What the Delaware Life License Covers
Delaware issues Life as its own line of authority under 18 Del. C. §1707(a), alongside Accident and Health, Property, Casualty, Personal Lines and a handful of specialty lines. One producer licence carries whichever lines you qualify for.
The line covers life insurance and annuity contracts. Annuities sit inside it — no separate licence — though Delaware gates annuity sales behind a one-time four-credit best-interest training course under Regulation 1214, which took effect on 1 August 2021. Variable life and variable annuity products are a separate line of authority in Delaware's statute, and your FINRA registrations ride alongside the Life line.
Delaware's regulator is worth a moment of your attention: the Insurance Commissioner is elected by Delaware voters to a four-year term rather than appointed by the Governor. That is unusual — most states appoint — and it shows up on the state-specific portion of the exam.
One structural point that shapes every decision here: Delaware has no combined Life & Health exam. If you want both lines you sit two separate exams. The good news is that Delaware will often let you sit them on the same day for a single $90 — the Life & Health guide does that arithmetic.
Exam Options & Format
The Delaware Life examination comes in two portions, and this is the structural fact that matters most about testing here. A General Knowledge portion of 50 scored questions plus 5 unscored pretest items, and a State Specific portion of 40 scored questions plus 6 pretest. Ninety scored questions in total, 101 items delivered.
Scoring is scaled, not a raw percentage — and this is where most published Delaware guidance goes wrong. The handbook says it plainly: "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." The passing score is set by the Department together with Pearson VUE, and no primary source maps individual exams to the 70 or the 80 cut. Anyone telling you "70% passes in Delaware" is stating both the wrong scoring model and possibly the wrong number. Prepare for 80.
Portion retakes are Delaware's genuine kindness. "Major Line Producer candidates are required to retake only the portion of the examination they failed." Fail the state portion and pass General Knowledge, and you re-sit only the state portion. But there is a deadline attached: "a candidate must pass the failed portion within one (1) year of passing the first portion in order to pass the entire examination." Let that year lapse and both portions go.
Time limits are not something we will guess at. The handbook states that the time allotted appears on its back cover, and that page is not in the document's machine-readable text. Neither the handbook body nor the content outlines print a minute value for any Delaware exam. Check the back cover of the current handbook before you book.
No attempt cap, but a 24-hour wait. Reservations for re-examination cannot be made at the test centre and candidates must wait 24 hours before rescheduling. Delaware imposes no maximum number of attempts — but §1705 requires a failed candidate to reapply and remit all required fees, so every attempt is another $90.
Most Tested Topics on the Delaware Life Exam
Forty of your ninety scored questions are Delaware-specific, which makes state law nearly half this exam. Each of these is verified against the Delaware Code or an Administrative Code regulation:
| Concept | The Delaware rule |
|---|---|
| Incontestability | 2 years from issue, during the insured's lifetime (§2908) |
| Grace period | 30 days — but 4 weeks for industrial policies (§2906) |
| Reinstatement window | 3 years from premium default — 2 years for industrial policies — on evidence of insurability and payment of overdue premiums (§2913) |
| Reinstatement interest | Overdue premiums bear interest not exceeding 6% per year, compounded annually (§2913) |
| Free look on a replacement | 20 days to return a replaced life policy or annuity (Regulation 1204 §7.4) |
| Free look, long-term care | 30 days (§7105(f)); Medicare supplement also 30 days (§3406) |
| Nonforfeiture options | Cash surrender value, reduced paid-up insurance, extended term insurance |
| Viatical settlements | Regulated — the Delaware Viatical Settlements Act, §7501 et seq. |
| Viatical rescission | The earlier of 60 days after the contract is executed or 30 days after the viator receives the proceeds (§7508(a)(6)) |
| Annuity standard | Best interest, adopted in Regulation 1214 effective 1 August 2021 |
| Annuity producer training | A one-time 4-credit course, plus insurer product-specific training before recommending a particular annuity |
| Variable products | A separate Delaware line of authority, requiring FINRA registration alongside the Life line |
The industrial policy carve-outs are the most distinctively Delaware items here, and they are easy marks because they come in a pair. Ordinary life gets a 30-day grace period and a three-year reinstatement window; industrial policies get four weeks and two years. If a question specifies an industrial policy, both numbers shift — and candidates who learned only the ordinary figures answer confidently and wrongly.
The viatical rescission window is the other reliable point, because it is written as a race between two clocks and the shorter one wins: sixty days from execution, or thirty days from receipt of the proceeds, whichever comes first. A fact pattern where the money arrives quickly is testing exactly that — if proceeds landed on day ten, the deadline is day forty, not day sixty.
Applying for Your Delaware License — Every Step
Delaware's process is short, and its one genuine complication is the criminal history report. Here is the sequence.
Step 1 — Pass the exam. You receive a score report marked pass or fail at the test centre, and a passing report includes information on how to apply. Your score is valid for 12 months from the date of examination (§1705) — that is your deadline to get the application in.
Step 2 — Obtain your criminal history reports. Delaware requires both a state and a federal (FBI) report, and §1706 puts the cost on you. Fingerprints go to the State Bureau of Identification; scheduling runs through IdentoGO at uenroll.identogo.com using Delaware's insurance service code 27S46Z, which requests the combined personal state and FBI report. Delaware State Police publishes $72 for a state report, $85 for state and federal together, and $30 for a fingerprint card alone — budget about $85. There are nine fingerprint sites across the state, from Wilmington down to Georgetown and Seaford.
Step 3 — Watch the 90-day freshness rule. The reports must be dated within 90 days of the Department receiving them. Get fingerprinted too early and the reports go stale before your file is complete.
Step 4 — File the application on NIPR. Electronic filing is mandatory: "the Delaware Insurance Department accepts only electronic license and renewal applications," with paper accepted only where online submission is impossible. The resident producer fee is $125, plus NIPR's own transaction fee. You must be at least 18, hold a Delaware address, and must not already hold an active Delaware nonresident licence.
Step 5 — Make sure the reports reach the Department, and confirm how. Delaware's two primary sources describe this handoff differently. The Department's own Licensing Procedures says the State Police "will send the criminal history reports directly to our department." Pearson VUE's handbook says that "once the application has been submitted through NIPR," you should fax the report to 302-736-7906. Both documents date from 2025 and they cannot both describe current practice. The controlling document, Producers & Adjusters Bulletin No. 22, is a scanned image we could not read. Confirm with the Department at licensing@delaware.gov or (302) 674-7390 before you rely on either.
Step 6 — Expect a fast turnaround. The Department states processing of about 24 to 48 hours once the file is complete. Delaware is genuinely quick when nothing is missing, which is the argument for getting the criminal history step right first time.
Step 7 — Get appointed. A licence is authority to transact, not a book of business. Appointments cost $50 one-time per insurer and are permanent unless cancelled, and the insurer must file within 15 days of executing your contract or of the first application you submit to them.
Adding a line later. If you come back for Accident & Health or a P&C line, the additional line of authority costs $50 on top of the exam fee — considerably less than a second full licence.
What It Costs
About $300 all in for a first-time pass: $90 to Pearson VUE for the exam, roughly $85 for the combined state and FBI criminal history report, and $125 to the Department through NIPR, plus NIPR's transaction fee.
What is missing from that list is the thing that dominates the cost in most states: there is no pre-licensing course to buy. Delaware requires none, which makes it one of the cheapest states in the country to enter — the whole outlay is fees rather than tuition.
Two things to note going forward. Every retake is another $90, since §1705 requires a failed candidate to reapply and remit all fees. And if you later add a line of authority, that is $50 rather than a fresh $125.
Eligibility Requirements
You must be at least 18, hold a Delaware address to apply as a resident, and must not hold an active Delaware nonresident licence at the same time. There is no experience requirement and no carrier sponsorship requirement.
There is also no education requirement of any kind. Delaware's Producer License Laws FAQ says it in one sentence: "No pre-licensing education is required in Delaware to obtain a resident or non-resident producer license." Pearson VUE's handbook agrees — the Department "does not require a specific program of pre-licensing education or otherwise pre-screen examination candidates." Take that seriously as a planning fact, not just a saving: nothing stands between you and a booking except the 24-hour reservation lead time.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: Up to 5 excess credits carry into the next biennium, but carryover never applies to the ethics hours. Nonresident producers are exempt from Delaware CE entirely and comply through their home state instead.
Delaware resident producers need 24 credit hours of Department-approved continuing education per biennium, three of which must be ethics (18 Del. Admin. C. §504). Holding several lines of authority does not multiply it — 24 is a per-licensee total.
The cycle is unusual and worth diarising, because it runs on a fixed calendar date rather than your birthday: the biennium runs 1 March to the last day of February of an even-numbered year, and that date is both your CE compliance date and your renewal deadline. The P&C guide covers the renewal mechanics in full, including the alternating resident and nonresident years.
For a Life producer the requirement that gates selling rather than renewing is the annuity best-interest course: a one-time four-credit course under Regulation 1214, without which a new producer may not sell annuities at all. Producers who had completed a Department-approved annuity course before 1 August 2021 were given six months to take either a new four-credit course or a one-credit supplement covering sales practices, replacement and disclosure. Insurers must separately provide product-specific training before you recommend their annuity.
Non-compliance is expensive rather than merely inconvenient: Regulation 504 provides for penalties up to a $2,000 fine and suspension of the licence for one year — and supplying false CE information carries up to $15,000 and permanent revocation.
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