EasyCare’s AI Coach Scores the F&I Pitches It Sells

EasyCare on April 2, 2026 launched EasyCoach, an AI tool that records finance-office talks and scores the product pitches that feed its own vehicle service contracts. The APCO Holdings brand sells those contracts, then wraps Siro conversation software in an EasyCare playbook it calls AI-powered coaching.

Pilot stores, EasyCare said, posted average gains of 15% in per-vehicle retail and 18% in products per deal inside three months.

EasyCoach Puts a Scorer in the Finance Office

EasyCoach lives in the F&I office, the room where a buyer who already took a car is offered service contracts, GAP, and add-ons. The product records and analyzes real finance conversations and turns that tape into coaching for finance managers.

EasyCare says the tool tracks process steps, products offered, how deals close, and compliance risk. It is sold as a coach in the room for every deal, built on the company’s training approach rather than a generic script, with readouts for one manager, one store, or a whole group.

Traditional F&I coaching still leans on month-end reports and a director who sat in on a few deals. Those files show the result and hide the talk. EasyCare’s eBook on the method argues for a shift from periodic reviews to a continuous loop, and it cites a 90 to 120 day pilot that raised vehicle service contract penetration by 2% to 3% and ancillary product penetration by up to 8%.

Those lifts sit on the same catalog EasyCare already puts through the desk. The coaching language is real. So is the distribution incentive.

The $1,986 Behind Every Delivery

The National Automobile Dealers Association counted 16,990 franchised light-vehicle dealers in its 2025 full-year report, and those stores sold 16.2 million light-duty vehicles. The money that still holds is in the back end of the deal, after the windshield sticker has already been fought over.

StoneEagleDATA’s first-quarter 2026 F&I snapshot, drawn from stores it says represent more than half of U.S. auto retail, is the baseline these coaching lifts get judged against.

INDUSTRY F&I READINGS, Q1 2026

The same dataset found average front-end profit per deal down 21% from January 2025, even after that figure stayed above pre-pandemic levels. A group can print yesterday’s PVR to the dollar and still not know which sentence in the box lost a service contract, and that is the hole a product company is now willing to fill with a microphone.

The Warranty Company Wrote the Playbook

EasyCare has marketed automotive aftermarket products since 1984, when founder Larry Dorfman built the brand around post-sale protection. The April launch notice said APCO Holdings brands have protected over 24 million customers and paid over $3.7 billion in claims, and that EasyCare’s F&I products carry a MotorTrend Recommended Best Buy mark for franchised dealers.

The software is powered by Siro. The product page still tells dealers to use the EasyCare playbook. The company that wants penetration is the company scoring whether the product was presented.

Dealerships have long understood that the F&I office plays a critical role in profitability. EasyCoach gives leaders the ability to see what’s really happening in their finance offices and use those insights to develop their teams in a more focused, effective way.

Courtney Hoffman, President, APCO Holdings, EasyCoach launch statement

Mark Cortez, chief revenue officer for APCO Holdings, said EasyCoach helps dealers develop F&I professionals from real transactions while they keep compliance standards. Jake Cronin, chief executive of Siro, has described the F&I case in blunter terms, with scorecards that rate a manager on product explanation so the director is no longer the only person delivering the bad news.

“It’s like Siro is scoring you and it’s telling you that you are actually a four out of 10 in explaining this product,” Cronin said.

Tony Wanderon, chief executive of APCO Holdings, told a NADA Show audience in February 2026 that recording finance presentations through the Siro partnership excited him more than anything over the last 10 to 20 years. He talked about leaving reactive training behind. The tape makes that possible, and it also makes the catalog audible.

What the Recordings Flag on Every Deal

Siro captures in-person talk from a phone or a tablet, the way a voice memo does, and it works in F&I, the service drive, and the showroom. Live tips can land during a conversation, and a transcript follows so a manager is not scribbling while a buyer sits across the desk. Cronin has said the setup takes minutes on devices the store already owns, and that getting a team to actually hit record takes a couple of weeks of focused change work.

The company says it can record in-person conversations across every department and give F&I directors, general managers, and principals a view they cannot get by sitting in on a handful of deals. It also says it is not a dedicated compliance product. Missed disclosures and script drift still surface, because every talk is reviewed.

WHAT THE SYSTEM SCORES ON EACH DEAL

• Process steps: Whether the finance office ran the required sequence, not only whether a contract printed at the end.
• Products offered: Which items on the menu were actually presented, including vehicle service contracts and add-ons.
• Closing work: How objections were handled and how the deal was asked for before the pen moved.
• Compliance flags: Missed disclosures and script drift, caught as a byproduct of the coaching file rather than a separate audit tool.

Consent is the friction that never shows up in a PVR chart. Zurich later shipped consent workflows for states that require a buyer’s say-so. Stores that skip that step never get the tape, and stores that treat the tape as a folder of audio never get the lift.

One Store Recorded and Nothing Moved

Siro, the platform under EasyCoach, published a three-store test at Modern Automotive, a franchise group in the greater Charlotte, N.C., area. The group compared a pre-Siro control period with a test month and set a success line of a $100 rise in per-vehicle retail.

The stores posted a $134 average PVR increase in under 30 days, and the top location was up $318. A third store had access and used it little. Siro said that location saw no material improvement. Managers at the stores that cleared the line listened to their own conversations and worked the prompts, while leaders used the same files to reinforce the behaviors they wanted.

A store can already recite yesterday’s penetration. It cannot replay the minute a service contract died in the pitch, which is why groups will accept a microphone from a product company. It is also why a recorder with no coaching cadence is just another folder of audio.

The Same Coach Under a Different Logo

Zurich North America, which also sells F&I products through franchised dealers, launched Advisor IQ on June 8, 2026. The insurer said the platform records, monitors, and analyzes F&I conversations and returns insights in as little as 15 minutes.

Zurich Advisor IQ launches, giving F&I managers AI-powered coachinghttps://t.co/B0lNvBElFG pic.twitter.com/sYpnIZKQUL

— Zurich North America (@ZurichNA) June 8, 2026

As the F&I environment becomes more complex, car dealers need tools that deliver clarity, certainty and measurable results. Zurich Advisor IQ brings AI-powered coaching directly into the flow of real deals, giving F&I teams the confidence to perform at a higher level in every interaction.

Dante Pileri, Head of Sales for Direct Markets, Zurich North America

Zurich’s own description puts needs analysis, menu presentations, and customer engagement at the center, and it built consent workflows for states that require them. The buyer is supposed to hear a clearer pitch. The store is supposed to see PVR, products per deal, and product use. The catalog is in the room either way.

THE 2026 COACHING ROLL CALL

1. April 2, 2026: EasyCare launches EasyCoach powered by Siro from Ponte Vedra, Fla., after in-store pilots.
2. April 24, 2026: Siro publishes the Modern Automotive three-store test, including the location that recorded and did not move.
3. June 4, 2026: EasyCare and Siro host a dealer-group webinar on live analysis of finance conversations.
4. June 8, 2026: Zurich North America launches Advisor IQ for F&I managers.

Hoffman said leaders needed to see the finance office, and EasyCoach gives them that view. Zurich followed in June with Advisor IQ, another product company scoring the same desk. Both pitches lead with PVR and products per deal, and both keep the tape.