What the Delaware Accident & Health License Covers
Delaware writes this line as Accident and Health and issues it as a standalone line of authority under 18 Del. C. §1707(a). It covers disability income, medical and hospital expense, Medicare supplement, long-term care and group health.
Delaware is a small market with a federal posture on health. It expanded Medicaid effective 1 January 2014, running its managed-care programme as the Diamond State Health Plan through the Division of Medicaid & Medical Assistance. And unlike states that built their own exchanges, Delaware uses the federally-facilitated marketplace at HealthCare.gov — Choose Health Delaware is an outreach brand, not a state-based exchange. That distinction has been known to appear as a distractor.
There is no combined Life & Health exam in Delaware. A candidate wanting both lines sits two separate exams — though Delaware's same-day fee concession makes that far less painful than it sounds, and the Life & Health guide does the arithmetic.
One thing Delaware does not offer, which candidates arriving from neighbouring states often assume: online proctoring. Delaware Insurance does not appear on Pearson VUE's OnVUE program list, and the handbook describes test-centre scheduling exclusively. Every Delaware insurance exam is taken in person.
Exam Options & Format
The Accident & Health examination is delivered in two portions: a General Knowledge portion of 50 scored questions plus 5 pretest, and a State Specific portion of 42 scored plus 13 pretest. Ninety-two scored questions; 110 items delivered.
That 13-item pretest load on the state portion is the heaviest of any Delaware producer line — Life carries 6, Property 7, Casualty 9, Personal Lines 8. Pretest items are unscored and exist so Pearson VUE can trial future questions, but you cannot tell them apart from the real ones, so answer everything as though it counts.
Delaware does not publish time limits. The handbook says the allotment is printed on its back cover, and that page is not present in the document's machine-readable text; the content outlines carry no minute values either. We would rather tell you that than invent a number — check the back cover of the current handbook when you book.
The $90 exam fee has a genuine Delaware wrinkle: "candidates scheduling more than one (major line) exam in the same day will pay only one examination fee (excluding Personal Lines)." Sitting Accident & Health and Life together therefore costs $90, not $180. Personal Lines never joins that deal.
Most Tested Topics on the Delaware Accident & Health Exam
Forty-two of your ninety-two scored questions are Delaware-specific. These are the state rules that a national outline will not have covered:
| Concept | The Delaware rule |
|---|---|
| Marketplace | A federally-facilitated marketplace — Delaware uses HealthCare.gov. Choose Health Delaware is an outreach brand, not a state-based exchange |
| Medicaid | Expanded effective 1 January 2014; the managed-care programme is the Diamond State Health Plan, run by the Division of Medicaid & Medical Assistance |
| CHIP | The Delaware Healthy Children Program |
| Mini-COBRA — who it covers | Employers with 1 to 19 employees, below the federal COBRA threshold, with at least 3 months of prior coverage (§3571F) |
| Mini-COBRA duration | Up to 9 months |
| Mini-COBRA premium | Up to 102% of the group premium — the federal figure, not a state-inflated one |
| Federal COBRA threshold | 20 or more employees |
| Prompt payment | 30 calendar days to pay, deny or request more information on a clean claim — the same for paper and electronic (Reg 1310 §6.0) |
| Electronic claims extra | Must additionally be acknowledged within 2 business days (§3359B) |
| After requested information | A further 15 days once the information is received |
| Late-payment interest | At the maximum legal lending rate; three violations within 36 months are presumed an unfair claim-settlement practice (§2304) |
| External review | The Independent Health Care Appeals Program uses an Independent Utilization Review Organization, and the decision binds the carrier. File within 4 months of the final internal denial (§§6416, 6417) |
| Long-term care free look | 30 days (§7105(f)); Medicare supplement also 30 days (§3406) |
| LTC producer training | 3 hours of Delaware long-term care training in each biennium you solicit LTC |
The mini-COBRA numbers are where the marks are, and Delaware's are unusual in a quiet way: the employer range is 1 to 19 rather than the 2-to-19 several states use, the duration is 9 months rather than the 18 or 36 you may have memorised, and the premium cap is a plain 102% rather than the 110% some states permit. Three numbers, all of them slightly off the pattern you arrived with.
The other reliable point is that Delaware does not split its prompt-pay deadline by claim format. Many states give electronic claims a shorter clock than paper. Delaware applies 30 calendar days to both — and then adds a separate obligation to acknowledge an electronic claim within 2 business days. Acknowledgement and payment are different duties on different clocks; a question conflating them is testing exactly that.
Your Score, Portion Retakes and the Twelve-Month Clock
You find out at the test centre. "When candidates complete the examination, they will receive a score report marked 'pass' or 'fail'" — and a passing report "includes information on how to apply for a license." No waiting period, no letter.
Delaware does not score as a percentage, and this is the single most misreported fact about testing here. The handbook: "The passing score of an examination is set by the State of Delaware Department of Insurance in conjunction with Pearson VUE... Raw scores are converted into scaled scores that can range from 0 to 100. Some exams require a scaled score of 70 to pass and others require a scaled score of 80 to pass."
Read that carefully, because two things follow. First, a scaled score is not the fraction of questions you answered correctly — it is a converted figure that accounts for the difficulty of the particular form you sat, which is why 'I got 71% of them right' does not translate into a scaled 71. Second, the cut is not uniform, and no primary source maps individual Delaware exams to the 70 or the 80. Any guide that tells you Delaware passes at 70% is wrong twice over. Prepare to a standard of 80 and the ambiguity stops mattering.
Portion retakes are the genuinely generous part. "Major Line Producer candidates are required to retake only the portion of the examination they failed." Pass General Knowledge and fail the Delaware portion, and you re-sit 42 questions rather than 92. In a two-portion state this is a meaningful advantage, and it changes how you should triage revision after a failure — you know exactly which half needs the work.
But the portion carries a one-year deadline. "A candidate must pass the failed portion within one (1) year of passing the first portion in order to pass the entire examination." Miss it and the portion you already passed goes with it. Diary the date the day you get the score report.
Rebooking: 24 hours, and not at the desk. "Reservations for reexamination cannot be made at the test center, and candidates must wait twenty-four (24) hours before rescheduling." Delaware sets no maximum number of attempts — but §1705 requires a candidate who fails or fails to appear to "reapply for an examination and remit all required fees," so each attempt is a fresh $90.
And once you pass, a second clock starts. Section 1705: "All examination score reports are valid for a period of 12 months from the date of examination." NIPR states the same. That is your window to complete the criminal history reports and file the application — and remember the reports themselves must be dated within 90 days of reaching the Department, so the two clocks interact. Do not let a passing score sit while you think about it.
What It Costs
About $300 on a first-time pass: $90 for the exam, roughly $85 for the combined state and FBI criminal history report, and $125 for the licence through NIPR, plus NIPR's transaction fee. No pre-licensing course, because Delaware requires none.
Every retake is another $90 — including a retake of a single failed portion, since §1705 requires reapplication and full fees on any failure. Against that, the same-day concession means adding Life costs nothing extra at the test centre and only $50 for the additional line of authority.
Eligibility Requirements
Minimum age 18, a Delaware address for resident applicants, and no active Delaware nonresident licence held at the same time. No education requirement and no sponsorship requirement.
The one substantive gate is the criminal history check — both a state and an FBI report, dated within 90 days of reaching the Department. The Casualty guide covers that process end to end.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: Delaware's compliance date and its renewal deadline are the same day — the last day of February — so a producer who leaves CE until the renewal notice arrives has already run out of room.
24 credit hours per biennium including 3 hours of ethics for resident producers, under 18 Del. Admin. C. §504. The biennium runs 1 March to the last day of February of an even-numbered year — a fixed date, not your birthday.
The health-specific obligation is long-term care training: a health-licensed producer who solicits LTC must complete at least 3 hours of Delaware long-term care training during each biennium in which they sell it. Producers writing flood under the NFIP owe a separate 2-hour flood course, and anyone selling annuities owes the one-time 4-credit best-interest course. Delaware's 2026 renewal notice restates all three together.
Nonresident producers are exempt from Delaware CE altogether and comply through their home state instead. The Department's CE FAQ also describes an automatic 12-credit exemption for individuals licensed 25 years or more, with the ethics hours still required — that appears in the FAQ rather than in the regulation text, so treat it as the Department's stated practice.
Carryover is limited and lopsided: up to 5 excess credits move into the next biennium, and carryover never applies to the ethics requirement. Bank general hours if you like; you will still be taking three ethics hours every cycle.
Quick Reference
Official Links
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