What the Arkansas Life License Covers
An Arkansas Life line of authority lets you sell life insurance and annuity contracts in the state. It is issued by the Arkansas Insurance Department, which since the 2019 reorganisation sits as a division of the Arkansas Department of Commerce, under a Commissioner appointed by the Governor with the Senate's consent.
Two boundaries are worth settling before you buy a course. Annuities fall inside the Life line — no separate licence — but Arkansas will not let you sell one until you have completed a one-time 4-credit Best Interest training course under AID Rule 82. And variable life and variable annuities need your FINRA registrations alongside the Life licence; Arkansas adds no further state exam for them.
Life does not include accident and health. Arkansas keeps them genuinely separate — there is no combined Life & Health exam paper here, only two exams that may be scheduled in the same session. If you expect to write health business, read the Life & Health guide before you buy a 20-hour course, because the pre-licensing maths changes.
TESTivity recommends Achievable to satisfy your Arkansas pre-licensing requirement. Achievable is an approved provider, its insurance courses were built by the same subject-matter expert behind TESTivity, and completing the Achievable course earns you the certificate of completion Arkansas requires.
One important distinction: TESTivity is not an approved pre-licensing provider in Arkansas and does not issue certificates of completion. The TESTivity learning tools and study packages will absolutely help you pass the exam — but treat them as a supplement to your Achievable course, not a substitute for it.
Disclosure: TESTivity has a partnership with Achievable and may earn a commission if you enroll through links on this page.
Exam Options & Format
The Arkansas Life examination is 100 scored questions plus 10 unscored pretest items, with 150 minutes, and it passes at 70% — a raw percentage, not a scaled score. Unlike several states, Arkansas's pretest questions are not counted against your exam time.
The structural detail that matters more than any of those numbers: the exam is split into two separately timed, separately scored sections. A general knowledge section of 70 scored questions in 90 minutes, and an Arkansas-specific section covering state law. Each section must be passed at 70% in its own right. You do not average them. A candidate who scores 85% on general knowledge and 60% on Arkansas law has failed the exam, and the state material is precisely what a national study course will not have taught you.
There is no combined Life and Health paper in Arkansas. The bulletin permits the two exams to be sat together — "Life and Health can be taken together" — but that is a scheduling permission, not a combined exam. Each is 100 questions, each is 150 minutes, and each costs $50.
You may sit the exam at any of thirteen Arkansas PSI test centres or by remote proctor; the Personal Lines guide covers the centres and the Health guide covers remote testing.
Most Tested Topics on the Arkansas Life Exam
Because the Arkansas-specific section is scored on its own, these are not optional extras — they are half of what stands between you and a pass. Each is verified against the Arkansas Code or an AID rule:
| Concept | The Arkansas rule |
|---|---|
| Incontestability | 2 years from date of issue (§23-81-105) |
| Grace period, ordinary life | 30 days, and it is not varied by premium mode (§23-81-104(a)) |
| Reinstatement window | 3 years from default (§23-81-111) |
| Reinstatement interest | Not exceeding 6% per year, compounded annually (§23-81-111) |
| Suicide exclusion | 2 years from date of issue (§23-81-115(a)(2)(E)) |
| Free look, individual life | 10 days — the statutory minimum (§23-79-112(f)) |
| Free look, annuity | 10 days, excluding variable annuities (§23-79-112(f)) |
| Free look, replacement | 30 days for a life or annuity replacement (AID Rule 97 §6(A)(4)) |
| Nonforfeiture options | Cash surrender value, reduced paid-up insurance, extended term insurance |
| Life settlements | Regulated — the Arkansas Life Settlements Act, §23-81-801 et seq. |
| Life settlement rescission | 15 days — the owner may rescind on or before the 15th day after the contract is executed (§23-81-811(i)(1)) |
| Annuity standard | Best interest, adopted by AID Rule 82 effective 8 July 2021, with producer training required from 1 January 2022 |
The number to overwrite in your memory is the reinstatement interest cap of 6% compounded annually. National material rarely gives a figure at all, and candidates guess. Arkansas puts it in statute, alongside the three-year window, and the pair is a favourite: three years to reinstate, six percent on the arrears.
The second reliable point is the free-look ladder, because Arkansas's numbers are low where other states are generous. Ten days on a new individual life policy and ten on an ordinary annuity — but thirty days the moment a replacement is involved, under Rule 97 rather than the Code. If a question mentions replacement, the answer jumps to thirty; if it does not, resist the urge to round up.
The Arkansas Sequence — Apply First, Test Second
Most states let you book an exam whenever you feel ready and worry about paperwork afterwards. Arkansas is the other way round, and the whole process depends on getting the order right. Here is the sequence PSI's current bulletin lays out:
Step 1 — Complete the 20-hour pre-licensing course and get the certificate. This is a hard prerequisite, not a recommendation. Keep the certificate somewhere you can produce it repeatedly: PSI requires proof of pre-licensing at every attempt, not just your first. It is valid for two years from completion.
Step 2 — File the resident licensing application at nipr.com. Select Arkansas, individual resident, and the Life line of authority. NIPR publishes the state application fee as $15 and notes that its figures exclude NIPR's own transaction fee; PSI's bulletin tells candidates to pay $20 to NIPR. The two most likely reconcile as a state fee plus a transaction charge — budget about $20 and do not be surprised by either figure at checkout.
Step 3 — Complete the criminal background check. This runs through the Arkansas Insurance Department's own portal at cbc-enterprise.ark.org/aid. The older ark.org/background-check address redirects there. The fee is about $22. Do this promptly: your application does not move until the result lands. (The background-check step is covered in full in the next section.)
Step 4 — AID reviews the application for completeness. This is a real review, not a formality, and errors send it back. Nothing you do can speed it up, which is the argument for filing the moment your course certificate is in hand.
Step 5 — PSI emails your approval to test. This is the gate. Until that email arrives you cannot schedule an exam, and when it arrives your 90-day clock starts.
Step 6 — Schedule and sit the exam at a PSI test centre or by remote proctor, within the 90 days and within three attempts.
Step 7 — Print the licence. The bulletin is specific: "24 hours after successfully passing the examination, you may print your license" at nipr.com. You can also retrieve it through the NAIC's License Manager. There is no waiting period and no separate issuance application — which is the upside of Arkansas's front-loaded order.
A note on the deadline that actually binds you. Because Arkansas is apply-first, the familiar question — how long is my passing score good for? — mostly does not arise; the licence issues about a day after you pass. NIPR does state that Arkansas exams are valid for one year, but no PSI bulletin or AID rule repeats it. The deadline that will genuinely catch you is the 90 days from approval to test, running the other direction.
The Background Check and the Application's Disclosure Questions
Arkansas's background step sits in an unusual place — between your NIPR application and your permission to test — and it is unusual in another way too: the state does not publish a fingerprint vendor, a service code, or an ORI number for insurance applicants.
How it works. After filing at NIPR you complete a criminal background application through the Arkansas Insurance Department's portal at cbc-enterprise.ark.org/aid, operated for AID by Arkansas.gov. The fee is about $22 — the amount AID itself prints on its temporary-licence instruction sheet, and the exact price Arkansas State Police charges for a name-based state criminal background check.
What we will not tell you, because Arkansas does not. Whether the check involves fingerprints is genuinely unclear from the published material. The $22 matches a name-based search precisely, which points one way; but AID's portal carries a notice about "the FBI portion of all background checks," and FBI checks are ordinarily fingerprint-based, which points the other. No IdentoGO, Fieldprint or IDEMIA arrangement is documented for Arkansas producers, and no ORI or service code is published anywhere — so if you find one on a forum, it is not from AID. Follow the portal's own instructions when you get there. Note also that AID has announced an FBI-portion fee increase effective 1 October 2026, so the amount may move.
The disclosure questions are the part you control. The application asks about criminal history, administrative actions by any regulator, and financial matters including bankruptcies and judgments. Answer them completely. A disclosed matter is an application AID evaluates; an undisclosed one that surfaces in the background result is a misrepresentation, and misrepresentation on the application is an independent ground for denial quite apart from whatever you were trying to hide.
Supporting documents belong with the application, not after it. Where an answer is yes, upload the underlying records — court dispositions, the regulator's consent order, a discharge notice — together with a short written explanation. Arkansas's process is sequential: an incomplete file sits at step 4 and never reaches the approval-to-test email, and every day it sits is a day of your pre-licensing certificate's two-year life.
A criminal record is not an automatic bar. Arkansas evaluates the nature of the offence, how long ago it happened, and what you have done since. What reliably ends applications is not the record — it is the omission.
What It Costs
For a Life-only candidate the state-and-vendor total is about $92: $50 to PSI for the exam, roughly $20 to file through NIPR, and about $22 for the background check. On top of that sits the 20-hour pre-licensing course, which is priced by the provider rather than the state and is usually the largest single line.
Two cost notes specific to Arkansas. Exam fees are non-refundable and non-transferable, and each of your three permitted attempts is a full $50. And the fees above are the entry cost only — the licence then runs two years and renews at $70, or $90 with a CE filing, with a late penalty of double the base fee. The P&C guide covers renewal in full.
Eligibility Requirements
You must be at least 18, hold an Arkansas residence address if you are applying as a resident, and supply a valid business email — NIPR will not process the application without one. Canadian citizens cannot apply electronically and must contact AID directly.
The substantive prerequisites are the 20-hour course and the background check, both covered above. There is no experience requirement for a producer licence and no sponsorship requirement — Arkansas does not make you find a carrier before it will license you.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: Excess hours carry forward into the next biennium only, then expire. No course may be repeated for credit within a two-year period, and providers have 10 days after completion to file the roster — so a course finished on your birthday may be reported after the deadline.
Arkansas requires 24 hours of continuing education every two years, including at least 3 hours of ethics, under AID Rule 50 and §23-64-304. The cycle runs to your birthday, and holding several lines of authority does not multiply the requirement — 24 hours covers the producer licence however many lines sit on it. (A separate 24 applies if you also hold an adjuster licence.)
For a Life producer the training that gates selling rather than renewing is the annuity Best Interest course: a one-time 4-credit course under AID Rule 82, and since 1 January 2022 producers may not sell annuities at all until it is done. If you completed annuity training before 1 January 2021, that older course no longer counts on its own — you need either a new 4-hour Best Interest course approved after that date or an additional one-credit top-up. The credits count toward your 24.
Arkansas's non-compliance penalty is automatic and escalating, which makes it worth diarising: $25 if you cure within 30 days of the due date, $50 within 60, $100 within 90 — and after 90 days the licence is suspended. The P&C guide covers reinstatement and the renewal transaction itself.
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