What This License Is
An Alaska Life license lets you solicit, negotiate and sell life insurance and annuity contracts in the state. It is issued by the Alaska Division of Insurance, a division of the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development — which is why every statute you will read says the director rather than the commissioner.
The Life line includes annuities. You do not need a separate authority to sell a fixed annuity, but you do need a one-time four-credit-hour annuity best-interest training course before you recommend one (3 AAC 26.778(b)) — Alaska adopted the NAIC best-interest standard effective 23 November 2022. Variable life and variable annuities are a different animal: they are their own Alaska line of authority, they require the Life line underneath them, and they require a FINRA registration number, but there is no additional Alaska exam for them.
Alaska has no combined Life and Health exam. If you want both lines, you sit the Life exam and the Health exam as two separate exams — which the fee combination makes cheaper than it sounds, since two exams in one test-center session cost a single fee. Compare the [Life & Health guide](/insurance/alaska/life-and-health/licensing-guide) before you commit to Life alone.
Exam Options & Format
The Alaska Life exam is level 01 with Pearson VUE, and like every Alaska producer exam it comes in two parts sat back to back in one appointment: Part 1, General Knowledge and Part 2, Life — Alaska Specific. The March 2025 content outlines put the general part at 50 scored questions plus 5 pretest and the Alaska part at 40 scored plus 10 pretest — 90 scored, 105 items total. The September 2023 handbook still prints 60 and 50 (110 items). The outlines are the newer document, so this guide follows them, but expect somewhere in the 105–110 range on the day.
Timing comes only from the 2023 handbook: 1 hour 15 minutes for the general part and 1 hour for the Alaska part, about 2 hours 15 minutes of seat time. The Alaska part is itself split — roughly 30 questions of material common to all lines (the licensing, trade-practice and claim-handling rules every Alaska producer answers) and 10 questions specific to life insurance.
You may test at a Pearson VUE test center or online through OnVUE, which is live for Alaska and which the Division's own 2025 exam data confirms candidates actually used. The fee is $89 per attempt per the handbook — treat that as a figure to confirm at booking, since the handbook is nearly three years old and Pearson VUE does not post a price on its live Alaska page. Two exams taken in one test-center session cost a single exam fee; OnVUE charges per exam with no discount.
Most Tested Topics on the Alaska Life Exam
The Alaska portion of the Life exam rewards a narrow kind of studying: learn the national policy-provision baseline, then learn the handful of places Alaska's numbers differ from it. These are drawn from AS 21.45 (life policy provisions) and 3 AAC 26, the chapters the content outline names as tested.
| Concept | The Alaska rule |
|---|---|
| Incontestability | 2 years from date of issue, during the insured's lifetime — AS 21.45.040 |
| Grace period | 30 days, or one month of not less than 30 days — but 4 weeks for industrial life paid more often than monthly (AS 21.45.030) |
| Reinstatement window | 3 years from premium default — 2 years for industrial life (AS 21.45.110) |
| Reinstatement interest cap | Back premiums with interest not exceeding 6% a year, compounded annually (AS 21.45.110) |
| Suicide exclusion | 2 years from date of issue, and the statute says "while sane or insane" (AS 21.45.250) |
| Free look, life and annuity | 10 days after delivery — the same statute expressly covers annuity contracts (AS 21.45.020(c)(2)) |
| Nonforfeiture options | Cash surrender value, paid-up nonforfeiture benefit, extended term (AS 21.45.300, .305) |
| Annuity best interest | Adopted, effective 23 November 2022 — care, disclosure, conflict of interest, documentation (3 AAC 26.775) |
| Annuity training | One-time 4 credit hours, approved by the director, before you may recommend an annuity (3 AAC 26.778(b)) |
| Variable products | Life authority first, then FINRA registration — no separate Alaska exam (AS 21.27.020) |
Two of these carry most of the wrong answers. The first is the industrial-life split: candidates memorize "30-day grace, 3-year reinstatement" from national prep and miss the Alaska sentence that shortens both for industrial policies — four weeks and two years respectively. The second is the free-look fork. Alaska's ordinary free look is a plain 10 days for life and annuities alike, but the moment a transaction is a replacement, 3 AAC 26.805 stretches it to 30 days with an unconditional refund. If a question mentions replacement, the answer is 30.
Worth knowing even though it sits in the common-to-all-lines block: Alaska's replacement rules impose a duty most states do not. Under 3 AAC 26.795 the producer must read the replacement notice aloud to the applicant unless the applicant declines, and both parties sign to certify that it was read or declined. The [Life & Health guide](/insurance/alaska/life-and-health/licensing-guide) covers the replacement machinery, and the 30-day replacement free look, in full.
Applying for Your Alaska License Through NIPR — Every Step
Passing the Life exam does not make you a producer. The application does, and in Alaska it runs almost entirely by keyboard: the Division states that it handles nearly all documentation by email, accepts digital signatures and digital forms, and assigns examiners by applicant surname (A–E, F–L, M–R, S–Z). Exactly one document has to travel by post, and it is the fingerprint card.
Step 1 — Watch the two clocks. Your exam score is valid for one year from the exam date (3 AAC 23.070); apply after that and you retake. Separately, once your application reaches the Division, every filing requirement must be met within four months or the application is treated as withdrawn and the fees are gone. These are two different clocks and both bite.
Step 2 — File at nipr.com. Choose Alaska, individual, resident, and select your line or lines of authority. NIPR is what the Division links to from its own Licensees page for initial applications. Sircon supports Alaska too for producer apply and renew, though Sircon lists appointments, terminations and affiliations as unsupported for Alaska. Whichever you use, filing electronically matters: submitting a paper application when you could have filed online adds a $50 processing fee under the current fee schedule.
Step 3 — Pay $75, once, for everything. This is the detail that surprises producers moving from other states. Alaska's producer license fee is $75 biennially for "any or all lines" — it does not scale with lines of authority. Adding Health, Property, Casualty and Personal Lines later costs nothing extra in state fees. The $47 fingerprint processing fee rides along with the application fees. NIPR adds its own transaction fee, which NIPR does not publish. Everything you pay the Division is nonrefundable under 3 AAC 31.010.
Step 4 — Answer the background questions honestly, then document them. Any affirmative answer needs paperwork behind it. Note that Alaska treats disclosure as an ongoing duty, not a one-time one: AS 21.27.025 requires written notice to the director within 30 days of any administrative action by a governmental or financial regulatory authority, and of any criminal prosecution, with the final order or the complaint and calendaring order attached. Late notice carries graduated penalties — $50 at 1–60 days, $100 at 61–120, $200 beyond that.
Step 5 — Mail the fingerprint card. The card, the Privacy and Consent form and the $47 go together, and the permanent license issues only after the Division has the application, the fees and the card, has approved them, and has forwarded the card onward (3 AAC 23.010(c)). The [Casualty guide](/insurance/alaska/casualty-only/licensing-guide) walks the fingerprint step in detail — including the one thing you should telephone the Division about before you post anything.
Step 6 — Track it, then verify it. The Division's licensing mailbox is insurancelicensing@alaska.gov and the licensing line is (907) 269-7900. Once issued, your license is visible and printable through NAIC State Based Systems (SBS), which is also where Alaska tracks your CE credits and lists approved courses — SBS is not used to apply, only to look up, print and monitor.
What It Costs
Alaska is inexpensive to enter and unusually flat once you are in. There is no course requirement to buy, no per-line license fee, and no appointment fee — appointments must be made within 30 days of the agency contract or your first application (AS 21.27.100), but they are not filed with the Division and carry no charge.
The one cost nobody can quote you is the fingerprinter's rolling fee. 3 AAC 23.010 makes the applicant responsible for it, the Department of Public Safety tells you to contact providers directly, and no agency publishes a figure. Budget for it as an unknown of modest size on top of the $47 that goes to the State.
Eligibility Requirements
AS 21.27.020 is short. You must be at least 18, you must be a bona fide resident of Alaska before the resident license issues, and you must pass the required examination. Nothing about coursework appears anywhere in the statute or in 3 AAC 23 — Alaska is one of the roughly thirty states that mandate no pre-licensing education.
Two conditions run the other way. If your prior Alaska license was revoked, 3 AAC 23.080 requires you to retake the exam, on the stated ground that the director does not consider you fully qualified and competent. And under AS 21.27.060(b) the director may order any existing licensee to sit and pass an exam where the director finds a Title 21 violation or wants further evidence of qualification.
Keeping Your Life License Active
Important CE details: 24 credit hours per two-year license period, of which at least 3 must be insurance ethics (3 AAC 23.100). Holding more lines of authority does not raise the number. Up to 8 hours carry forward; no more than 8 hours may come from management, marketing and sales training, and those hours cannot be carried over.
Alaska licenses run on a two-year cycle and require 24 credit hours per period, at least 3 of them insurance ethics (3 AAC 23.100). The requirement does not grow with the number of lines you hold — a Life-only producer and a producer holding all five lines owe the same 24 hours. Up to 8 hours carry forward into the next period, but management, marketing and sales training hours cannot carry over and are capped at 8 per period in the first place. Carried-over ethics hours count only as general credit; they will not satisfy the next cycle's 3-hour ethics requirement.
On top of CE, a Life producer picks up one product-specific obligation: the one-time four-credit-hour annuity best-interest course required by 3 AAC 26.778(b) before recommending an annuity. If you also sell long-term care you will need the LTC certification described in the [Health guide](/insurance/alaska/health-only/licensing-guide); the [P&C guide](/insurance/alaska/property-and-casualty/licensing-guide) covers the renewal mechanics, which key off your birth month and the parity of your birth year rather than a flat date.
Quick Reference
Official Links
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