What This License Is
The Arizona Casualty line of authority covers insurance against legal liability — personal and commercial auto liability, commercial general liability, workers compensation, professional liability, and umbrella coverage. It is issued by the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions (DIFI).
Casualty-only suits producers in commercial-liability or work-comp-focused roles. Note what it does not include: first-party property coverage (a Property or P&C license) and the packaged personal auto/home market, which many carriers staff under Personal Lines authority instead — Arizona treats Personal Lines as its own license, covered in a separate guide.
Exam Options & Format
The Casualty exam is Series 13-43 through PSI: 100 scored questions plus 5–10 unscored pretest items, 2 hours, 70% to pass. At $42 it is the least expensive exam on Arizona's insurance fee schedule — $8 less than the other single-line exams, as printed in PSI's current fee table.
The combined Property & Casualty exam (Series 13-34) is 150 questions, 2 hours 30 minutes, $59. It earns both lines in one sitting, and if there's any chance your career touches homeowners or commercial property, it's the smarter purchase. Take Series 13-43 alone only when your role genuinely never leaves the liability side.
Test at any of PSI's ten Arizona centers (addresses in the Property guide) or online with a live proctor (rules in the Health guide). Fees are non-refundable but valid for a year; reschedule with 2 days' notice to keep yours.
Most Tested Topics on the Arizona Casualty Exam
The casualty exam's Arizona-specific weight lands on two areas: the auto liability rules and workers compensation. From the TESTivity Arizona regulations curriculum, statute-verified — first, auto:
| Auto concept | The Arizona rule |
|---|---|
| Fault system | Fault-based (tort) — Arizona is NOT a no-fault state; there is no PIP statute and med-pay is optional |
| Minimum limits | 25/50/15 — $25,000 bodily injury per person / $50,000 per occurrence / $15,000 property damage (policies issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2020) |
| UM coverage | Optional — must be offered, but the insured may decline; the statute's own heading reads "uninsured optional; underinsured optional" |
| UIM coverage | Optional, must be offered; UM's purchase floor is the statutory minimums, UIM has no stated floor |
| Negligence doctrine | Pure comparative fault — no percentage bar; a claimant 99% at fault still recovers 1% |
| Residual market | Yes — an assigned-risk plan all authorized auto liability insurers must participate in |
And workers compensation, which Arizona structures differently enough from other states to be reliable exam material:
| Workers comp concept | The Arizona rule |
|---|---|
| Mandatory? | Yes — "employers shall secure workers' compensation" |
| Employee threshold | One employee — there is no numeric small-employer exception |
| Administering agency | The Industrial Commission of Arizona (ICA) |
| Wage replacement | 66⅔% of the average MONTHLY wage — Arizona computes monthly, not weekly — plus a $100/month dependent allowance |
| Claim deadline | One year from injury (with a discovery rule) |
| Compliance options | Insure through a licensed carrier, or qualify as a self-insurer |
The two most-missed questions in this set: UM/UIM being genuinely optional (most states at least require a signed rejection; Arizona's statute makes both coverages offer-only), and the monthly wage basis for comp benefits — candidates trained on national material reflexively answer "66⅔% of the average weekly wage" and lose the point.
Fingerprinting for Your Arizona License, Step by Step
Every Arizona resident producer applicant is fingerprinted for state (DPS) and FBI criminal-history checks — the Director's authority comes from ARS §20-285(D). Arizona uses a two-portal system, and doing the steps out of order is the single most common licensing snag. The sequence, from DIFI's own process guide:
Step 1 — Register with AZ DPS first. Go to the Department of Public Safety's Public Services Portal at psp.azdps.gov, create an account, and choose Background Check for Employment/Licensure. When prompted for a fingerprint code, insurance license applicants enter INS-055.A. Pay the $22.44 DPS/FBI processing fee by card.
Step 2 — Save your Reference Number. DPS issues a reference number beginning with the letter "A" the moment registration completes. Nothing at Fieldprint works without it, and your NIPR application will ask for it too — screenshot it.
Step 3 — Book the capture appointment at Fieldprint. Go to fieldprintarizona.com, enter the DPS reference number, choose a nearby collection site (metro Phoenix and Tucson have many; rural sites are sparser, so book early), and pay Fieldprint's $8.25 collection fee. The appointment itself takes about ten minutes — bring a current government-issued photo ID.
Step 4 — There is no Step 4. Results transmit electronically from DPS to DIFI; nothing is mailed to you and no clearance card is issued. Enter the DPS reference number where the NIPR application asks and file — DIFI matches the background result to your application automatically.
Total cost: $30.69. Total time: usually under a week from registration to captured prints. Do it the same week you pass the exam — your passing score only lives for 12 months.
What It Costs
The cheapest path to an Arizona producer license: $42 to PSI for the Casualty exam, $30.69 in fingerprint fees ($22.44 DPS + $8.25 Fieldprint), and $120 to DIFI through NIPR — about $193 on a first-attempt pass. Each retake is another $42, and Arizona allows four attempts per 12-month period.
Eligibility Requirements
You must be at least 18 and maintain an Arizona residence or legitimate business presence in the state (ARS §20-285). A record involving fraud, dishonesty, or breach of trust can support denial under ARS §20-295 — but nondisclosure is what actually sinks most troubled applications, so answer the background questions completely and attach documentation up front.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: At least 6 of the 48 hours must be ethics. Casualty producers who sell federal flood insurance complete the one-time 3-hour NFIP course by first renewal.
48 CE hours per four-year license period, at least 6 in ethics (ARS §20-2902), with the license expiring on the last day of your birth month. Casualty producers who write flood business complete the one-time 3-hour NFIP course by first renewal. The P&C guide covers the full renewal machinery — early renewal, the one-year late-renewal window with its $100 fee, and the once-per-course credit rule.
Quick Reference
Official Links
Don't study generic. Study Arizona.
You've got the roadmap. Now get the Arizona-specific Casualty question bank, mock exams, and video course built by instructors with 20+ years teaching this material.