Guide · Forms in the chat · For the insurer, lender or shop that wants quotes and applications inside WhatsApp
Insurance quotes, loan offers and product finders inside WhatsApp: Meta's ready-made Flow templates, photo and document uploads, and the 20-day file rule
Meta's loan guide says back-and-forth messaging can leave customers uncertain, so they drop off. A WhatsApp Flow replaces that with a short form that opens inside the chat. Meta's developer pages walk through three ready-made templates for exactly these jobs: an insurance quote, a pre-approved loan or card offer, and a product finder. This guide puts them into plain words for the owner: what each one asks, why live prices need your own system, how customers upload photos and documents, the limits, how long WhatsApp keeps those files, and when you can send the form first.
Published 19 October 2026
Where the three templates are
Meta's getting-started page says the WhatsApp Business Platform gives you WhatsApp Manager as part of your WhatsApp Business account. Each of Meta's use-case guides then starts the same way: in the Flows section of WhatsApp Manager, click Create Flow, give the Flow a name, and pick a template:
- Provide Insurance Quote
- For a quote built from the customer's answers.
- Pre-Approved Loan
- For leads on a pre-approved loan or credit card offer.
- Capture interest for a personalised offer
- For narrowing a choice down to the right product and an intent to buy.
Meta says you can customise each template to suit your business. While you edit, the Flow stays in draft, and you can share it with your team for testing only. To send it to a large audience you publish it, and the insurance quote and loan pages (both updated 2 July 2026) say you can't edit a Flow once it is published.
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An insurance quote in the chat
Meta's insurance quote guide says a Flow lets customers understand their options and get a quote inside the chat, without exchanging messages back and forth. The template is built to:
- Collect
- Collect the information needed to build a personalised quote.
- Choose the excess
- Let the customer customise their preferred excess amount.
- Ask about who is covered
- Request appropriate personal information about the people the insurance will cover.
- Payment frequency
- Let the customer choose how often to pay.
- Show the plans
- Show the insurance plans available for those choices, with a description of each.
Meta says the template can be adapted to collect more information from the customer.
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A pre-approved loan or card offer
Meta's loan guide says people use WhatsApp to access financial services, but back-and-forth messaging and a lack of structured guidance can leave them uncertain, so they drop off in the middle. Its template is built to:
- Offer
- Present options made for this customer, which they can then adjust. In Meta's example, the first screen opens with a loan amount and repayment period already chosen, and when the customer picks a different amount or period, the screen shows the new monthly payment.
- Collect
- Collect the customer's choices and the details you need.
- Confirm who they are
- In Meta's example, by asking for the date of birth. Meta adds that it could be done by uploading a photo or a document.
- Close the loop
- Confirm the application is complete, both in the Flow and with a follow-up message.
Meta says the template can be adapted to add security such as a one-time code, and that a template for a full loan application journey, with KYC and suitability checks, is also available.
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A product finder for a sale
Meta's personalised offer guide says a Flow lets customers select, customise and signal that they want to buy, without leaving WhatsApp or speaking to an agent. The template is built to:
- Narrow the choice
- Offer options such as budget, size and purpose to narrow down to a specific product.
- Recommend
- Recommend a list of products based on those answers, with a detailed overview of each.
- Confirm
- Confirm the product the customer picked and let them go ahead with a purchase.
Meta says the template can be adapted to any product or service, and that it can improve marketing campaign results during large sales events by giving a targeted offer for specific products. Meta's example starts by asking which product the customer wants, and adds extra questions when it is a phone.
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Live prices need your own system
Each of Meta's guides connects the Flow to an endpoint: an address on the business's own system. Meta says the endpoint can provide dynamic data for the Flow, control which screen comes next, and receive the answers the customer submits. The guides set one up only as a demo, and point developers to Meta's separate instructions for building a real one.
Meta says Flow monitoring applies only to Flows with an endpoint. Once the Flow is published and being sent, its Details page in WhatsApp Manager shows a performance dashboard, and Meta says it is important to watch the Flow's health and fix problems as WhatsApp finds them.
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Photos and documents inside the form
Meta's media upload page says a Flow can ask customers to upload files, with two kinds of upload field:
- Photos
- From the camera, the gallery, or both, as the business chooses.
- Documents
- From the phone's files or the gallery. Accepted types include PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, ZIP files, plain text, common image types such as JPEG, PNG and HEIC, and MP4 video.
The limits Meta lists:
- One per screen
- One upload field per screen, and never a photo field and a document field on the same screen.
- 25 MiB
- The largest each file can be, and the default. The business can set it lower, and sets how many files are required; zero makes the upload optional.
- 10 files, 100 MiB
- The most that can come back in the message WhatsApp sends to the chat when the customer finishes, in total.
- Old phones
- Some old Android and iOS versions don't recognise every file type, so a customer may be able to pick a different type from the ones you allowed.
Meta also says WhatsApp does not guarantee that the files customers share are not malicious, and tells businesses to protect themselves when processing them. For files sent to the business's own system, Meta says they are stored on WhatsApp's servers only temporarily, for up to 20 days, encrypted, and the system must download, decrypt and check each one.
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What one screen can hold
Meta's components page says a screen can hold up to 50 components. The building blocks it lists include:
- Text
- Headings, body text, and rich text for long texts such as terms and conditions, policy documents and user agreements.
- Answers
- Text boxes, tick boxes, single-choice buttons, dropdowns, a switch and selectable chips.
- Dates
- A date picker and a calendar.
- Consent and links
- An opt-in tick box and links inside the form.
- Pictures
- Images and image carousels.
- Uploads and lists
- The upload fields above, and navigation lists.
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Sending the form, and when you can send it first
Meta's insurance quote guide gives the two ways to send a Flow:
- As a message template
- Doesn't need an open 24-hour customer service window, so you can message first. Meta's template page says a Flow can be sent this way, for example as part of a marketing campaign, once the template has passed review and is approved.
- As an interactive Flow message
- Can only be sent while a customer service window is open, after the customer has written to you.
When the customer completes the Flow, Meta says WhatsApp sends a response message to the chat. Before publishing, all validation errors and publishing checks must be resolved, the Flow must meet Meta's design principles for Flows, and it must comply with WhatsApp's Terms of Service, the WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy and, where it applies, the WhatsApp Commerce Policy.
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What this means for your business
BitByteCore is a verified Meta Tech Provider (since 9 September 2026). This guide repeats Meta's pages as we read them on 19 October 2026, and is not legal or insurance advice.
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Questions
Can a customer get an insurance quote inside WhatsApp?
Yes, with a WhatsApp Flow on the WhatsApp Business Platform. WhatsApp Manager has a ready-made template, Provide Insurance Quote, that collects the details, lets the customer choose an excess, asks about the people to be covered, lets them choose how often to pay, and shows the plans. The prices themselves come from your own system connected to the Flow.
Can customers upload photos or a PDF into a WhatsApp form?
Yes. Meta's media upload page describes a photo field (camera, gallery or both) and a document field that accepts types including PDF, Word, Excel and images. The default limit is 25 MiB per file, one upload field per screen, and at most 10 files and 100 MiB in the finished response message.
How long does WhatsApp keep the files customers upload?
For files sent to the business's own system, Meta says they are stored on WhatsApp's servers temporarily, for up to 20 days, encrypted. Your system must download, decrypt and check each one, so copy them into your own records in time.
Can I send a loan or product offer form to customers who haven't messaged me?
Only as an approved message template, which doesn't need an open 24-hour window. Meta's page gives a marketing campaign as an example. In a chat the customer started, you can send the Flow directly while the window is open.
Can I ask for an Emirates ID copy in the form?
Meta's loan template mentions a photo or a document as one way to confirm identity, but WhatsApp's policy says not to ask for ID card numbers or other sensitive identifiers. Our finance guide sets out that rule; check it, and your own regulator's rules, first.
Who is BitByteCore?
BitByteCore is a verified Meta Tech Provider (since 9 September 2026). This guide repeats Meta's own pages, and is not legal or insurance advice.
Sources
- Meta's developer documentation: Getting started with WhatsApp Flows, read 19 October 2026.
- Meta's developer documentation: Use Case Guide, Insurance Quote, read 19 October 2026.
- Meta's developer documentation: Use Case Guide, Get leads for a pre-approved loan / credit card, read 19 October 2026.
- Meta's developer documentation: Use Case Guide, Capture interest for a personalised offer, read 19 October 2026.
- Meta's developer documentation: Flows, media upload (photos and documents), read 19 October 2026.
- Meta's developer documentation: Flows, components, read 19 October 2026.
- Meta's developer documentation: Sending a Flow as a message template, read 19 October 2026.
This guide describes Meta's pages as we read them, and is not legal advice. More plain-language notes like this one are on the guides page.
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