What This License Is
A producer holding both Property and Casualty in Alaska can write the full commercial and personal property-casualty shelf: physical damage and liability, commercial packages, auto, umbrella and workers' compensation. It is the standard general-agency license combination and the prerequisite for a resident surplus lines broker license, which requires producer or MGA authority carrying property and casualty lines (AS 21.34.020(a)).
The structure to internalize: Alaska has no combined Property and Casualty examination. No P&C code exists. You sit level 04 (Property) and level 05 (Casualty), each in two parts — 180 scored questions in total. The handbook's Examination Requirements Chart lists Property and Casualty as separate rows and prints no combined row, which is not an omission.
Note also what this pair does not include. Personal Lines is a separate line of authority in Alaska with its own exam, and full P&C authority does not confer it. That is the reverse of the arrangement in many states, and it catches producers relocating here. The [Personal Lines guide](/insurance/alaska/personal-lines/licensing-guide) covers that line on its own terms.
Exam Options & Format
Each exam has a General Knowledge part and an Alaska Specific part, sat back to back. Per the March 2025 content outlines, each is 50 scored general plus 40 scored Alaska — 90 scored per exam, 180 across the pair, with pretest items on top (105 items per exam per the outlines; the 2023 handbook prints 110). Handbook timings put a combined sitting at roughly four and a half hours.
Book them together. The handbook allows up to two examinations in one session at a physical Pearson VUE test center for a single exam fee, and Property plus Casualty is an allowable pairing. Sit them in separate appointments, or sit either online, and you pay twice — OnVUE applies no multi-exam discount. This is the single largest saving available in Alaska licensing, and it requires nothing but booking correctly.
Each exam is scored independently. A scaled 70 is required on each; a pass on one does not carry to the other, and a failure means retaking that entire exam, both parts. Each score also runs its own one-year validity from its own test date. In 2025 the Division recorded first-time pass rates of 60% for Property and 63% for Casualty at test centers.
Most Tested Topics Across the Alaska Property and Casualty Exams
For a candidate sitting both exams, the material that appears on both Alaska sections is worth the most: the guaranty association that stands behind insolvent P&C carriers, the regulator's identity and powers, and the license-maintenance rules that turn up in the common-to-all-lines block.
| Concept | The Alaska rule |
|---|---|
| P&C guaranty association | Alaska Insurance Guaranty Association, AS 21.80 — three accounts: workers' compensation, auto, and all other |
| Per-claim cap | The association pays only that amount of a covered claim that is less than $500,000 (AS 21.80.060(a)(1)) |
| Workers' compensation claims | Paid in full — no cap |
| Unearned premium | Capped at $10,000 per policy |
| The regulator's title | Director, not Commissioner — every provision of Title 21 reads "the director" |
| Where the regulator sits | The Division of Insurance, inside the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development — Alaska has no standalone insurance department |
| How the Director is chosen | Appointed by the Commissioner of Commerce, Community and Economic Development |
| Where the law lives | Alaska Statutes Title 21; regulations in Title 3 of the Alaska Administrative Code |
| Producer recordkeeping | 5 years after a transaction is completed — 10 years for reinsurance — open to the director at any business time (AS 21.27.350) |
| Responding to the director | Written response to a records inquiry within 10 working days; appointment-list inquiries within 3 working days |
| Appointments | Made within 30 days of the agency contract or the first application (AS 21.27.100), continuing until terminated in writing — but not filed with the Division and carrying no fee |
| Termination for cause | The insurer notifies the director and mails the appointee within 15 days; the appointee then has 30 days to file written comments (AS 21.27.110) |
| Renewal date | The last day of your birth month, in odd or even years matching the parity of your birth year (3 AAC 23.860) |
| Late renewal | $175 total at 1–60 days; $275 plus new application forms beyond 60 days; unrenewable once expired 2 years |
The $500,000 cap with an uncapped workers' compensation carve-out is the highest-value pair of facts here, and candidates routinely get half of it. The statute caps ordinary covered claims below $500,000; it then requires the association to pay workers' compensation claims in full. An answer choice applying the $500,000 ceiling to a comp claim is the planted error.
The "Director, not Commissioner" point looks trivial and is not. Alaska's exam writes state-law questions in statutory language, so the office appears constantly, and national prep material trains candidates to select "Commissioner" reflexively. Alaska also has no Department of Insurance at all — the Division sits inside a commerce department, and the Director is appointed by that department's Commissioner rather than elected or appointed by the Governor.
Finally, the appointment mechanics are an Alaska oddity worth carrying. Appointments must be made within thirty days and continue in force until terminated in writing — but they are not filed with the Division, and Alaska charges no appointment fee. What must be reported is a termination for cause, on a prescribed form, with the insurer's statement of reasons treated as confidential and not subject to public inspection.
Moving In, or Licensing From Outside — Alaska's Reciprocity Rules
Alaska's reciprocity provisions are the reason many producers never sit an Alaska exam at all. Three routes matter, and choosing the right one before you book anything can save the exam entirely.
Route 1 — the 90-day cross-state waiver. If you are moving to Alaska, AS 21.27.060(c) exempts you from the examination where your application arrives within 90 days of canceling a resident license in another state, for the same lines of authority, and either the former state certifies you were in good standing or the NAIC records show it. The Division states the rule in the same terms on its resident-license page. Ninety days is short and it runs from cancellation, not from your move — so file first and unpack later.
Route 2 — the prior-year exemption. AS 21.27.060(d)(2) exempts a person who was licensed in good standing within the preceding year under requirements substantially similar to Alaska's. This is broader in time than Route 1 but narrower in certainty, since "substantially similar" is the director's judgment rather than a checklist.
Route 3 — a nonresident license, no Alaska exam. Under AS 21.27.270, a producer holding an equivalent resident license in good standing in their home state may be licensed as an Alaska nonresident on terms reciprocal with that home state, with the director permitted to verify standing through the NAIC database rather than paperwork. Nonresident producers ordinarily take no Alaska examination. The application runs through NIPR, and Alaska generally does not fingerprint nonresident producers — the home state has already done it.
What a nonresident does have to do is easy to miss: pay the fees, submit the home-state application or the NAIC Uniform Application, provide fingerprints if required, and file a power of attorney appointing the director to receive service of legal process. That last item is a genuine filing, not a formality. Nonresident licensees are also exempt from Alaska CE under AS 21.27.020(f)(5) — the Division's page frames this as satisfying home-state CE instead.
What Alaska will not do is waive an exam for a designation. There is no CLU, ChFC, CPCU, CIC, FLMI, LUTCF or ARM shortcut. AS 21.27.060(d)'s exemption list contains exactly three categories — limited lines, prior licensure within the preceding year under substantially similar requirements, and TPA or PBM compliance officers — and the old "licensing by credentials" regulation, 3 AAC 23.060, has been repealed. Since Alaska requires no pre-licensing education either, there is nothing for a designation to waive.
One further reciprocity lever exists at the director's discretion: AS 21.27.270 allows the director to waive any license application requirement in the chapter to achieve reciprocity under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. That is a regulator's tool rather than an applicant's, but it is why unusual home-state situations are worth a phone call to (907) 269-7900 before assuming the answer is no.
Renewing an Alaska License — the Birth-Year Parity Rule
Alaska renews producer licenses biennially (AS 21.27.380(a)), and it works out your renewal date in a way that exists almost nowhere else. Under 3 AAC 23.860, an individual licensee renews on the last day of the month of their birth — in odd-numbered years if their birth year is odd, and in even-numbered years if their birth year is even.
Read that twice, because both halves catch people. It is the last day of the birth month, not the birthday. And the year is decided by the parity of your birth year, so two producers born in the same month renew in opposite years. Firms follow the same logic on a different anchor: the anniversary of the initial license date, in odd or even years matching the year the license was first issued.
The renewal itself. The fee is $75 — the same flat biennial figure as the initial license, covering any or all lines. Filing a paper renewal when you could renew electronically adds $50. The Division says it recognizes a 90-day renewal window, though the regulation itself does not define the window's mechanics, so treat the three-month runway as practice rather than as a right. The director provides a 30-day renewal notice under AS 21.27.380(a) and (d), mailed to your last recorded address — but the Division is clear that licensees must track their own expiration dates.
CE is a renewal qualification, not a parallel obligation. 3 AAC 23.100 is titled accordingly, and AS 21.27.020 makes 24 hours (3 in ethics) a condition of renewing. Complete the hours and let SBS reflect them before you file.
The lapse ladder — four rungs, and they get steep. 3 AAC 23.860 provides that if the renewal form and fee are not received before the close of business on the renewal date, the license lapses; no grace period is written into the regulation.
1. 1 to 60 days late — a $100 delayed-renewal penalty on top of the $75 fee, $175 in total.
2. More than 60 days late — $200 plus the $75 fee, $275 in total, and new application forms are required.
3. Cancelled or expired more than 12 months — fingerprints again, the full FD-258 card process described in the [Casualty guide](/insurance/alaska/casualty-only/licensing-guide).
4. Expired two years or longer — the license cannot be renewed at all. You start over as a new applicant, which under 3 AAC 23.080 and AS 21.27.060 means re-examination unless an exemption applies.
Two related penalties sit outside the renewal ladder and surprise people. Transacting insurance while expired is prohibited, and AS 21.27.380(b) makes clear that reinstating does not shield you from penalties for the unlicensed business you wrote in the meantime. Separately, AS 21.27.025 imposes its own graduated fines for late reporting of address, name, email, criminal or regulatory changes — $50, $100 and $200 at 1–60, 61–120 and 121-plus days. If you intend to surrender rather than renew, AS 21.27.380(c) requires it be done before the renewal date closes.
What It Costs
For the P&C pair the whole cost question reduces to one booking decision. Sit Property and Casualty in one test-center session and the exams cost a single fee; split them, or take either online, and they cost two. Everything downstream is flat — $47 fingerprint processing once, $75 biennially for the license however many lines it carries, and no appointment fee at all.
Over a career the flat license fee is the real economics of licensing in Alaska: a producer holding Property, Casualty, Life, Health and Personal Lines pays the same $75 every two years as a producer holding one. What is never published is the fingerprinter's rolling charge and NIPR's transaction fee, so treat quoted totals as floors.
Eligibility Requirements
AS 21.27.020 sets the bar for both lines at once: 18 or older, bona fide Alaska residency before a resident license issues, and a passing score on each required examination. Alaska mandates no pre-licensing education for any producer line — 3 AAC 23 Article 1 contains no such section, and the Division's own process description has no coursework step.
Before you assume you need the exams at all, check the waivers above. A producer arriving from another state within 90 days of canceling an equivalent resident license, or licensed in good standing within the preceding year under substantially similar requirements, may be exempt under AS 21.27.060 — and a producer who intends to keep a home-state resident license elsewhere should be looking at a nonresident Alaska license instead, which involves no Alaska exam.
CE for a Two-Line Producer
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.
Holding Property and Casualty does not double anything. 3 AAC 23.100 states that a licensee holding more than one class of authority is not required to complete more hours than a single-line licensee: 24 credit hours per two-year period, at least 3 in insurance ethics, full stop. There is no property-versus-casualty split and no per-line minimum.
The three arithmetic rules that decide whether you actually comply: up to 8 hours carry forward into the next period; no more than 8 hours may come from management, marketing and sales training, and those hours cannot be carried; and carried-over ethics hours arrive as general credit only, so they will not satisfy the next cycle's 3-hour ethics requirement. A licensee whose first period is shorter than a full two years is not caught at all.
Alaska exempts several groups outright — nonresident licensees (AS 21.27.020(f)(5)), holders of temporary and limited-lines licenses, and anyone the Division licensed before 1 January 1980, described on the Division's CE page as licensees holding an active Alaska resident license since 1979 or prior. Non-compliance is handled as a renewal failure under 3 AAC 23.160, with extensions available for reasonable cause or excusable neglect; the specific consequences in that section were not retrievable from a primary source and should be confirmed with the Division if you are relying on them.
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