What the Hawaii Casualty Line Covers
Casualty is its own line of authority in Hawaii, defined by HRS § 431:9A-107 as "insurance coverage against legal liability, including that for death, injury, or disability or damage to real or personal property." It reaches liability, personal and commercial auto, and workers' compensation.
It is not half of a combined P&C credential — Hawaii issues none. Property and Casualty are separate lines with separate exams at $75 each, and a producer wanting both sits both. The Personal Lines line is the narrower alternative covering property and casualty sold to individuals and families for primarily noncommercial purposes.
The licensing authority is the DCCA Insurance Division. Workers' compensation, though a casualty subject on the exam, is administered elsewhere: by the Disability Compensation Division of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DLIR) under HRS chapter 386, not by the Insurance Division.
No pre-licensing education is required — zero hours, per the current handbook.
If surplus lines is in your future, the Surplus Lines Broker credential requires an active resident producer licence carrying both property and casualty lines, so this line alone is not enough.
Exam Options & Format
The Hawaii Casualty exam is InsHI_Cas04 through Pearson VUE: 91 scored questions plus 12 unscored pretest items, at $75, passing at a scaled 70.
It runs in two separately-timed sections, and note that this exam's Hawaii half is longer than the other single lines': 50 scored general questions in 75 minutes, then 41 scored Hawaii-specific questions in 60 minutes — 2 hours 15 minutes in total, against 2 hours flat for Life, Accident & Health and Property.
That extra state time is telling you something. Forty-one of your ninety-one scored questions — 45% — are Hawaii law, the highest state-law share of any single-line Hawaii exam. Auto no-fault, the prohibited rating factors, the assigned-risk plan and workers' compensation between them carry nearly half the paper.
Only failing candidates receive a numeric score; a pass is reported as a pass.
Both delivery modes are live. The Property guide covers the test-center network and the island problem; the Accident & Health guide covers OnVUE and its retake penalties.
Most Tested Topics on the Hawaii Casualty Exam
Hawaii's casualty law diverges from the national baseline in two directions at once — a no-fault auto system, and a rating-factor ban with almost no equal in the country. Each row is verified:
| Concept | The Hawaii rule |
|---|---|
| Auto fault system | NO-FAULT — an injured person's own insurer pays medical and rehabilitation costs regardless of fault (HRS ch. 431 art. 10C) |
| Minimum liability limits | 40/80/20 — effective 1 January 2026, up from the long-standing 20/40/10. $40,000 bodily injury per person, $80,000 per accident, $20,000 property damage |
| Who the new limits bind | All new and renewal policies with effective dates on or after 1 January 2026 |
| PIP | $10,000 per person, mandatory — unchanged by the 2026 increase (§ 431:10C-103.5) |
| Tort threshold | PIP benefits incurred reaching $5,000 — or, regardless of amount, death, "significant permanent loss of use of a part or function of the body," or "permanent and serious disfigurement" causing mental or emotional suffering (§ 431:10C-306) |
| Uninsured motorist | Must be OFFERED, not mandatory — the named insured may reject in writing, and once rejected no further offer need accompany renewals (§ 431:10C-301(b)(3), (e)) |
| Underinsured motorist | Same structure, with the rejection signature required adjacent to or directly below the offer (§ 431:10C-301(b)(4)) |
| Prohibited rating factors | No plan may rate, in whole or part, directly or indirectly, on race, creed, ethnic extraction, AGE, SEX, LENGTH OF DRIVING EXPERIENCE, CREDIT BUREAU RATING, MARITAL STATUS or physical handicap (§ 431:10C-207) |
| Negligence rule | Modified comparative, 51% bar — barred when the claimant's negligence is greater than the aggregate negligence of those sued; at exactly 50% they still recover (HRS § 663-31) |
| Residual auto market | The Hawaii Joint Underwriting Plan (§ 431:10C-407) |
| Auto cancellation | 30 days' notice; 20 days for nonpayment — and notices require a validated USPS certificate of mailing to be valid (§ 431:10C-112) |
| Workers' comp threshold | One or more employees, full-time or part-time — coverage from the first day of employment (HRS § 386-121) |
| Workers' comp benefits | Temporary total disability at 66⅔% of the average weekly wage, capped annually — $1,240.00 maximum weekly for 2026 |
| Insurer of last resort | HEMIC, the Hawaii Employers' Mutual Insurance Company, statutorily required to cover employers who cannot obtain voluntary-market coverage and are not authorised self-insurers (§ 431:14A-103(g)) |
The minimum-limits increase is the most valuable fact on this page right now, precisely because the correction is so recent. Hawaii ran on 20/40/10 for decades. The Division's own FAQ states that "as of January 1, 2026, Hawaii law increased the minimum liability insurance coverage limits that all drivers and motor vehicle owners must carry," to 40/80/20, on the reasoning that the old figures "had not kept pace with the rising costs of medical care and vehicle repairs." PIP was left at $10,000. Nearly every third-party page — and, at the time of writing, even some statute mirrors — still shows the old numbers.
The second is § 431:10C-207, which is genuinely unusual. Most states permit credit-based insurance scores subject to restrictions, and permit age and gender outright. Hawaii bans age, sex, marital status, credit bureau rating and length of driving experience in motor-vehicle insurance, and case law extends the ban from rating plans to underwriting standards. A national study guide that teaches "credit scores may be used with restrictions" is simply describing another state. If a question offers you a rating factor that sounds ordinary — a young driver surcharge, a married-couple discount — check it against this list before answering.
Fingerprinting in Hawaii — Fieldprint, the Code, and the 60-Day Clock
Hawaii requires a fingerprint-based state and federal criminal history check for resident producer applicants. The requirement took effect 1 September 2018 and it applies regardless of which line you are seeking.
One vendor, one code. The Division directs applicants to Fieldprint: "schedule an appointment online at https://www.fieldprinthawaii.com," and "all applicants must enter 'HI-DCCA-INS'" as the service code when booking. That code is what routes your results to the Insurance Division rather than to some other agency — get it wrong and you have paid for prints that go nowhere useful.
Now the deadline, which is the part people miss. The Division states it plainly: "Submit your completed license application and applicable licensing fee within 60 days of the date of fingerprinting via NIPR Website."
Read the direction of that clock carefully. It does not run from your exam, and it does not run from your application. It runs forward from the day you were printed. Nothing in the exam process or the NIPR interface reminds you of it, which is exactly why it catches people: a candidate gets printed early to "get it out of the way," then takes three months to file, and has to be printed and charged again.
The order is therefore: pass the exam → get fingerprinted → file with NIPR inside 60 days. The Division's own instruction page sequences it that way, and follows the fingerprint step with "after the above has been completed, apply electronically and pay fees with a credit card at https://nipr.com/."
One economy worth planning for. If you are applying for more than one licence at the same time, a single fingerprinting covers them all. But applications submitted later, separately require additional fingerprinting. So a producer who wants Property and Casualty — two exams, two lines, because Hawaii has no combined sitting — should sit both exams first and file both applications together. Doing them three months apart means two rounds of prints and two vendor charges for no benefit.
What it costs is the one thing nobody publishes. Fieldprint "collects state and federal submission fees" directly, and because they are a vendor charge rather than a state fee they do not appear on the Division's fee schedule. The figure is quoted inside Fieldprint's scheduling flow once you enter the code. We have deliberately not printed a number we could not verify — confirm it when you book, or call Fieldprint on (877) 614-4364.
A note for nonresidents. Fingerprinting appears in the Division's resident producer instructions; the nonresident path directs applicants simply to hold an active home-state licence and apply through NIPR, with no fingerprint step listed. Note the careful wording there — that is the absence of a stated requirement rather than a written exemption, so a nonresident applicant should confirm with the Division rather than assume.
How long do the prints last? No primary source states a validity period for the prints or the resulting report. The only documented time constraint in the whole chain is the 60-day filing window — which, practically, is the rule to work to.
What It Costs
$75 to Pearson VUE for InsHI_Cas04, and $150 to the Insurance Division for the resident producer licence through NIPR — $225 in published fees on a first-attempt pass.
Plus Fieldprint's fingerprint charge, which the Division does not publish and which we have not invented. Expect to see it when you book under code HI-DCCA-INS.
No course cost, because Hawaii requires no pre-licensing education. In a pre-licensing state that would usually be the largest number here.
Adding Property is another $75 exam — and, if filed separately, another fingerprinting. File the two applications together and you pay Fieldprint once.
Recurring: $100 to renew every two years, $300 to reapply within a year of nonrenewal. Retakes are $75 each, bookable after 24 hours at a test center or 2 weeks through OnVUE.
Eligibility Requirements
You must be at least 18, pass InsHI_Cas04, complete the fingerprint check described above, and file through NIPR within the 60-day window with the $150 fee.
No professional designation waives a Hawaii exam — CPCU, CIC, ARM and AAI included. HRS § 431:9A-109 names none. The only statutory exemption is prior licensure for the same lines in another state: currently held, or cancelled within the previous 90 days with the home state certifying good standing. A producer relocating to Hawaii must apply within 90 days of establishing legal residence.
Your passing score is valid two years, and HRS § 431:9A-106 measures that backward from license issuance rather than from your application — so a file that stalls in review consumes the margin. The Life guide covers the application; the P&C guide covers reciprocity, nonresident licensing and Hawaii's 180-day temporary licences.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: Property, casualty and surety form one CE class — 21 class hours plus 3 ethics if you hold no life or health line.
24 credit hours every two years, due by the last day of your birth month — and functionally 15 days earlier, because Commissioner's Memorandum 2022-3LIC requires completion that far ahead so approved providers can report within their own 15-day window.
Holding casualty and no life or health line, the split is 21 hours in the property/casualty/surety class plus 3 hours of ethics or Hawaii insurance laws and rules. Add a life or health line and it becomes 10 hours life/health + 11 hours property/casualty/surety + 3 ethics — the P&C guide covers that.
No carryover. Excess hours evaporate at the end of the cycle.
Miss the deadline and the licence goes inactive automatically, with no grace period. Reinstatement within twelve months costs $300 — the $100 renewal plus a penalty of double it — and no re-examination is required. The P&C guide covers renewal and reinstatement in full.
Quick Reference
Official Links
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