What This License Is
A Colorado Casualty line of authority covers insurance against legal liability for injury to persons or damage to property — auto liability, general and commercial liability, professional liability, workers' compensation and the liability half of a package policy.
Colorado keeps Property and Casualty as separate lines with separate 50-hour courses and separate exams, so Casualty-only is a real path rather than a technicality. It suits a role built around liability and workers' compensation placement.
Casualty is also the natural jumping-off point for surplus lines, which in Colorado is a further authority on the same producer licence with its own $141 fee and its own 35-question exam. Given how much Colorado property risk has moved to the non-admitted market since 2023, that is a live question for most casualty producers rather than a specialism — and the rules governing it changed at the start of 2026.
Exam Options & Format
The Casualty exam is a single Pearson VUE sitting with two sections: 50 scored General Knowledge questions and 31 scored Colorado-specific ones, plus ten unscored pretest items — 91 items for 81 scored. That 31-question Colorado section is the largest state-specific block of any Colorado producer exam.
The score is scaled and the cut score is unpublished. Raw scores convert to a 0-to-100 scale, and the handbook says the number you are shown "is neither the number of questions you answered correctly nor the percentage of questions you answered correctly." Colorado publishes no cut score anywhere, and numeric scores go only to candidates who fail. The time limit is not published either, and Colorado publishes no exam series or code numbers.
All testing is at a test center. Online proctored delivery ended: no new registrations after December 15, 2025, last sittings January 6, 2026. Book at pearsonvue.com or on (800) 274-2616 at least 24 hours ahead, with your pre-licensing school code. The $41 fee is due at reservation and is non-refundable; reschedule at least 48 hours out. The Property guide covers test centers and scheduling in full.
Most Tested Topics on the Colorado Casualty Exam
Thirty-one scored questions are Colorado-specific — the biggest state block on any of the state's producer exams — and they sit overwhelmingly in auto and workers' compensation. Every row is verified against the cited statute:
| Concept | The Colorado rule |
|---|---|
| Compulsory auto liability limits | 25/50/15 — $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident, $15,000 property damage. Unchanged since 2003 (§ 10-4-620) |
| Fault system | Tort. Colorado's no-fault Auto Accident Reparations Act was allowed to sunset — §§ 10-4-701 to 10-4-726 expired July 1, 2003 — rather than being repealed by a bill. There is no PIP |
| Medical payments coverage | Must be offered at $5,000 (§ 10-4-635(1)(a)) and can be declined only in writing (subsection (1)(b)). If the insurer fails to offer it, or cannot produce proof of a written rejection, the policy is presumed to include $5,000 of MedPay (subsection (1)(c)) |
| UM/UIM and the anti-setoff rule | Must be offered at limits equal to the insured's bodily injury liability limits (§ 10-4-609(2)), rejectable only in writing — and coverage "shall not be reduced by a setoff from any other coverage," expressly including liability insurance, medical payments, health insurance and other UM/UIM (subsection (1)(c)) |
| Cancelling an auto policy after 60 days | Once an auto policy has been in force 60 days — or is a renewal — it may be cancelled only for nonpayment, licence or registration suspension or revocation, a knowingly false statement on the application, or a knowingly and wilfully false material statement on a claim (§ 10-4-602) |
| Auto cancellation and nonrenewal notice | 30 days to cancel, 10 days for nonpayment (§ 10-4-603(1)); 30 days to nonrenew, with the reason not required in the notice but owed within 20 days of the insured's written request (§ 10-4-604) |
| Comparative negligence | Modified comparative, 50% bar. Recovery is barred if the claimant's negligence was "as great as" the defendant's — so an even 50/50 split recovers nothing (§ 13-21-111) |
| Workers' comp: employee notice to employer | 10 days, in writing — raised from four days by HB22-1112, effective August 10, 2022. Failure costs up to one day's compensation for each day of delay (§ 8-43-102(1)(a)(I)) |
| Workers' comp: filing the claim | 2 years from the injury or death, extendable to 3 years for a reasonable excuse where the employer is not prejudiced (§ 8-43-103(2)) |
| Workers' comp: waiting period | Three days. No indemnity if disability does not last longer than three days, though medical benefits are still payable — and if disability runs longer than two weeks, indemnity is paid retroactively from the day the employee left work (§ 8-42-103(1)) |
| Workers' comp: TTD rate | 66⅔% of the average weekly wage, capped at 91% of the state average weekly wage (§ 8-42-105(1)) |
| Who must carry workers' comp | Any employer with one or more persons engaged in its business or employment (§ 8-40-203(1)(b)) |
| Pinnacol Assurance | A political subdivision of the state that is expressly not an agency of state government, and which by statute "shall not refuse to insure any Colorado employer" because of the risk or the premium. Colorado is competitive, not monopolistic (§ 8-45-101) |
Three of these are where candidates trained nationally lose points. The workers' compensation notice deadline is the worst offender, because it is a moving target: Colorado ran a four-day employee-notice rule for decades, HB22-1112 replaced it with ten days effective August 2022, and a great deal of study material — including data this site itself previously carried — never updated. If a question asks how long an injured Colorado employee has to notify the employer in writing, the answer is ten days.
The anti-setoff rule in § 10-4-609(1)(c) is Colorado's most distinctive auto provision and it is worth reading in the original. Many states let a UM/UIM carrier reduce what it owes by amounts the insured collected elsewhere. Colorado forbids it in unusually specific terms, naming liability insurance, medical payments coverage, health insurance and other UM/UIM as sources that cannot be set off. Combine that with the MedPay presumption — where a missing written rejection means the policy is deemed to carry $5,000 — and Colorado's pattern becomes clear: coverages the insured did not knowingly give up are read back into the policy.
Finally, be careful with the 50% bar. The statute allows recovery only where the claimant's negligence "was not as great as" the defendant's, which means exactly-equal fault recovers nothing. Some material describes Colorado as a "51% bar" state; that describes a different rule, and on a Colorado question it will lead you to the wrong answer on the 50/50 fact pattern the examiners like to use.
Colorado Surplus Lines — the Authority, the Search, and What Changed in 2026
Surplus lines is where a Colorado casualty producer places a risk that the admitted market will not take. Since 2023, when wildfire and hail pushed a great deal of Colorado property business toward non-admitted carriers, it has stopped being a specialism and started being routine — which is why the Division rewrote the rules governing it with effect from January 30, 2026.
The authority. Surplus lines is a separate line of authority on your Colorado producer licence, with its own examination — the Surplus Lines Broker exam, 35 scored questions — and its own fee schedule: $141 for a new resident authority and $134 to continue it, against $291 and $281 for a nonresident. Both figures are an order of magnitude above the $44 an ordinary line costs, which tells you how the Division views the responsibility.
The diligent effort — and this is the number that changed. C.R.S. § 10-5-103 permits a surplus lines placement only where the full amount of insurance "shall not be procurable, after diligent effort has been made to do so, from among admitted insurers authorized to transact and actually transacting that kind of insurance in this state." The statute sets no number; the regulation does.
Until January 29, 2026, Regulation 2-4-1 §7 required a comprehensive search of "a minimum of three" admitted insurers. The amendment effective January 30, 2026 strikes that and substitutes "more than one." The current requirement is therefore a search of more than one admitted insurer actually writing that line in Colorado — in practice, at least two. Every study guide, checklist and internal procedure still saying "three declinations" for Colorado is describing the rule as it stood before 2026. A waiver of the search is available where the broker attests to familiarity with the market or accepts a producing producer's affidavit, and the documentation is broker-attested and retained for three years.
The 10% affordability standard. This one is older than the 2026 amendment and lives in the statute itself. C.R.S. § 10-5-103(1)(b) forbids placing insurance with a nonadmitted insurer "for the purpose of securing a lower premium rate" unless the admitted insurer's quoted rate is more than ten percent higher than the nonadmitted quote; Regulation 2-4-1 restates it as a 10% excess "for comparable benefits and provisions." Price alone does not justify the non-admitted market; a 10% gap does.
The disclosure. A surplus lines policy must carry, on its declarations page and in bold, wording to the effect that "This contract is delivered as a surplus line coverage under the 'Nonadmitted Insurance Act'. The insurer issuing this contract is not licensed in Colorado…" The point is blunt and worth saying to the client out loud as well: a non-admitted carrier is not backed by the Colorado Insurance Guaranty Association. If it fails, the guaranty fund that would have paid up to $300,000 on an admitted policy is simply not there. That is the trade the client is making, and documenting that they understood it is the broker's protection.
Tax and filing. Colorado's surplus lines premium tax is 3% on net premiums, under § 10-5-111.5(1) — the DOI describes it as 3% "on all premiums and fees." On top sits a 0.175% transaction fee on policies effective on or after January 1, 2025, charged through the SLIP+ filing system; the statutory hook is § 10-5-111(3)(a), which lets the Division contract with a third party that may charge a "nominal fee" and expressly keeps that fee outside the 3% tax. Filing runs quarterly through SLIP+, with the annual report and the tax due by March 1 — and all four quarterly reports, the annual report and the taxes must be in before April 1 or fines follow. Policies written before 2025 sit on the legacy schedule: monthly reports by the 15th, annual report and tax by March 1.
One contrast worth memorising, because Colorado now runs two different declination counts side by side: the FAIR Plan requires proof that three different insurers declined before it will write a property risk, while surplus lines diligent effort requires a search of more than one admitted insurer since January 30, 2026. Same market pressure, two different thresholds, and the exam has an obvious question in it.
What It Costs
$41 to Pearson VUE for the Casualty exam and $44 to the Division for the line of authority — about $85 in state fees on a first-time pass, with no fingerprint cost because Colorado takes no prints from resident producers.
The 50-hour pre-licensing course is priced by the provider and is the larger expense. Adding Property later is a second full 50-hour cycle plus another $41 and $44; adding surplus lines is a 35-question exam plus $141.
Continuation later is $27 per line of authority every other year, or $134 for the surplus lines authority.
Eligibility Requirements
You must be at least 18, be a Colorado resident, complete the 50-hour Casualty pre-licensing course with a Division-approved provider, pass the examination, and apply with the $44 fee inside both one-year clocks — course to exam, exam to application (C.R.S. § 10-2-404).
CPCU waives the Casualty examination except the Colorado property, casualty and health law portion (§ 10-2-403); the Colorado law portion is never waived. Separately, the candidate handbook exempts holders of AAI, ARM, CIC or CPCU from property and casualty pre-licensing training — coursework relief, not an exam waiver. The two lists are easy to conflate.
Colorado does not fingerprint resident producers — the application's background questions are the whole background check, and the Accident & Health guide covers how to handle them.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: 24 hours every two years including 3 hours of ethics. The 3-hour homeowner's insurance requirement applies to property and personal lines producers, so a casualty-only producer does not carry it.
Your Colorado licence is perpetual and continues on a $27 per line fee due by the last day of your birth month in the second year after issuance, then every other year.
CE is 24 hours every two years, including 3 hours of ethics counted inside the 24 (3 CCR 702-1, Reg 1-2-4). Note one thing that does not apply to you: the 3-hour homeowner's insurance requirement is imposed on producers licensed to sell property or personal lines, so a casualty-only producer's 24 hours are 3 ethics and 21 free.
Up to 12 hours carry forward, but only hours earned in the 120 days before your continuation date. The Property & Casualty guide owns the renewal mechanics in full.
Quick Reference
Official Links
Don't study generic. Study Colorado.
You've got the roadmap. Now get the Colorado-specific Casualty question bank, mock exams, and video course built by instructors with 20+ years teaching this material.