What This License Is
The Colorado Accident & Health line of authority covers accident, health and sickness products: major medical and marketplace plans, disability income, Medicare supplement, dental and vision, and — with extra training — long-term care.
It is a line on your single Colorado Producer license, not a separate document. Colorado has no combined Life & Health exam, so if you also want life authority you take a second 50-hour course, sit a second exam, and pay a second $44. Producers coming from states where one 150-question paper buys both lines consistently underestimate this.
One thing worth knowing before you buy the course: long-term care is not free with this licence. C.R.S. § 10-19-113.6 hangs a one-time 16-hour training requirement, plus 5 classroom hours every 24 months, on the accident and health authority before you may sell, solicit or negotiate LTC. Budget for it if LTC is part of the plan.
Exam Options & Format
The Accident & Health exam is delivered by Pearson VUE in a single sitting with two sections: 50 scored General Knowledge questions and 30 scored Colorado-specific questions, plus eleven unscored pretest items — 91 items for 80 scored. There is no separate state-law appointment.
The passing standard is a scaled score, and Colorado does not publish the number. Pearson VUE converts your raw score to a scale of 0 to 100, and the handbook states that what you are shown "is neither the number of questions you answered correctly nor the percentage of questions you answered correctly." No cut score appears in the handbook, the content outlines, the DOI's pages, or 3 CCR 702-1-2-10-5, which says only that applicants "shall pass the examination as approved by the Commissioner." A site quoting you a Colorado percentage is quoting something the state has never said. Numeric scores are reported to failing candidates only.
There is no published time limit — the handbook says only that the time allotted varies — and Colorado publishes no exam series or code numbers.
And you cannot take it online. The Division ended online insurance licensing examinations: no new registrations after December 15, 2025, last sittings January 6, 2026. All testing is now at one of 37 physical Pearson VUE test centers in the state. The July 2026 handbook retains one leftover sentence offering online registration; it is contradicted by the DOI's notice, by Pearson VUE's own Colorado page, and by the handbook's fee table, which lists only the $41 test-center fee.
Book at pearsonvue.com or on (800) 274-2616 at least 24 hours ahead, with your pre-licensing school code to hand. The fee is $41, non-refundable. Reschedule or cancel at least 48 hours out or you forfeit it. A pass is valid one year.
Most Tested Topics on the Colorado Accident & Health Exam
Thirty scored questions are pure Colorado, and they concentrate on the required policy provisions in C.R.S. § 10-16-202 plus the state's own consumer-protection clocks. Each row is verified against the cited statute:
| Concept | The Colorado rule |
|---|---|
| Grace period, tiered by premium mode | 7 days weekly / 10 days monthly / 31 days for every other mode — Colorado writes the tiers into the required provision itself (§ 10-16-202(4)) |
| Time limit on certain defenses | 2 years. After two years from issue, no misstatement except a fraudulent one may void the policy or deny a claim for a loss commencing after that period (§ 10-16-202(3)) |
| Reinstatement deemer | 45 days — running from the date of the conditional receipt, not from the application. If an application and conditional receipt are required, the policy reinstates on approval or on the forty-fifth day, unless the insurer has already given written notice of disapproval (§ 10-16-202(5)) |
| Notice of claim and proof of loss | 20 days to give notice of claim; 90 days after the end of the period the insurer is liable for to furnish written proof of loss (§ 10-16-202(6), (8)) |
| Legal actions | No suit before 60 days after proof of loss is furnished, and none after 3 years from the date proof was required (§ 10-16-202(12)) |
| Prompt payment of clean claims | 30 calendar days electronic, 45 calendar days by any other means; late payment carries 10% annual interest, and a 20% penalty of the total allowed lands on the 91st day if the claim is still unresolved (§ 10-16-106.5) |
| State continuation | Up to 18 months, requiring 6 months of prior continuous coverage. Employer notice postmarked within 10 days; the employee elects within 30 days of termination — 60 days if the employer failed to notify (§ 10-16-108) |
| Cost of state continuation | The full group premium — employer contribution plus employee contribution. Colorado sets no percentage cap, so there is no 102% figure to remember here (§ 10-16-108(1)(e)(II)(B)) |
| External review | Request within 4 months of the internal-appeal denial; the carrier pays; the reviewer's determination is binding on the carrier and on the individual; expedited review inside 72 hours (§ 10-16-113.5) |
| Long-term care free look | 30 days after delivery, premium refunded (§ 10-19-111) — the same 30 days as Medicare supplement under § 10-18-107 |
| Long-term care producer training | 16 hours one-time — 8 general plus 8 on LTC partnerships that must be in a classroom setting — then 5 classroom hours every 24 months (§ 10-19-113.6(2)(a)) |
| The exchange | Connect for Health Colorado, a full state-based exchange — not the federal marketplace. Medicaid is Health First Colorado, expanded effective January 1, 2014; CHIP is CHP+ |
Three of these are reliable point-losers. The reinstatement deemer is the classic: candidates remember "45 days" and then attach it to the application date. Colorado's statute says the forty-fifth day runs from the date of the conditional receipt, and it is defeated entirely if the insurer gives written notice of disapproval first. Both details get tested.
The cost of state continuation trips up anyone who learned COBRA first. Federal COBRA's familiar 102% cap does not appear in C.R.S. § 10-16-108, which describes only "the amount the employee must pay monthly to the employer to retain the coverage, which payment includes the employer's contribution for the employee in addition to the employee's own contribution" — the full group premium, with no administrative-fee percentage layered on and no small-employer size threshold in the section.
And long-term care training is worth reading twice, because the figure circulating on vendor sites is half the real one. Eight hours is only the general-LTC portion of a 16-hour one-time requirement; the other eight are partnership-specific and, along with the recurring five hours, must be taken in a classroom setting, which rules out self-study for those components. Training completed for another state's LTC requirement satisfies Colorado's.
Colorado's Background Questions — What They Ask and Why They Matter More Here
Most states run two background processes in parallel: a fingerprint-based criminal history check, and a set of disclosure questions on the application. Colorado runs only the second one. That single fact changes how you should approach the form.
Colorado does not fingerprint resident insurance producers. C.R.S. § 10-2-404 — the application statute — contains no fingerprint, CBI or criminal-history-check subsection at all, and nothing in 3 CCR 702-1 imposes one on producers. The NAIC's fingerprint-requirements chart, which exists precisely to enumerate who must be printed in each state, gives Colorado four entries and none of them is a producer: bail bonding agents (§ 10-23-103), officers and directors of domestic companies (§ 10-3-112), acquisition and merger applicants (§ 10-3-803), and preneed funeral contract sellers (§ 10-15-103). Neither NIPR's nor Sircon's Colorado pages carry a fingerprint field at all.
So the disclosure questions are the entire background check. Nothing independent is running alongside them to catch what you leave out — and nothing independent is running alongside them to corroborate what you disclose either, which cuts both ways.
What triggers a disclosure. The application asks about criminal history, administrative actions by any regulator in any jurisdiction, unsatisfied judgments, bankruptcies, unpaid taxes and child support arrears, and terminations for cause by an insurer. The wording is deliberately broad: charges as well as convictions, pending matters as well as concluded ones, actions by any governmental agency and not just an insurance department. Read each question for what it actually asks rather than for what you expect it to ask.
What to attach. A "yes" answer needs documents, filed electronically through NIPR's Attachments Warehouse — NIPR's own Colorado business rule says so in terms: if the applicant answers yes to a background question, supporting documents go through the Warehouse. What the Division wants is the primary record plus your account of it: the charging document and the disposition order for a criminal matter; the consent order or final order for an administrative action; discharge papers for a bankruptcy; a payment plan or satisfaction for a judgment or tax lien. Then a short written explanation in your own words — what happened, when, what you did about it, and what has changed since.
How regulators actually read these. Old, disclosed, resolved and explained is a very different file from recent, undisclosed and discovered. The Division is looking for a pattern that bears on trustworthiness in handling other people's money — fraud, dishonesty, breach of trust, anything touching fiduciary duty. A single old matter with documents attached and a straight explanation rarely stops a licence. What does stop one is the misrepresentation itself: you are declaring under § 10-2-404 that your statements are true, and a false answer is independently a ground for refusal, quite apart from whatever you were hiding.
And the duty does not end at issuance. Colorado imposes continuing disclosure with tight clocks. An administrative action in another jurisdiction must be reported within 30 days after final disposition, with a copy of the order. A criminal prosecution must be reported within 30 days after the initial pretrial hearing date — the trigger is the hearing, not the verdict, which is a genuinely unusual formulation and the one producers miss most often (§ 10-2-801(3), (4), restated at 3 CCR 702-1-2-10-11). A change of address gets its own 30-day clock under § 10-2-412, free to file, and failure is expressly grounds for a penalty.
What It Costs
$41 to Pearson VUE for the exam and $44 to the Division for the Accident & Health line of authority — about $85 in state fees on a first-time pass, with nothing at all for fingerprinting because Colorado takes none.
The 50-hour pre-licensing course is the real expense and is priced by the provider. If long-term care is in your plans, add the 16-hour LTC training on top — and note that 8 of those hours must be classroom-delivered, which usually costs more than self-study.
Continuation later runs $27 per line of authority, every other year.
Eligibility Requirements
You must be at least 18, be a Colorado resident, complete the 50-hour Accident & Health pre-licensing course with a Division-approved provider, pass the examination, and file the application with the $44 fee while both one-year clocks — course to exam, exam to application — are still running (C.R.S. § 10-2-404).
Two designations shorten the path. CLU, ChFC and RHU each waive the examination except the Colorado life and health law portion; CPCU waives it except the Colorado property, casualty and health law portion (§ 10-2-403). The Colorado law portion is never waived, whatever you hold. Keep that statutory list separate from the candidate handbook's pre-licensing training exemption list, which is wider — RHU, CEBS, REBC or HIA for accident and health — and waives coursework rather than an exam.
Producers with an HMO or nonprofit hospital service corporation, working only in accident and health or travel baggage, have their own statutory exemption, as do life producers adding variable contracts and applicants relicensing within twelve months of another state's cancellation.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: 24 hours every two years including 3 hours of ethics, counted inside the 24. Long-term care is the heavy one for health producers: a one-time 16 hours, of which 8 must be classroom-based partnership training, plus 5 classroom hours every 24 months.
Your Colorado licence is perpetual and never expires by term. It 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.
The CE requirement is 24 hours every two years, including 3 hours of ethics inside the 24 (3 CCR 702-1, Reg 1-2-4). Twenty-four is the total no matter how many lines you carry. Up to 12 hours carry forward, but only hours earned in the 120 days before your continuation date.
For health producers the training that matters most sits outside the ordinary CE conversation. Long-term care requires a one-time 16 hours — 8 general, 8 partnership-specific in a classroom — plus 5 classroom hours every 24 months (§ 10-19-113.6). It may be approved as continuing education and count toward your 24, it may not be insurer- or product-specific, and another state's LTC training satisfies Colorado's. If you add life authority and sell annuities, a separate one-time 4-hour best-interest course applies.
The Property & Casualty guide owns the renewal mechanics — the birth-month cycle, the 10:00 p.m. Mountain Time cutoff, and the one-year reinstatement window after that.
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