What This License Is
"Property & Casualty" in Colorado is two lines of authority, not one licence and not one exam. Property covers loss of or damage to real and personal property; Casualty covers legal liability for injury to persons or damage to property. Both are listed on your single Colorado Producer licence, and Colorado makes you earn each separately.
The full path is: a 50-hour Division-approved course for Property and another for Casualty; the Property exam; the Casualty exam; and an application listing both lines at $44 each. There is no combined sitting, no shorter second course, and no package price. The only multi-line concession in the regulation is that the 3 ethics hours inside each 50 are taken only once.
The narrower alternative is Personal Lines — property and casualty sold to individuals and families for non-commercial purposes — which is a single exam. It is the right choice only if your book will never touch a commercial risk. And note that holding full P&C gives you no exemption from the Personal Lines course or exam should you separately apply for that line; P&C already covers personal-lines business, which makes the extra licence unnecessary rather than free.
Exam Options & Format
Each exam is a single Pearson VUE sitting with two sections — General Knowledge and Colorado-specific — and there is no separate state-law appointment. Property is 50 scored general plus 25 scored Colorado, 85 items in all. Casualty is 50 plus 31, across 91 items. Together, 156 scored questions in two appointments.
That 31-question Colorado block on the Casualty paper is the largest state-specific section of any Colorado producer exam, and it is worth knowing that before you allocate revision time between the two.
Both are scored on a scale and Colorado publishes no cut score. Raw scores convert to a scaled score from 0 to 100, and the handbook states the reported number "is neither the number of questions you answered correctly nor the percentage of questions you answered correctly." Nothing in the handbook, the content outlines, the Division's pages or 3 CCR 702-1-2-10-5 sets a figure. Numeric scores are reported only to failing candidates. Neither exam has a published time limit, and Colorado publishes no exam series or code numbers.
Both are test-center only. Online proctored delivery ended — no new registrations after December 15, 2025, last sittings January 6, 2026 — leaving 37 physical test centers statewide.
On fees, budget for two but ask at booking. The handbook prints a single "Licensing Examination — $41" row and says nothing about taking more than one exam in a session. Colorado's fee regulation, however, does provide that candidates who schedule certain examinations back-to-back may do so for a single fee, giving the Property and Casualty pair as its own example. The regulation's other fee figures are demonstrably out of date, so do not rely on it — but it costs nothing to ask Pearson VUE when you book whether the pair can be scheduled back-to-back on one fee.
Most Tested Topics Across Both Colorado P&C Exams
Fifty-six of your 156 scored questions are Colorado-specific. The material that spans both papers concentrates on what happens when an insurer fails, who regulates the market, and what an insurer owes a first-party claimant. Every row is verified against the cited statute or regulation:
| Concept | The Colorado rule |
|---|---|
| Guaranty cap, tiered by liquidation date | Not a single number: $50,000 baseline, $100,000 for liquidation orders entered between July 1, 1988 and August 10, 2011, and $300,000 for orders entered on or after August 10, 2011 (§ 10-4-508(1)(a)(I)) |
| Workers' compensation claims against the fund | Paid in full, with no cap — the one carve-out from the tiered limits (§ 10-4-508(1)(a)(I)(C)) |
| The association's outer limit | Never more than the face amount of the policy, whatever the cap allows (§ 10-4-508(1)(a)(II)) |
| Deadline to file against the fund | 24 months after the liquidation order, or the court's deadline, whichever is earlier (§ 10-4-508(1)(a)(III)) |
| Who the fund will not pay | A first-party claimant whose net worth exceeds $10 million, incurred but not reported losses, and claims by reinsurers, insurers and pools (§ 10-4-503(4)(b)) |
| Per-claim deductible | There is none. Colorado's act contains no deductible or minimum claim amount — a departure from the NAIC model, which many states follow with a $100 figure |
| The aggregate ceiling | Separate from the per-claim tiers, and easy to miss because it lives in its own section: the association's obligation to any one insured and its affiliates ceases once $10,000,000 has been paid in the aggregate under the policies of any one insolvent insurer — except for workers' compensation benefits (§ 10-4-508.5(1)(a)) |
| The regulator | The Colorado Division of Insurance, inside the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA), headed by a Commissioner of Insurance who is appointed by the Governor, subject to Senate confirmation, and serves at the Governor's pleasure — not elected (§ 10-1-104 supplies the appointment; the DORA placement comes from the Title 24 reorganization) |
| Where the law lives | Title 10 of the Colorado Revised Statutes; regulations at 3 CCR 702 |
| The first-party claim clock | 60 days to pay, deny or settle a valid and complete claim, absent a reasonable dispute — which the insurer must prove. The automatic remedy is 8% annual interest on the benefits due; the Commissioner may additionally assess a discretionary civil penalty of $100.00 per day beyond 60. A separate rule requires a letter to the insured every 30 days explaining the delay. The regulation has no definitions section, so these are calendar days (3 CCR 702-5, Reg 5-1-14 §4) |
| Unreasonable delay or denial | The claimant may recover two times the covered benefit, plus reasonable attorney fees and court costs — on top of the benefit itself. A delay or denial is unreasonable if made without a reasonable basis (§§ 10-3-1115, 10-3-1116) |
| Rebating and unfair methods | Any rebate of premium or other valuable consideration not specified in the contract is prohibited, alongside misrepresentation, false advertising, defamation of another insurer, boycott or coercion, twisting and unfair discrimination (§ 10-3-1104(1)) |
| Producer appointments | Colorado requires none. Instead each insurer must "maintain a current list of producers contractually authorized to accept applications on behalf of the insurer," available to the Commissioner on request (§ 10-2-416.5) |
The tiered guaranty cap is the single most reliable trap on this pair of exams. Nearly every summary you will read gives Colorado a flat $300,000, and that is only correct for liquidation orders entered on or after August 10, 2011. The statute keeps all three tiers alive because older insolvencies are still being administered, and an examiner who wants to separate the memorisers from the readers only has to put a 1995 liquidation date in the question.
Two other things reward precision. The net-worth exclusion is $10 million and it belongs to the property and casualty association — Colorado's life and health guaranty association has no net-worth test at all, so importing one into an L&H question is wrong. And the bad-faith remedy is two times the covered benefit plus the benefit, which is a penalty layered on the contract claim rather than a cap on recovery; candidates who read § 10-3-1116 as "you can recover double" are understating it.
Finally, appointments. If you have been licensed in another state you will expect a producer appointment step, an appointment fee and a filing deadline. Colorado has none of them for ordinary producers. The $95 appointment fee that appears on the Division's fee schedule is restricted on the schedule's own face to "Bail Industry Companies Only," and § 10-2-415.5, the appointment statute, is written for bail insurance companies. What Colorado requires instead is the insurer's internal list under § 10-2-416.5 — nothing you file, and nothing you pay for.
Moving a License Into or Out of Colorado
Colorado gives credit for prior licensure and for a short list of professional designations — but the windows are tighter than most states', they differ between the statute and the regulation, and the Colorado law portion of the exam is never waived by anything.
Coming from another state with the same lines. C.R.S. § 10-2-403 waives both the pre-licensing education and the examination for an applicant "previously licensed for the same lines of authority in this state or another state." Read the next sentence carefully, because this is where people go wrong. The statute then provides that the exemption "is only available to a nonresident applicant if" the person is currently licensed in their home state, or "the application is received within twelve months after the cancellation of the applicant's previous license" with a good-standing certification. That twelve-month window is a nonresident condition, not a general deadline for everyone.
The coursework-only route runs a shorter clock. Regulation 1-2-5 §10, which waives pre-licensing education alone, requires that the applicant be currently licensed in the reciprocal state, or that "the application is received within ninety (90) days of the cancellation" of the prior home-state licence, again with a good-standing certification. The Division's candidate handbook states it the same way: applicants who have held a resident licence in another state within the 90 days before applying are exempt from pre-licensing training for the lines they held there. So if you are still licensed elsewhere there is no window at all; if you are not, ninety days is the coursework clock. Where both that ninety days and the statute's nonresident twelve months bear on your situation, get the Division's position before you buy a course.
Reinstating a lapsed Colorado licence. C.R.S. § 10-2-202(1)(a) exempts from pre-licensing anyone "applying to reinstate a canceled or expired resident insurance producer license in this state when such license has been inactive for one year or less." Past one year, you are back to the full 50 hours per line and re-examination. That one-year line is the most consequential date on your licence.
Designation credit — and there are two different lists. The statutory exam waiver at § 10-2-403 is short: CLU, ChFC and RHU waive the examination except the Colorado life and health law portion, and CPCU waives it except the Colorado property, casualty and health law portion. Those four are the whole statutory list, and every waiver is partial — whatever you hold, you still sit the Colorado law portion.
The pre-licensing training exemption list, published in the Division's candidate handbook, is wider and does a different job: AAI, ARM, CIC or CPCU for property and casualty; RHU, CEBS, REBC or HIA for accident and health; and CEBS, ChFC, CIC, CFP, CLU, FLMI or LUTCF for life. Holding CIC or FLMI gets you out of coursework, not out of an exam. Conflating the two lists is the most common mistake made about Colorado licensing credit.
Other statutory exemptions. § 10-2-403 also covers producers of an HMO or nonprofit hospital service corporation working only in accident and health or travel baggage; producers of travel tickets; qualifying nonresident applicants; and licensed life producers adding variable contracts.
Nonresident licensing. A nonresident producer files through NIPR or Sircon at $68 per line of authority, with continuation at $40 per line — against $44 and $27 for a resident. Surplus lines is $291 new and $281 to continue. Nonresidents are treated as CE-compliant in Colorado if they satisfy their home state's continuing education requirement, which is the ordinary reciprocity position and removes any need to duplicate coursework.
Changing your residency. If you move to Colorado, or move away, this is the one transaction that does not run smoothly through the portals — NIPR notes that residency changes cannot be completed through NIPR and require contacting the state directly. Start it with the Division rather than losing time in a portal that will not accept it, and remember your 30-day address-change duty under § 10-2-412 is running the whole time.
Temporary licences. C.R.S. § 10-2-410 lets the Commissioner issue a temporary licence for up to 180 days, at no fee, requested by email to the Division. It is not a general "start selling while you study" permit: it exists for the surviving spouse, next of kin, executor or employee of a deceased producer; the spouse, next of kin, employee or legal guardian of a disabled producer; a member, employee or officer of an agency on the death or disability of its designated individual; the designee of a producer entering active military service; and anyone else where the Commissioner finds the public interest served. The Commissioner may limit the authority, require a sponsoring producer, and revoke it — and it cannot continue once the business has been disposed of.
Colorado's Perpetual License and the Continuation Cycle
Colorado does not renew producer licences, because Colorado licences do not expire on a term. C.R.S. § 10-2-408 provides that "the commissioner shall issue a perpetual insurance producer license to an applicant who has met the requirements of section 10-2-404." What keeps a perpetual licence alive is a continuation fee — and missing it is what ends the licence, not the passage of time.
When it is due. Regulation 1-2-10 §6 sets the cycle precisely: continuation fees are payable "by the last day of the producer's birth month during the second year after issuance of the license and then by the last day of the producer's birth month every other year thereafter." So a licence issued in March 2026 to a producer born in September first continues by 30 September 2027, then September 2029, September 2031, and so on. Your birth month, not your issue month, sets the date.
You get warning. "Ninety (90) days prior to the month the license is due to be continued, the Commissioner will notify the producer." The renewal window at NIPR opens on the same ninety-day schedule and closes on the expiration date.
What it costs. $27 per line of authority for a resident — $54 if you hold both Property and Casualty — against $40 per line for a nonresident. Surplus lines authority continues at $134. File through Sircon or NIPR.
The hard cutoff. Sircon states it plainly: "you must complete your online renewal by 10:00 p.m. Mountain Time on the day your license expires. After 10:00 p.m. Mountain Time, you will not be able to renew." There is no grace period and no late window — NIPR does not process late producer renewals at all, and directs anyone whose licence has expired to file a new initial application instead. Colorado publishes no graduated late-fee schedule, because there is no late payment to make.
If you miss it: the one-year rule. Regulation 1-2-10 §6 provides that "the producer may reinstate the license within one year from the expiration date of the license following the non-continuance." Inside that year, reinstatement is an administrative matter and the pre-licensing exemption in § 10-2-202(1)(a) still covers you. Past that year, "failure to reinstate the license within that year will result in the additional requirement of completing a new pre-licensing education course… and re-examination for the license type or authorities being applied for." For a P&C producer that is 100 hours of coursework and two exams to recover from a missed $54 payment. It is, by a wide margin, the most expensive deadline attached to a Colorado licence.
Continuing education, in full. Regulation 1-2-4 §5.A requires 24 credit hours of approved courses biennially after the producer's initial renewal. Three points of structure matter:
First, 3 of the 24 must be ethics — "at least three (3) of the twenty-four (24) hours" — so it is inside the total, not added to it. Second, 3 of the 24 must be on homeowner's insurance coverage for "all producers licensed to sell property or personal lines insurance," which includes you. This is a genuinely Colorado-specific mandate with no equivalent in most states. So a P&C producer's twenty-four hours are effectively 3 ethics, 3 homeowners and 18 free. Third, 24 is the total regardless of how many lines you hold — carrying Property and Casualty does not make it forty-eight.
Carryover, with a catch. "Producers may accumulate no more than twelve (12) carryover credit hours during the one hundred twenty (120) days before the licensing continuation date, which may be applied to the next continuing education period." Read that carefully: the twelve-hour cap is not the only limit — the hours must have been earned in the final 120 days of the cycle. Surplus hours you took eighteen months before your continuation date do not carry, however many there are. If you want a head start on the next cycle, the time to over-study is the four months before your birth month, not the year before.
Who approves the courses. Course approval and reporting for both CE and pre-licensing run through Pearson VUE under contract with the Division rather than through the Division directly — providers register courses through Sircon at $20 each. If a course does not appear in Colorado's approved list, no amount of good faith will make the hours count.
Product training riding on top. If you also hold life authority, annuities require a one-time 4-hour best-interest course and long-term care requires 16 hours plus 5 classroom hours every 24 months. Neither is triggered by P&C authority alone.
And the duties that never sleep. Independent of the continuation cycle, Colorado runs three 30-day reporting clocks throughout the life of your licence: a change of address within 30 days (§ 10-2-412, no fee); an administrative action in another jurisdiction within 30 days after final disposition; and a criminal prosecution within 30 days after the initial pretrial hearing date (§ 10-2-801). Missing the address one is itself grounds for a penalty — and it is the one producers forget, because nothing prompts them.
What It Costs
Full P&C authority costs about $170 in state fees on first-time passes: $41 for each of the two exams and $44 for each of the two lines. Colorado charges nothing for fingerprints because it takes none from resident producers, and nothing for producer appointments because it does not require any.
The 100 hours of Division-approved pre-licensing across the two lines is the dominant cost and is priced by the provider. Confirm approval before paying, and remember each certificate is valid one year.
Continuation later is $27 per line — $54 for both — every other year. Adding a surplus lines authority costs $141 and its own 35-question exam.
Eligibility Requirements
You must be at least 18, be a Colorado resident, complete the 50-hour pre-licensing course for each line, pass both examinations, and apply with the $44 per line fee inside the one-year clocks (C.R.S. § 10-2-404).
CPCU waives both examinations except the Colorado property, casualty and health law portion (§ 10-2-403). No designation waives the Colorado law portion. The candidate handbook separately exempts AAI, ARM, CIC or CPCU holders from property and casualty pre-licensing training — a coursework exemption, not an exam waiver.
Colorado does not fingerprint resident producers, so the application's background questions are the entire background review — the Accident & Health guide covers what triggers a disclosure and what documents to attach through NIPR's Attachments Warehouse.
Continuing Education at a Glance
Important CE details: 24 hours every two years total — holding both lines does not double it — including 3 hours of ethics and, because you hold property authority, 3 hours on homeowner's insurance coverage. Both count inside the 24.
24 hours every two years, including 3 hours of ethics and 3 hours on homeowner's insurance coverage — both counted inside the 24, not on top. Twenty-four is the total however many lines you carry.
Up to 12 hours carry into the next cycle, but only hours earned in the 120 days before your continuation date.
The full mechanics — the perpetual licence, the birth-month deadline, the 10:00 p.m. Mountain Time cutoff and the one-year reinstatement window — are in the Renewal section above.
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