What This License Is
An Illinois Casualty line of authority covers insurance against legal liability for injury to persons or damage to property — auto liability, general and commercial liability, professional liability, workers' compensation and the liability half of a package policy.
Illinois keeps Property and Casualty as separate lines with separate 20-hour courses and separate exam pairs, so Casualty-only is a real path. And because Illinois charges $215 for the license rather than per line, adding Property later costs a course and an exam pair but no second license fee.
Casualty is also the natural route into surplus lines, which in Illinois is a separate licence at $400 a year — an annual fee, not a biennial one, and by some distance the most expensive add-on the state sells. The section below covers what you get for it.
Exam Options & Format
The Casualty line requires two examinations: the IL Casualty Producer General exam — 50 scored plus 5 pretest, 55 items in 80 minutes — and the IL Casualty Producer State exam — 37 scored plus 5 pretest, 42 items in 55 minutes. Eighty-seven scored questions in all.
Both must be passed within 90 days of each other, scheduled separately and scored separately.
Order them together and the pair costs $92, because Illinois discounts the second exam when both go on the same order. Separately it is $184. The $92 includes a $50 Illinois administrative fee.
The score is scaled — 0 to 100 with 70 to pass, and the handbook is explicit that the number "should not be interpreted as the percentage or number of correct answers."
All testing is at a physical test centre; Illinois does not offer remote proctoring. Retakes require a 24-hour wait and another $92. The Property guide covers test centres, booking and exam-day rules in full.
Most Tested Topics on the Illinois Casualty State Exam
Thirty-seven scored questions are Illinois-specific, and they concentrate in auto coverage and workers' compensation. Every row is verified against the statute cited:
| Concept | The Illinois rule |
|---|---|
| Compulsory auto liability limits | 25/50/20 — $25,000 bodily injury per person, $50,000 per accident, $20,000 property damage (625 ILCS 5/7-203) |
| Fault system | Tort. Illinois has no no-fault system and no mandatory PIP; medical payments coverage is available but optional |
| Uninsured motorist, bodily injury | MANDATORY and not waivable. "No policy... shall be renewed, delivered, or issued for delivery in this State unless coverage is provided therein" for bodily injury from uninsured and hit-and-run vehicles, at least at the § 7-203 limits (§ 143a) |
| Uninsured motorist, property damage | Different rule entirely — rejectable by omission: "the absence of a premium payment for uninsured motorist property damage shall constitute conclusive proof that the applicant or policyholder has elected not to accept" it. Maximum $250 deductible (§ 143a) |
| Additional uninsured motorist coverage | Included at an amount equal to the insured's bodily injury liability limits unless rejected — and the rejection only goes down to the floor, not away, because the insured may reject only coverage "in excess of the limits set forth in Section 7-203" (§ 143a-2(1), (2)) |
| Underinsured motorist | Pegged to the policy's uninsured motorist limit, not directly to the liability limits: UIM is included "in an amount equal to the total amount of uninsured motorist coverage provided in that policy" (§ 143a-2(4)). So buying UM above 25/50 pulls UIM up with it |
| The UIM subrogation trap | An insurer may not exercise subrogation where it was given written notice in advance of a settlement and then failed to advance a payment within 30 days of receiving that notice (§ 143a-2(6)) |
| Binding arbitration limits on a UM claim | An arbitrators' award binds only up to $75,000 for one person and $150,000 for two or more in one crash — "or the corresponding policy limits for bodily injury or death, whichever is less" (§ 143a) |
| Comparative negligence | Modified, and phrase it precisely: the plaintiff is barred "if the trier of fact finds that the contributory fault on the part of the plaintiff is more than 50%." A plaintiff at exactly 50% still recovers, with damages diminished in proportion (735 ILCS 5/2-1116) |
| Workers' compensation market | Competitive, not monopolistic. The IWCC says plainly that "w.c. insurance is sold in the private sector"; insurers have set their own rates since 1983, and Illinois has more companies writing workers' compensation than any other state |
| The residual market | Administered by NCCI, and priced accordingly — the IWCC describes premiums in the market of last resort as costing "about 50% more than the open market" |
| Notice to the employer | 45 days. "The employee must notify the employer as soon as practicable, but no later than 45 days after the accident" |
| Filing the claim | 3 years after the injury, or 2 years after the last payment of temporary total disability or a medical bill, whichever is later |
| Waiting period | TTD is not paid for the first three lost workdays — unless the employee misses 14 or more calendar days, in which case benefits are paid retroactively to day one |
| Temporary total disability rate | 66⅔% of the average weekly wage, subject to a maximum tied to the state average weekly wage. The IWCC resets the table every six months and publishes it by January 15 and July 15 — check the current bulletin rather than memorising a dollar figure |
| Burial benefit | $8,000, paid to the widow or widower, other dependent, next of kin, or whoever incurred the expense (820 ILCS 305/7(f)) |
The auto provisions are where Illinois departs most sharply from the national pattern, and the departure has a consistent shape: coverage the insured did not knowingly give up stays in the policy. Uninsured motorist bodily injury cannot be waived at all. Underinsured motorist coverage arrives automatically at your liability limits and can only be reduced to the statutory floor, never removed. And an insurer that sits on a UIM notice for thirty days without advancing payment loses its subrogation rights. Read any Illinois auto question with that instinct and the right answer usually presents itself.
The one genuine trap is uninsured motorist property damage, which works the opposite way to everything around it. Where UM bodily injury is mandatory and non-waivable, UM property damage is rejected simply by not paying a premium for it — the statute makes the absence of a premium payment conclusive proof of rejection. Two coverages, adjacent in the same section, with opposite default rules.
And on comparative negligence, wording is everything. Illinois bars recovery where the plaintiff's fault is more than 50%. That means a plaintiff found exactly 50% at fault recovers — half their damages. Answer choices that say "barred at 50% or more" are wrong, and the shorthand "50% bar" is ambiguous enough to lead you there. Illinois is a 51% bar state in the sense that 51% is where recovery stops.
Illinois Surplus Lines — the Licence, the Search, and the Number That Isn't There
Surplus lines is where an Illinois casualty producer places a risk the admitted market will not take. Illinois runs one of the largest surplus lines markets in the country and regulates it through a distinctive combination: a separate annual licence, a stamping association that records every contract, and — unusually — no required number of declinations at all.
The licence. Surplus lines is a separate Illinois licence, and the statute sets both the prerequisite and the price in one sentence: "Any licensed producer who is a resident of this State, or any nonresident who qualifies under Section 500-40, may be licensed as a surplus line producer upon payment of an annual license fee of $400." Note two things there. You must already hold a producer licence — surplus lines rides on top of it. And the fee is annual, not biennial like the $215 producer licence, which makes it the most expensive recurring authority Illinois sells.
The diligent effort — and where the number actually lives. Section 445 permits a surplus lines placement only after a diligent effort to procure the coverage from admitted insurers, and the statute itself sets no count. The number is in the regulation, and it is in the section before the one people usually read.
50 Ill. Adm. Code 2701.50(a) supplies it: diligent effort "shall be deemed to have been exercised if the surplus line producer or the referring insurance producer submits a risk to three or more authorized insurers that are engaged in writing in Illinois the type of coverage sought" — or, where no insurer actually writes that coverage, to those the producer judges most likely to accept it. Three is the Illinois number.
Then 2701.60 adds the recordkeeping layer that sits on top of it: "The surplus line producer must maintain, with the copy of the insurance that was placed, a record of the diligent effort, which must state the name of the authorized insurers and the individuals contacted at each insurer who declined the risk." Not just how many — who, by company and by individual.
And 2701.70 closes the obvious loophole: declinations of artificial coverage are not acceptable. You cannot manufacture the three by shopping a risk to insurers that do not write it.
So Illinois asks for both: a threshold and a named record. A file noting "three carriers declined" meets the count and fails the record; a file naming the underwriter at each of three companies that actually write the line meets both.
Exemptions from the search exist for exempt commercial purchasers and certain wholesale transactions.
Tax and stamping. The Illinois surplus line tax is 3.5% of premium, for policies with an effective date of July 1, 2003 or later. On top sits a stamping fee of 0.04% of premium, rounded to the nearest whole dollar, for policies effective 1 January 2023 or later. That stamping fee has moved a great deal over the years — it was 0.075% from 2019 to 2022, and higher still before that — so any figure in older material is wrong.
Filing. Illinois runs on a twice-yearly cycle rather than the quarterly or monthly schedules many states use: taxes are filed "on or before February 1 and August 1 of each year", covering the six-month periods ending 31 December and 30 June.
The Surplus Line Association of Illinois. Every insurance contract and premium-bearing endorsement placed in the surplus lines market must be submitted to the Association for recording. The Association maintains the records and — a detail worth knowing because it is unusual — can receive service of process on behalf of unauthorised insurers. That is the practical answer to the question a client should be asking: a non-admitted carrier is not licensed here, so the Association is the mechanism by which Illinois keeps a hand on it.
And say the consequence out loud. A surplus lines policy is not backed by the Illinois Insurance Guaranty Fund. The Fund covers claims against insolvent member insurers, which means insurers licensed to transact business in Illinois. If a non-admitted carrier fails, the $500,000-per-claim protection that would have applied to an admitted policy simply is not there. That is the trade the client is making, and documenting that they understood it is the producer's protection as much as theirs.
What It Costs
$92 for both exams booked on a single order plus $215 for the license — about $307 in state fees on a first-time pass, or $399 if you book the exams separately.
Nothing goes to a fingerprint vendor. Illinois does not print producers.
Adding Property later is another 20-hour course and another $92 exam pair, with no second license fee. Adding surplus lines is $400 a year.
Renewal of the producer licence is $215 every two years.
Eligibility Requirements
You must be at least 18, complete the 20-hour Casualty pre-licensing course (7.5 hours of it classroom or webinar) with an IDOI-approved provider, pass both exams within 90 days of each other, wait five days, and file through NIPR with the $215 fee.
Holding AAI, ARM, CIC, CRM or CPCU exempts you from the property and casualty pre-licensing coursework — the 20 hours only, never the exams, and a college degree in insurance qualifies on the same footing. Prior licensure for the same lines in another state waives both, if you are currently licensed there or apply within 90 days of cancellation with a Letter of Clearance.
Illinois does not fingerprint producers — the application's background questions carry the whole review, and the Accident & Health guide covers them.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: 24 hours every two years including 3 hours of ethics, and the ethics hours must be classroom or webinar. Illinois imposes no producer CE mandate specific to workers' compensation.
Illinois licenses run a two-year term and renew for $215, expiring the last day of your birth month per NIPR.
CE is 24 hours every two years including 3 hours of ethics, and the ethics hours must be classroom or webinar. Up to 4 hours may come from professional insurance association participation, no course over 12 hours is approved, and up to 12 hours carry forward — but ethics never carries over.
Note one thing that does not apply to you: Illinois imposes no producer CE mandate specific to workers' compensation, despite how much workers' compensation content sits on the Casualty exam. The line-specific training mandates in Illinois attach to annuities (a one-time 4-credit best-interest course), long-term care (the 8-hour Partnership course plus 4 hours per renewal) and flood (the FEMA course) — all of which sit with other lines of authority.
CE must be banked on State Based Systems at least 10 business days before your renewal date, and failure means the licence automatically terminates. The Property & Casualty guide owns renewal and reinstatement in full.
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