Getting your Hawaii Life & Health license
Good news first: Hawaii is one of the friendlier states to get licensed in. There's no mandatory pre-licensing course to sit through and no seat-time requirement - if you can pass the exams, you can get licensed. You just need to be at least 18, pass the required exams, clear a fingerprint background check, and apply through NIPR.
Here's the one structural thing to understand up front: in Hawaii there is no single 'Life & Health' exam. To carry both lines of authority you take two separate exams - the Life exam and the Accident & Health (and Sickness) exam. The upside is you can knock both out in a single test-center session, since Hawaii lets you take up to two exams per sitting.
So the full Life & Health path looks like: study -> pass the Life exam -> pass the A&H exam -> get fingerprinted -> apply online through NIPR -> get licensed. Both lines ride on one producer license and one application.
Two exams, and the score rule that trips people up
Each Hawaii producer exam is split into a General (national) portion and a State portion. The General portion tests the universal insurance concepts you'd see in any state - policy types, provisions, riders, underwriting. The State portion tests Hawaii statutes and rules.
Now the part that catches candidates off guard: those two portions are scored separately, and you must hit 70 on each one. They are not averaged together. You could ace the national material with a 90 and still fail the whole exam if your state score lands at 68. Treat the Hawaii state law section as its own exam and give it real study time - don't let the national material lull you into coasting on the state portion.
The Life exam runs 120 minutes (75 for General, 45 for State) with 85 scored questions. The Accident & Health exam also runs 120 minutes (75 General, 45 State) with 85 scored questions. Each also carries a handful of unscored pretest questions mixed in that don't count - you won't know which ones they are, so just answer everything.
What the Life & Health exams actually cover
On the Life side, the General portion leans heavily on Types of Policies (whole life, universal, variable, term, annuities, combination plans) and on Life Provisions, Riders, Options & Exclusions - those two areas alone are the bulk of the scored questions. The rest covers completing the application / underwriting / policy delivery, plus retirement and tax concepts (qualified vs. nonqualified plans, MECs, Social Security).
On the Accident & Health side, the General portion is anchored by Types of Policies (disability income, medical expense, HMO/PPO/POS, HSAs/HRAs/FSAs, Medicare supplement, LTC, dental/vision/critical illness) and Policy Provisions, Clauses & Riders (the mandatory and optional uniform provisions). Then a lighter slice on social insurance (Medicare Parts A-D, Medicaid), other concepts (coordination of benefits, taxation), and field underwriting.
The Hawaii State portion for both exams shares a big common block - the Insurance Commissioner's powers, definitions, licensing rules, marketing practices, and the guaranty associations. Then each adds its line-specific Hawaii content: Life adds replacement rules, annuity disclosure and suitability, variable contracts, group life, and credit life; A&H adds Hawaii's Prepaid Health Care Act, Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI), mandated benefits, and long-term care standards.
Test center vs. OnVUE, what to bring, and retakes
You can test at a Pearson VUE center (Honolulu, Hilo, Haleiwa, Kahului) or from home with OnVUE online proctoring. One catch with OnVUE: you cannot combine two exams in one online session, so if you want to sit Life and A&H back-to-back in a single visit, book a test center. Schedule at least 24 hours ahead - there are no walk-ins.
Bring two forms of current signature ID. The primary must be government-issued, photo-bearing, and signed (driver's license, passport, military ID); the secondary just needs a valid signature (credit/debit card or a second primary). The names must match your registration exactly, and Pearson does not honor ID grace periods - an expired license is expired, period. You'll leave a test center with a printed pass/fail score report in hand.
Retakes: if you tested at a center, you can re-book after 24 hours. If you tested on OnVUE, you wait two weeks for your first retake and four weeks for each subsequent one. Either way, the $75 fee applies again each attempt.
From passing scores to an actual license
Once you've passed both exams, get fingerprinted through Fieldprint Hawaii. Schedule online and enter the code HI-DCCA-INS so your results route to the Insurance Division. The Fieldprint fee (about $63) covers state and federal submission. If you're applying for more than one license type at the same time you only fingerprint once - but a later, separate application means fingerprinting again.
Then apply electronically at NIPR within 60 days of your fingerprinting and pay the resident producer license fee (currently $150). Paper applications for an initial license are not accepted. Both the Life and Accident & Health lines of authority go on the same producer license and the same $150 application - you're not paying twice.
If you were licensed for these same lines in another state, Hawaii may waive the exam entirely: you generally don't have to test if you're currently licensed elsewhere for the same lines, or if you apply within 90 days of your prior license's cancellation with a good-standing certification.
Costs, continuing education, and renewal
Budget roughly: $75 per exam (so $150 for Life + A&H), about $63 for fingerprinting, and $150 for the license application - call it around $363 all-in for the Life & Health path, assuming you pass each exam on the first try.
Hawaii licenses renew every two years, due the last day of your birth month. The cycle is tied to your birth month: even birth-months renew in even years, odd birth-months in odd years. The resident renewal fee is currently $100.
For continuing education, a Life & Health producer needs 24 hours per two-year term - 21 hours of Life/Accident & Health content plus 3 hours of ethics or insurance law/rules. Finish and report all CE before you submit your renewal; Hawaii doesn't allow carryover of extra credits, and you can't repeat the same course for credit within 24 months. One more gate: if you sell annuities, you must complete a one-time 4-hour annuity training course before you solicit any annuity business.
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