What the Delaware Personal Lines License Covers
Personal Lines is a distinct Delaware line of authority under 18 Del. C. §1707(a), covering property and casualty risks for households — homeowners, dwelling fire, renters and personal auto — without commercial exposures.
It is a real alternative to the broader route rather than a subset of it. Because Delaware issues Property and Casualty as separate lines with separate exams, a producer wanting full P&C authority sits two exams; Personal Lines is one. The trade-off is scope: the day a personal-lines client asks you to write their business, you need the other two.
One commercial detail sets Personal Lines apart in Delaware and deserves to be on the page early: it is the only major line excluded from the same-day exam fee concession. Every other major line can share a single $90 with another sat the same day. Personal Lines always pays its own.
As everywhere in Delaware, there is no pre-licensing education requirement and no online proctoring — you may book as soon as you are ready, and you will sit it in person.
Exam Options & Format
The Personal Lines examination is delivered in two portions: General Knowledge, 75 scored questions plus 5 pretest, and State Specific, 40 scored plus 8 pretest. One hundred and fifteen scored questions in total, 128 items delivered — the largest Delaware producer exam.
That 75-question general portion is half again the size of the 50-question general portion carried by Life, Accident & Health, Property and Casualty. Personal Lines spans both property and casualty content, so the breadth has to come from somewhere. Plan your preparation around it: this is the Delaware exam where general product knowledge, not state law, is the bulk of the paper.
Scoring is scaled from 0 to 100, with a cut of 70 on some exams and 80 on others that the Department does not map publicly. Prepare for 80. Retakes work portion by portion, with one year from passing the first portion to clear the other — the Accident & Health guide covers results and retakes in full.
Time limits are not published in the handbook body or the content outlines; the handbook places them on its back cover, which is not in the machine-readable text. Check there when you book.
And the fee point again, because it changes planning: "candidates scheduling more than one (major line) exam in the same day will pay only one examination fee (excluding Personal Lines)." Property and Casualty together cost $90. Personal Lines plus anything costs $90 plus $90.
Most Tested Topics on the Delaware Personal Lines Exam
Forty of your scored questions are Delaware law, and the state's cancellation and nonrenewal rules are where they concentrate — Delaware is unusually prescriptive about what an insurer must tell a policyholder and when:
| Concept | The Delaware rule |
|---|---|
| New-policy window, auto | 60 days — during the first 60 days of a new private passenger auto policy the insurer may cancel more freely; after that, only on statutory grounds (§3903(b)) |
| Auto cancellation, nonpayment | 15 days' notice (§3905) |
| Auto cancellation, permitted cause | 30 days' notice (§3905) |
| Homeowners cancellation, nonpayment | 10 days' notice (§4122) |
| Homeowners cancellation, cause | 30 days' notice (§4122) |
| Nonrenewal, both lines | 30 days' advance written notice, with the reason stated (§3905(b); §4122(c)) |
| Reason required? | Yes — for both cancellation and nonrenewal, on both auto and homeowners. Delaware does not make the insured ask |
| Failure to give homeowners notice | The policy is deemed renewed (§4122(c)) |
| Auto minimums | 25/50/10 (21 Del. C. §2118) |
| Mandatory PIP | $15,000 per person / $30,000 per accident, plus a $5,000 funeral benefit — Delaware is a tort state that requires PIP anyway |
| Uninsured motorist | Mandatory unless rejected in writing; UM property damage carries a $250 deductible (18 Del. C. §3902) |
| Negligence doctrine | Modified comparative, 51% bar — recovery only if the claimant's negligence was not greater than the defendant's, so at exactly 50% they still recover (10 Del. C. §8132) |
| Credit information | May not be the sole basis for denial, cancellation or nonrenewal; income, gender, race and ZIP code are barred (§8304) |
The notice ladder is the exam's favourite, and Delaware makes it harder than most states by giving auto and homeowners different nonpayment periods: 15 days for auto, 10 for homeowners, while both take 30 days for cause and 30 days for nonrenewal. Learn the pair rather than a single number, because the question will name the line of business precisely in order to separate the two.
The other reliable Delaware point is that the reason must always be stated. Many states require a reason only on request, or only for one line of business. Delaware requires a specific reason for both cancellation and nonrenewal, on both auto and homeowners — and for homeowners it goes further: fail to give proper nonrenewal notice and the policy is deemed renewed, which is a consequence rather than a penalty and is worth remembering as such.
When Delaware Waives the Exam — and When It Does Not
Delaware's exemption provision, 18 Del. C. §1709, is a closed list. That matters, because it means the answer to "will my situation get me out of the exam?" is genuinely checkable rather than a matter of interpretation. There are four categories, and nothing else qualifies.
(1) You were licensed for the same lines in another state. The statute: an individual who applies in Delaware "who was previously licensed for the same lines of authority in another state shall not be required to complete any prelicensing education or examination." Two routes qualify — you are currently licensed there, or your application reaches Delaware within 90 days of cancellation of that licence, with a certification of good standing. The Department restates it in its FAQ: "if you apply for a new resident producer license within 90 days of the termination of the license in your Home State, you will not have to complete insurance exams in this state."
(2) You are moving to Delaware. A person licensed as a producer, adjuster or appraiser in another state who moves here must apply within 90 days of establishing legal residence, and carries their prior lines across without pre-licensing or examination.
(3) You are a Delaware attorney seeking title insurance authority. Section 1709 exempts "an applicant for a license as a producer for title insurance who is an attorney licensed to practice law in this State" from both pre-licensing education and examination. A narrow provision, but an absolute one within its scope.
(4) Travel insurance and automobile club applicants are exempt from pre-licensing education and examination. Separately, self-service storage applicants are exempt from examination under §1707(b).
Both 90-day clocks are the part people miss. They run from different events — one from the cancellation of your prior licence, one from establishing Delaware residence — and neither is generous. A producer who lets a licence lapse quietly while relocating can burn both windows without ever making a decision, and then finds themselves sitting a 115-question exam they could have skipped. If you are moving, file early and let the paperwork catch up.
What Delaware does not waive: professional designations. If you hold a CLU, ChFC, CPCU, FLMI, CEBS, LUTCF or anything similar, several states will credit it against a pre-licensing requirement or an exam. Delaware's §1709 contains no designation-based exemption at all, and none appears anywhere else in chapter 17, on any Department page, or in Pearson VUE's handbook. The list above is the whole list.
There is a silver lining, and it is a real one. In most states the designation question matters because pre-licensing education is expensive and time-consuming, and a waiver saves you 20 or 40 hours of coursework. Delaware requires no pre-licensing education from anyone, so there is nothing for a designation to waive except the exam itself. A CLU in Delaware is in exactly the same position as a first-time candidate — and that position is: book the exam whenever you like, with no course to complete first.
A note on nonresidents. If you are not moving to Delaware and simply want to write business here, you are not looking for a waiver at all — you want a nonresident licence under §§1708 and 1717, which works on an entirely different basis. The Property & Casualty guide covers that route, including CE reciprocity.
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 of anyone.
The one cost quirk worth planning around: Personal Lines is excluded from the same-day exam fee concession. Booking it alongside Property or Casualty saves you a trip but not a fee. If cost rather than time is the constraint, note that Property and Casualty together — two exams, two lines of authority — come to a single $90 at the test centre plus $50 for the second line.
Eligibility Requirements
Minimum age 18, a Delaware address for resident applicants, and no active Delaware nonresident licence held at the same time. No pre-licensing education, no experience requirement, no sponsorship.
Before you book, check the waiver list above — if you have held Personal Lines or equivalent authority in another state, or you are moving to Delaware, §1709 may take the exam off the table entirely, and both routes are time-limited.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: A licence may not be renewed until continuing education is satisfied, and 18 Del. C. §1718 provides that failure to prove compliance results in automatic lapse — the Department does not chase you first.
24 credit hours per biennium including 3 hours of ethics (18 Del. Admin. C. §504), on a fixed cycle running 1 March to the last day of February of an even-numbered year. Holding Personal Lines alongside other lines does not increase the total.
Personal Lines carries no line-specific training gate — the annuity, long-term care and flood requirements attach to the lines that sell those products. If you write flood under the NFIP, that is a separate 2-hour course each biennium.
Two consequences are worth respecting. A licence may not be renewed until CE is satisfied, and §1718 provides that failing to prove compliance causes the licence to lapse automatically — there is no grace built into the CE side, only into the renewal fee. And a licence suspended for twelve months or more sends you back through §1706 in full, including retaking the exams. The P&C guide covers renewal and reinstatement.
Quick Reference
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