Holding Both Life-Side Lines in Kansas
K.S.A. 40-4903 lists Life and accident and health or sickness as separate qualifications, and a Kansas licence simply names whichever lines you have earned. There is no distinct "Life & Health" credential — but there is a distinct exam that earns both at once, and that is what makes this route worth taking.
The arithmetic is unusually one-sided. The combined 12-KS-05 is 140 scored questions in 150 minutes for $64. Sitting 12-KS-01 and 12-KS-02 separately is 168 scored questions across two 90-minute papers for $114. The combined route is $50 cheaper, half an hour shorter in total, and one trip instead of two.
And the licence costs the same either way. NIPR states that Kansas fees are charged per application, and Kansas charges no amendment fee for adding lines — so the $10 application covers one line or four. There is genuinely no financial reason to split unless you are certain you will never write the other side.
Two Kansas rules attach once you hold both. Selling annuities requires the one-time four-credit training under K.A.R. 40-1-53, Kansas's best-interest regulation effective 1 January 2024 (older material citing K.A.R. 40-2-14a is out of date — it was revoked that day). And variable life and variable annuity products are a separate line of authority under 40-4903, requiring your FINRA registrations alongside the life line.
Exam Options & Format
KS Life and Accident & Health Producer, series 12-KS-05: 140 scored questions plus 14 unscored pretest items (154 presented), 2 hours 30 minutes, $64, passing at 70%.
That works out to about 58 seconds a question — comfortably in line with Kansas's other exams, and notably better than the Personal Lines paper's 51 seconds. Length is not the difficulty here; breadth is.
The Kansas block is large and it is split three ways on this paper. The content outline gives the combined exam 18 questions on laws and rules common to all lines, plus 11 on Kansas life rules and 11 on Kansas accident-and-health rules — about 40 of 140 on Kansas law. Sitting the two singles instead would put 34 Kansas questions on each paper, 68 in total. The combined exam therefore carries less state law overall, not more, which is the opposite of what most candidates assume.
On the 70%: the handbook says only "the passing score required on each examination is 70%." It does not say whether that is raw or scaled, and no KID page states a passing score at all.
Every attempt is in person. Kansas insurance is absent from Pearson VUE's OnVUE program list, and the July 2026 handbook never mentions remote testing.
Retakes: 24 hours to rebook and a seven-calendar-day wait to retest, with no cap on attempts and a fresh $64 each time. Kansas scores one integrated exam, so a retake is the whole paper — there is no portion carry-forward. Scores stay valid two years.
Most Tested Topics Across Kansas's Life and Health Content
About forty Kansas questions, and the material spanning both lines clusters on what happens when an insurer fails, what a buyer may hand back, and what a producer may not do. From the TESTivity Kansas regulations curriculum, verified against the code:
| Concept | The Kansas rule |
|---|---|
| Guaranty association | The Kansas Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association — limits at K.S.A. 40-3008(q)(2) |
| Life limits | $300,000 in death benefits; $100,000 in net cash surrender and withdrawal values |
| Annuity limits | $250,000 in present value, including net cash surrender and withdrawal values; structured settlement annuities also $250,000 per payee |
| Health limits | $500,000 for health benefit plans (hospital, medical and surgical); $300,000 each for disability income and long-term care; $100,000 for other health insurance |
| Aggregate cap | $300,000 per individual life regardless of the number of policies — with health benefit plans carrying their own separate $500,000 cap |
| Free look — life and annuity | At least 10 days from delivery, and the policy may be returned to the insurer's home or branch office or to the agent through whom it was purchased — K.A.R. 40-2-15 |
| Free look — individual accident and health | Also at least 10 days, with the notice on the first page in at least 10-point bold; on return the policy is "void from the beginning" — K.A.R. 40-4-22. Travel accident policies are excluded |
| Free look — long-term care | At least 30 days |
| Free look — Medicare supplement | 30 days from receipt |
| Replacement — notify the incumbent | The replacing insurer must notify the existing insurer within three working days — K.A.R. 40-2-12 |
| Replacement — the 20-day rule | The replacing insurer must delay issuing the policy 20 days, unless the policy carries a right to an unconditional refund of all premiums within 20 days after delivery |
| Replacement records | At least three years, or until the conclusion of the next regular Departmental examination |
| Life policy provisions | All in one section — K.S.A. 40-420: grace not less than 30 days; incontestability two years; misstatement of age adjusts the benefit; reinstatement three years |
| ⚠ Suicide | Kansas has no statutory suicide clause. None of § 40-420's thirteen required provisions mentions it; the familiar two-year clause is policy language |
| Nonforfeiture | K.S.A. 40-428, the Standard Nonforfeiture Law |
| Unfair trade practices | K.S.A. 40-2404 enumerates sixteen categories, including misrepresentation, defamation, boycott and coercion, unfair discrimination, and rebates at (8) |
| Responding to the Department | 14 days to respond to a Department inquiry — K.S.A. 40-2404(10). Note the licensing statute uses a different figure: 15 business days under K.S.A. 40-4909 |
| Unfair claim settlement | Fourteen enumerated practices, (a) through (n), at K.S.A. 40-2404(9) — actionable only where "committed flagrantly and in conscious disregard" of the provisions or "with such frequency as to indicate a general business practice" |
| Penalties | Up to $500 per violation, capped at $2,500 for the same violation within any six consecutive months — rising to $1,000 and $5,000 where the licensee knew or should have known — K.S.A. 40-4909 |
The guaranty limits are the highest-value block, and Kansas's shape differs from the common pattern in one place. The familiar $300,000 death benefit and $100,000 cash surrender are standard. What people get wrong is the annuity figure: Kansas caps annuities at $250,000 in present value, not the $300,000 several states use — and the same $250,000 governs structured settlement annuities per payee. Meanwhile the aggregate is $300,000 per individual life regardless of how many policies are involved, with health benefit plans stepping outside that to their own $500,000.
The replacement rule is Kansas's signature life-side question, because it is written as a choice. K.A.R. 40-2-12 does not impose a longer free look on replacements. It requires the replacing insurer to wait twenty days after notifying the existing insurer before issuing — and then offers an alternative: issue at once if the contract gives an unconditional refund of all premiums within twenty days after delivery. Carriers almost universally take the second path, which is why the practical experience is a 20-day free look on replacements against 10 on new business. An item offering both a delay and a refund window is testing whether you know they are alternatives rather than cumulative requirements.
And note the two response deadlines, because Kansas really does have both. A failure to respond to a Department inquiry within 14 days is an enumerated unfair trade practice under K.S.A. 40-2404(10). Failure to respond within 15 business days is separately a ground for licence action under K.S.A. 40-4909. Different statutes, different clocks, both live.
Exam Day at a Kansas Pearson VUE Center — What Actually Happens
Everything is in person. Kansas insurance does not appear on Pearson VUE's OnVUE program list, the July 2026 handbook contains no remote-testing provision, and the Kansas Department of Insurance points candidates to test centers. A Kansas-insurance OnVUE web address does still resolve, but it serves the ordinary Kansas landing page with no scheduling and no remote-testing content — an orphaned page, not an option.
Arrive 30 minutes before your appointment. That is check-in time, not a courtesy margin: identification, photograph, storage of belongings and seating all happen inside it. For a 150-minute exam, budget for being at the center the better part of three and a half hours.
Bring two forms of current signature identification. The handbook is precise: "candidate must present two forms of current signature identification. The primary identification must be government-issued, photo-bearing with a signature and the secondary identification must contain a valid signature." Primary examples given are a driver's licence, passport, military ID or green card; secondary examples are a Social Security card or a credit card. Both must be current, and the name must match your registration.
The secondary ID trips people up more than the primary. Almost everyone brings a driver's licence. Fewer think about the second document — and a signed credit card or Social Security card in your wallet is the easy answer, so check it the night before rather than at the door.
Everything else stays outside. The handbook's list is long and worth reading once: "no personal items are allowed in the testing room. Personal items include but are not limited to: cellular phones, hand-held computers or other electronic devices, pagers, watches, wallets, purses, firearms or other weapons, hats, bags, coats, books, and/or notes, pens or pencils." And separately: "dictionaries, books, papers (including scratch paper), and reference materials are not permitted." Watches are on that list, so rely on the on-screen timer.
Pacing across 154 questions in 150 minutes. That is about 58 seconds each — a workable rate, and one of the more comfortable in the Kansas catalogue. Fourteen of those questions are unscored pretest items, unmarked and indistinguishable from the rest, so there is nothing to hunt for; answer everything at the same tempo. There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so never leave one blank. A practical split on a 140-scored paper: aim to be past question 77 at the halfway mark, and reserve the last ten minutes for anything you flagged.
Accommodations under the ADA must be requested at least 10 days before your intended exam date, and the request goes through the Kansas Department of Insurance rather than the test center.
Rescheduling: 48 hours, by phone. Call (888) 204-6255 at least 48 hours ahead to change or cancel; with proper notice the fee may be transferred or refunded. Without it, "candidates who change or cancel their reservations without proper notice will forfeit the examination fee." Note that Kansas routes this through the phone line rather than a web form.
When you finish, you leave with the score. "The examination will end automatically when the examination time has expired, and candidates will leave the test center with their official scores in hand." Keep the report: your score is valid two years, which is among the most generous windows in the country — but your application and fingerprints are valid only six months and your tax clearance only 90 days, so the exam is the loosest constraint in the Kansas process, not the tightest. The Personal Lines guide covers results and retakes in full.
Kansas Temporary Licenses — 180 Days, No Exam, One Extension
Kansas issues a genuine temporary licence, and K.S.A. 40-4907 lets the Commissioner do it "without requiring the applicant to pass a written examination." It is not a shortcut into the business — every category is about keeping an existing book of business alive when the person running it cannot.
Category one — death or disability of an agent. The licence may go to the surviving spouse, or to the court-appointed personal representative, of an agent who has died or become disabled. The statutory purposes are specific: to allow time to sell the business, to give the agent time to recover, or to train new personnel to run it. One structural detail worth knowing — the spouse's licence lapses if a personal representative's licence is subsequently issued.
Category two — a business entity loses its designated licensee. Members or employees of a business entity may be temporarily licensed where the designated licensed individual dies or becomes disabled. This matters in Kansas more than in most states because Kansas allows only one active DRLP per entity — lose that person and the agency has no licensed individual designated at all until a temporary licence bridges the gap.
Category three — military service. The designee of an agent "entering active service in the armed forces of the United States" may be licensed.
Category four — the public-interest catch-all. Any other circumstance where the Commissioner "deems that the public interest will be best served."
The term: 180 days, extendable once. The statute allows up to 180 days, and permits one additional period of up to 180 days in the circumstances it describes — a 360-day ceiling in ordinary cases. The military category is the exception: a designee's licence may be renewed "for such period of time as in the commissioner's opinion may be necessary," which recognises that a deployment does not run to a statutory calendar.
The Commissioner attaches conditions, and they are real. § 40-4907 permits the Commissioner to limit the authority granted to a temporary licensee, to require a licensed sponsor who "assume[s] responsibility for all acts of the temporary licensee," and to revoke the licence if the public interest is endangered. A sponsor taking on that responsibility should understand it is not nominal.
What a temporary licence does not do. It does not build toward a permanent one — there is no credit, no reduced examination, and no shortened path at the end of the 180 or 360 days. If the person holding it wants to stay in the business, they sit the exam like anyone else. And since Kansas requires no pre-licensing education and lets you apply before or after the exam, that is a genuinely short road: book 12-KS-05, pass it, and file.
A footnote for succession planning. Because Kansas caps the temporary route at roughly a year and allows only one DRLP per entity, an agency whose principal is the sole licensed individual is one event away from a hard deadline. The practical answer is a second licensed producer on the roster before it is needed, not a temporary licence afterwards.
What It Costs
$64 for the combined 12-KS-05, $60 for the criminal background check, and $10 for the 2026 application — about $134, plus NIPR's transaction fee. There is no course to buy.
The saving is real and it is in the exam fee. Two single-line exams cost $114 against $64 combined — and because the $10 application fee is per application rather than per line, there is no offsetting cost to putting both lines on one filing.
Fingerprint capture is free at the Kansas Department of Insurance in Topeka and at six Department of Children and Families locations; a Pearson VUE Professional Center charges $20. The $60 background check is the fixed cost.
The application fee is re-set annually under K.S.A. 40-4905 and published in the Kansas Register, capped at $30 — $10 for 2026, $15 for 2025. Renewal is $4 every two years, and a temporary licence carries the ordinary application fee.
Eligibility Requirements
Be at least 18, submit fingerprints for a state and national criminal history record check under K.S.A. 40-4905, hold a current Kansas Department of Revenue Certificate of Tax Clearance, and avoid the seventeen grounds in K.S.A. 40-4909.
There is no pre-licensing course and no designation waiver — K.S.A. 40-4908's six waiver situations turn on prior licensure rather than credentials, so CLU, ChFC, FLMI and RHU earn nothing in Kansas. Temporary licensees are the one group excused from the examination, on the terms above. The Accident & Health guide covers the waiver list.
The Life guide walks the NIPR application and the tax clearance; the Casualty guide walks fingerprinting.
Keeping the License Active
Important CE details: Holding both lines does not increase the requirement. Kansas exempts several limited lines from CE entirely — pre-need funeral, bail bond, self-service storage and travel — but no major line, no long-service licensee and no designation holder is exempt.
Biennial term ending the last day of your birth month — odd years for an odd birth year, even years for an even one. CE is 18 hours per cycle including at least 3 in ethics (K.S.A. 40-4903), and holding both lines does not double it.
No carryover. KID states that "courses must be completed during the biennium to which they are to be applied," and K.A.R. 40-7-20a bars re-earning credit for the same course inside a biennium.
One training sits outside the 18 hours for anyone selling annuities: the one-time four-credit course required by K.A.R. 40-1-53. Producers who already held a life line when the regulation took effect on 1 January 2024 had six months to comply. The Property & Casualty guide covers renewal mechanics, the late ladder, and the automatic 90-day suspension that follows a missed CE deadline.
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