you call or text: does the state have its own telemarketing consent law (Florida, Oklahoma, Maryland, and Washington are confirmed active; more states have similar bills moving). Does your consent capture the specific phone number, not just a general opt-in. Does your script or system respect the state's calling-hour window where one exists (Florida's FTSA cuts off at 8pm, an hour earlier than the federal 9pm limit). And is the consent record actually retrievable if a regulator or a plaintiff's attorney asks for it next year, not just logged somewhere nobody can find.
This is the kind of check that's easy to put off because it touches four states' worth of statute language instead of one clean federal rule. An agent who reads and proposes a compliant outreach plan, routes anything ambiguous to a person, and keeps the consent record where it can actually be produced, closes that gap without anyone having to become a telemarketing lawyer. See how that fits an agency's existing calling workflow on our insurance page, or read more about how the handoff to a person works when something needs a judgment call.
Sources: Venable, "Eleventh Circuit Overrules FCC's One-to-One Consent Rule"; Pillsbury Law on the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act; McGuireWoods on Florida's FTSA amendments.