What the California Property Broker-Agent License Covers
California calls this licence a Property Broker-Agent — the state's own terminology, and a useful signal about how it thinks. A broker acts for the insured; an agent acts for the insurer. The single licence lets you do either, but which one you are doing on a given transaction determines whether you need the $10,000 Bond of Insurance Broker or a carrier appointment.
The line covers direct damage to property: homeowners, dwelling fire, commercial property, inland marine and the rest. It does not include liability — that is the separate Casualty Broker-Agent licence, and California is one of the states that genuinely splits the two rather than issuing a single P&C licence.
Context matters here more than in most states. California property is the market defined by wildfire and earthquake, by the FAIR Plan as insurer of last resort, by the California Earthquake Authority, and above all by Proposition 103, which subjects every rate to the Commissioner's prior approval. Those are not background colour; they are exam content, and they are covered below.
For the 12-hour Code & Ethics course California still requires before your license is issued, TESTivity recommends Achievable. The Achievable insurance courses were built by the same subject-matter expert behind TESTivity, so the two are designed to work together.
One important distinction: TESTivity is not an approved pre-licensing provider in California 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 Property examination is 75 questions in 98 minutes — note the unusual 98, not 90 or 105 — passing at 60%. As on every California exam, one to ten unscored experimental items may be added and they count against your time.
CDI's Examination Times and Number of Questions web table still lists Property at "1.5 hours," which conflicts with the March 2026 bulletin's 98 minutes. The bulletin is newer and more precise; the question count agrees on both.
Two alternatives are worth weighing. The combined Property and Casualty exam is 150 questions in 195 minutes and covers both lines in one sitting — though you still file, and pay for, two separate licences afterwards. And Personal Lines (90 questions, 135 minutes) is the narrower licence covering personal residential and auto only; it is a separate line in California, not a subset of P&C authority.
No waiting period applies between retakes. Section 1682 caps you at ten examinations of the same type in any twelve-month period.
Most Tested Topics on the California Property Exam
No state's property law departs further from the national template than California's, and Proposition 103 is the reason. These are the rules to know cold:
| Concept | The California rule |
|---|---|
| Rate regulation | Prior approval under Proposition 103 (1988) — an insurer may not use a new property or casualty rate until the Commissioner approves it (§1861.05) |
| Deemed approval | A rate application is deemed approved 60 days after public notice unless a hearing is requested and granted |
| Mandatory hearing threshold | A rate increase above 7% for personal lines or 15% for commercial triggers a mandatory hearing |
| Auto rating factors | Proposition 103 fixes them in descending order of importance: (1) driving safety record, (2) annual miles driven, (3) years of driving experience (§1861.02) |
| Credit-based insurance scoring | Not a permitted auto rating factor in California — barred by §1861.02 |
| Residual market | The California FAIR Plan Association, insurer of last resort for basic property and fire coverage (§10091 et seq.) |
| Catastrophe mechanism | The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) — publicly managed, privately funded residential earthquake insurance, established 1996 (§10089.5 et seq.) |
| Dominant perils | Wildfire and earthquake, plus flood (excluded from homeowners; NFIP) and post-wildfire mudslide and debris flow |
| Surplus lines prerequisite | A separate California surplus line broker licence (§1760 et seq.) |
| Surplus lines diligent search | Yes — a diligent search of the admitted market is required first (§1763) |
The rating-factor hierarchy is the single most distinctively Californian thing on this exam, and it is tested as an ordered list rather than a set. Safety record first, miles driven second, years of experience third. Everything else is an optional factor only if the Commissioner has adopted it — which is why credit-based insurance scoring, standard in most of the country, simply is not available here. A question offering "credit score" among auto rating factors is offering you the wrong answer.
The other point candidates lose is the difference between deemed approval at 60 days and the mandatory hearing thresholds of 7% and 15%. They are two separate mechanisms in the same statute: the 60-day clock is the default path for an unopposed filing, while the percentage thresholds force a hearing regardless. Learn both numbers and which one attaches to personal versus commercial lines.
California Test Centers — Locations, Scheduling and Rescheduling
California gives candidates more physical sites than almost any state: twenty PSI examination centers plus CDI's own examination site in Los Angeles. Every California producer exam is available at all of them, and PSI locations offer Saturday testing in addition to weekdays, with free parking.
The PSI locations, by city: Agoura Hills, Atascadero, Bakersfield, Carson, Diamond Bar, Fresno, Irvine, Lawndale, Redding, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Santa Fe Springs, Santa Rosa, Union City, Ventura, Visalia and Walnut Creek. That distribution puts a site within reasonable reach of the Bay Area, the Central Valley, the Los Angeles basin, Orange County, the Inland Empire, San Diego and the far north — Redding covers the top of the state, Atascadero the Central Coast.
Street addresses change more often than city lists do, and PSI has relocated California sites in the past. The current addresses are printed in the March 2026 Candidate Information Bulletin and shown against each site in the scheduler when you book — check the address on your confirmation email against the one you drive to, especially in Irvine and Santa Fe Springs, where multiple business parks sit close together.
The one site that saves you money: CDI's Los Angeles examination site, at the Ronald Reagan Building, 300 South Spring Street, First Floor, North Tower, Suite 1000, Los Angeles, CA 90013. PSI's $43 convenience fee is waived there — you pay only CDI's $55 examination fee. For a candidate in central Los Angeles who might retake once, that is real money.
Scheduling. Register and book at test-takers.psiexams.com/cadi, or by phone on (833) 518-7456. You choose your format — a test center or a remote proctored session — at the point of registration. An older CDI page still lists PSI's retired (877) number; use the 833.
Rescheduling and cancelling. You may cancel and reschedule without forfeiting the fee if notice reaches PSI at least two business days before the appointment, by phone or through the website. A voicemail or an email is explicitly not an acceptable cancellation. (CDI's rescheduling page words this as "48 hours"; the bulletin's two-business-days is the stricter reading and the one to work to.) Miss the window or fail to appear and the fee is gone — exam fees are not refundable or transferable.
On the day, arrive at least 30 minutes early with one government-issued photo-and-signature ID. The Life & Health guide covers check-in, the prohibited-items list and the rest of exam day in full.
What It Costs
About $360 on a first-time pass: roughly $98 for the exam ($55 CDI + $43 PSI, or $55 at CDI's Los Angeles site), $188 for the licence filing, $74 for fingerprints, plus the 12-hour Ethics and Code course.
Two Property-specific costs the other lines do not carry. If you will act as a broker, California requires a $10,000 Bond of Insurance Broker filed on form LIC 417-5. If you will act as an agent under a carrier appointment instead, you file an Action Notice of Appointment with a $32 appointment filing fee. And because California issues Property and Casualty as separate licences, holding both means $188 twice even if you passed the single combined exam.
Eligibility Requirements
Minimum age 18; California residency is not required to hold a California licence, though only one state may be designated as your resident state. Fingerprints go to the California DOJ and the FBI.
The broker bond is not an eligibility requirement in the usual sense — it is a condition of transacting as a broker. If you are unsure which side of the agent/broker line your role sits on, resolve it before you file, because the bond and the appointment notice are alternative filings, not both.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: Ethics hours count inside the 24, not on top. Excess hours carry into the following term, and no course earns credit twice within the same two-year period.
A two-year term measured from the issue date, expiring the last day of that calendar month two years later — not your birthday. Each term takes 24 hours including 3 hours of ethics, one of those on insurance fraud, and the requirement does not multiply if you also hold Casualty or Personal Lines authority.
Property broker-agents who write workers' compensation owe California's initial 4-hour workers' compensation course on top of the general requirement. Producers who sell flood coverage are subject to the federal minimum training standard under section 207 of the Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2004, ordinarily satisfied by a 3-hour NFIP course — a federal requirement rather than a California one, and CDI's guidance on it is long-standing rather than recent.
The P&C guide walks the renewal transaction, the one-year late-renewal window and the carryover rules in detail.
Quick Reference
Official Links
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