What This License Is
The Illinois Accident and Health or Sickness line of authority covers accident, health and sickness products: major medical and marketplace plans, disability income, Medicare supplement, dental and vision, and — with a further certification — long-term care.
It is a line on a single Illinois producer license, and Illinois charges $215 for the license rather than per line, so adding health authority to an existing license costs you a 20-hour course and an exam pair but no second license fee.
There is no combined Life & Health license here. Life and Accident & Health are separate lines with separate coursework and separate exam pairs.
One thing to budget for before you buy the course: long-term care is not included with this license. Before selling, soliciting or negotiating LTC you owe 8 hours of training one time, then 4 hours before each renewal (50 Ill. Adm. Code 2012.121). Note a wording difference worth knowing: the rule imposes the requirement on anyone who sells LTC and treats qualified state Partnership programs as one of the mandated topics, while IDOI's own producer page describes the operational requirement as holding the Health line of authority and completing the Long Term Care (Partnership) certification course.
Exam Options & Format
Illinois splits every producer line into two separate examinations. For Accident & Health that is the IL Accident and Health Producer General exam — 50 scored questions plus 5 pretest items, 55 items in 80 minutes — and the IL Accident and Health Producer State exam — 39 scored plus 5 pretest, 44 items in 55 minutes.
That 39-question state paper is worth noting: it is the largest state-specific section Illinois sets for any producer line, larger than Life's 31, Property's 30 or Casualty's 37. Illinois health law is dense and the exam reflects it.
Both exams must be passed within 90 days of each other, they are scheduled and scored separately, and both can be sat back to back in one visit.
Order them together. Each exam is priced at $92, but Illinois grants a $92 discount when both exams for a line go on the same order — so the pair is $92 together, $184 apart. The $92 includes a $50 Illinois administrative fee.
The score is scaled. Illinois reports 0 to 100 with 70 to pass, and the handbook states the number "should not be interpreted as the percentage or number of correct answers."
Test centers only. Pearson VUE's Illinois page offers appointments "in a physical test center"; the handbook contains no OnVUE or online-proctoring content at all, and walk-in examinations are not available. Be careful here — IDOI's own FAQ page is a 2021 artifact that still announces "new online proctored exams" beginning August 2021. It is stale. Illinois had remote proctoring during the pandemic and does not now.
Exams are offered in English or Spanish (Castilian), chosen at scheduling. Retakes require a 24-hour wait, and retake candidates need not present the pre-licensing certificate again.
Most Tested Topics on the Illinois Accident & Health State Exam
Thirty-nine scored questions are pure Illinois, and they cluster in the required policy provisions of Article XX and the state's own claim and continuation clocks. Every row is verified against the statute or rule cited:
| Concept | The Illinois rule |
|---|---|
| Grace period, tiered by premium mode | 7 days weekly premium, 10 days monthly premium, 31 days every other mode. Illinois writes the tiers into the required provision itself — and note individual life is a flat 30 days, not tiered (§ 357.4) |
| Time limit on certain defenses | 2 years. After two years no misstatement except a fraudulent one may void the policy. And a second rule most candidates miss: after two years a claim may not be reduced or denied for a pre-existing condition unless that condition was excluded from coverage by name or specific description on the effective date (§ 357.3) |
| Reinstatement | Sits at § 357.5 — worth knowing because candidates expect notice of claim there and reach for the wrong section |
| The claim chain | 20 / 15 / 90 / one year. Notice of claim within 20 days of the loss or as soon as reasonably possible (§ 357.6); if the insurer fails to furnish claim forms within 15 days, the claimant satisfies proof of loss by simply writing out the occurrence, character and extent of the loss (§ 357.7); written proof of loss within 90 days, and in no event later than one year except in the absence of legal capacity (§ 357.8) |
| Time of payment of claims | "Immediately upon receipt of due written proof of such loss" for anything other than a periodic payment; periodic payments not less frequently than monthly (§ 357.9) |
| Free look, individual accident and health | 10 days from delivery, with the notice printed prominently on the first page or attached — except on single premium nonrenewal policies (§ 355a(5)(a)) |
| Free look, Medicare supplement and LTC | 30 days each, premium refunded directly (§ 363; § 351A-7) |
| Prompt payment of claims | 30 days after receipt of due written proof of loss — Illinois does not use the term "clean claim" and draws no electronic/paper distinction. Late payment carries 9% a year, running from the thirtieth day rather than from receipt, and interest of less than $1 need not be paid. A separate 60-day clock covers periodic and capitation payments (§ 368a) |
| State continuation | 12 months — and it has a precondition the summaries omit: the employee must have been continuously insured under the group policy for the entire 3 months before termination. The employer must give written notice within 10 days; the employee elects within 30 days, and in no event more than 60 days after termination (§ 367e) |
| Spousal and dependent continuation | Different rules entirely: 2 years for a spouse or dependent child, a spouse aged 55 or older continues to Medicare eligibility, and unlike ordinary continuation these permit an administrative load of up to 20% (§ 367.2; § 367.2-5) |
| External review | Request within 4 months of the final adverse determination; the carrier is solely responsible for the cost; the decision is binding on the carrier and on the covered person, except where the covered person has other remedies under federal or state law; 45 days standard, 72 hours expedited (215 ILCS 180/35, 40, 45, 70) |
| The exchange | Get Covered Illinois, a fully state-based exchange from plan year 2026. The statute required a two-step move — "as a State-based exchange using the federal platform by plan year 2025 and as a State-based exchange by plan year 2026" — and the platform went live 1 November 2025 for coverage effective 1 January 2026 (215 ILCS 122/5-5) |
| Long-term care training | 8 hours one time, then 4 hours before each subsequent renewal, with a 12-month grace period after renewal to finish the ongoing hours without repeating the 8. The hours may be approved as continuing education. The rule reaches anyone who sells, solicits or negotiates LTC and lists qualified state Partnership programs among its required topics; IDOI describes it operationally as the Long Term Care (Partnership) certification tied to the Health line (50 Ill. Adm. Code 2012.121) |
Three of these reliably separate candidates. The grace period is the first, because Illinois runs two different rules and the exam sets the same fact pattern on both papers: accident and health is tiered 7 / 10 / 31 by premium mode, while individual life is a flat 30 days regardless of mode. Learn them as a contrast, not as one rule.
The second is the claim chain, and specifically § 357.7. Most states have a claim-forms provision; few candidates notice what it actually does. If the insurer does not furnish claim forms within 15 days of receiving notice of claim, the claimant is deemed to have complied with the proof-of-loss requirement by submitting written proof of the occurrence, character and extent of the loss. The insurer's delay converts a formal requirement into an informal one, and that is exactly the kind of consequence examiners like to test.
The third is continuation, where Illinois has three regimes and a careless answer picks the wrong one. Ordinary continuation after termination of employment is 12 months at the group rate with no administrative load. Continuation for a spouse after divorce, death or retirement, and for a dependent child, runs 2 years and permits up to a 20% administrative charge — and a spouse who is 55 or older does not stop at two years at all, but continues until Medicare eligibility. Read the question for who is continuing before you reach for a number.
Illinois's Background Questions — and Why There Are No Fingerprints
Most states run two background processes in parallel: a fingerprint-based criminal history check and a set of disclosure questions on the application. Illinois runs only the second one for producers.
Illinois does not fingerprint resident insurance producers. Fingerprinting exists in Illinois insurance licensing, but it attaches to public adjusters: before a public adjuster license may be issued the applicant "must be fingerprinted by an Illinois approved live scan vendor," and no license issues until the Department has results from the Illinois State Police and the FBI. NIPR's Illinois pages scope the requirement the same way — fingerprints are noted as required for public adjusters only.
And the vendor list you may have been sent is the wrong agency. Insurance producers in Illinois are licensed by the Illinois Department of Insurance (IDOI), a standalone department at idoi.illinois.gov. IDFPR — the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, at idfpr.illinois.gov — is a different department regulating different professions, and its approved live-scan vendor list has nothing to do with an insurance producer license. Note also that the older insurance.illinois.gov address now redirects to idoi.illinois.gov, so stored bookmarks and old course materials will send you sideways.
So the disclosure questions are the whole of the background check. Nothing independent runs alongside them to catch an omission — and nothing runs alongside them to corroborate a disclosure either.
What triggers a disclosure. The uniform application asks about criminal history, administrative actions by any regulator in any jurisdiction, unsatisfied judgments, bankruptcies, unpaid taxes and child-support arrears, and terminations for cause by an insurer. IDOI directs applicants to its Company Bulletin on license application background questions for how to answer, and 215 ILCS 5/500-76 governs how convictions are weighed. Read each question for what it asks — charges as well as convictions, pending matters as well as concluded ones, any governmental agency and not just an insurance department.
What to attach. A "yes" answer needs the primary record plus your own account of it: the charging document and the disposition order for a criminal matter; the consent order or final order for an administrative action; discharge papers for a bankruptcy; a payment plan or satisfaction for a judgment or lien. Then a short written explanation — what happened, when, what you did about it, what has changed.
What the Department is weighing. Section 500-70 lists sixteen grounds on which a license may be denied, suspended or revoked, and they run to the qualities the disclosures are asking about: fraud, misrepresentation on the application, misappropriation of premium money, felony convictions, and — at (a)(9) — "having an insurance producer license, or its equivalent, denied, suspended, or revoked in any other state, province, district or territory." Note the consequence attached to that section: a person whose license is revoked or whose application is denied under it is ineligible to apply for any license for three years.
The duty that follows you afterwards — and the one that does not. A producer convicted of a felony must report it to the Director within 30 days after the entry date of the judgment, with a copy of the judgment, the probation or commitment order and any other relevant documents (§ 500-95). Illinois also gives you 30 days to report an address change (§ 500-35(g)).
What Illinois does not have is worth knowing precisely, because most states do. The NAIC model imposes a parallel producer-side duty to report administrative actions taken by another jurisdiction's regulator, usually within 30 days. Illinois did not adopt it. Section 500-95 is headed "Reporting of actions" but its text covers felony convictions only; the administrative-action concept appears in Illinois solely as a ground for discipline under 500-70(a)(9), not as a reporting deadline. In practice out-of-state actions reach IDOI through the NAIC databases and through your attestations at application and renewal — so the absence of a deadline is not an absence of exposure.
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. Book the exams as two separate transactions and the same two exams cost $184, taking the total to $399.
Nothing goes to a fingerprint vendor, because Illinois does not print producers.
The 20-hour pre-licensing course is a private-provider expense. If long-term care is in your plans, add the 8-hour long-term care training course — and note it may also be credited toward your 24 CE hours, which softens the cost over a cycle.
Renewal later is $215 every two years.
Eligibility Requirements
You must be at least 18, complete the 20-hour Accident & Health pre-licensing course (7.5 hours of it in a classroom or webinar setting) 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.
Two different kinds of relief exist and they do different jobs. Holding RHU, CEBS, REBC or HIA exempts you from the Accident & Health pre-licensing coursework — the 20 hours only, never the exams. Having been previously licensed for the same lines in another state exempts you from both the coursework and the examination, if you are currently licensed there or apply within 90 days of cancellation with a Letter of Clearance.
The Property & Casualty guide sets both lists out side by side, because conflating them is the most common mistake made about Illinois licensing credit.
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. Long-term care carries its own training on top: 8 hours one time, then 4 hours before each renewal, with a 12-month grace period.
Illinois licenses run a two-year term and renew for $215, expiring the last day of your birth month per NIPR.
The requirement is 24 hours of continuing education every two years, including 3 hours of ethics — and Illinois dictates the format for the ethics hours: they must be classroom or webinar, so self-study will not satisfy them. Up to 4 of the 24 may come from participation in a professional insurance association, no course over 12 hours is approved, and up to 12 hours may carry into the next cycle — but ethics credit never carries over.
For health producers the training that matters most sits outside ordinary CE. Long-term care training is set by 50 Ill. Adm. Code 2012.121: "The one-time training required by this Section shall be no less than 8 hours," and "The ongoing training required by this Section shall be no less than 4 hours and must be completed before each subsequent license renewal." Miss the ongoing hours and you have 12 months from that renewal date to complete them without having to redo the 8-hour course. The hours may be approved as continuing education and count toward your 24, and a non-resident who took a comparable Partnership course in another state is treated as satisfying Illinois's requirement.
The Partnership content is a substantial part of the course, and worth understanding rather than skimming: a Long-Term Care Partnership policy lets an insured shelter assets from Medicaid spend-down dollar for dollar with the benefits it pays, which is why regulators gate the sale behind training at all.
Two mechanical points. CE must be banked on State Based Systems at least 10 business days before your renewal date. And a producer who fails the CE requirement does not get a grace note — the statute says the license automatically terminates. The Property & Casualty guide owns renewal and reinstatement in full.
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