The Maine Life, Accident & Health license
One license covers the whole life-and-health side of the business — life insurance, annuities, disability income, medical expense plans, Medicare supplements, long-term care, and the rest. Maine pairs it with property & casualty as the two major producer lines.
Maine keeps the path simple: no mandatory pre-licensing hours, a single combined exam through Pearson VUE, and a perpetual license once you're through. Your job is to know the material cold — the exam is the only gate, so an optional prep course usually pays for itself.
Format, length, and passing score
The combined Life, Accident & Health exam (code 12-ME-01) runs 151 questions total — 136 are scored and 15 are unscored pretest items mixed in. You can't tell which is which, so treat every question as if it counts.
You get 3 hours 30 minutes, and the exam fee is $80. Maine reports scores on a scaled 0-100 basis; 70 is passing. Fail and the score report shows a numeric result plus diagnostics by topic so you know where to focus a retake — you can re-book after waiting one day.
The exam is built from three blocks: Life general knowledge (50 scored), Accident & Health general knowledge (50 scored), and Maine-specific law and rules (36 scored).
Content breakdown
Life general knowledge (50 scored): policy types — whole life, universal, variable, indexed, term, and annuities; provisions, riders, options, and exclusions; completing the application, underwriting, and policy delivery; and retirement and tax concepts including MECs.
Accident & Health general knowledge (50 scored): disability income, medical expense plans (HMO, PPO, POS, HSA/HDHP), Medicare supplements, long-term care, and other coverages; mandatory and optional provisions; social insurance (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security); and field underwriting.
Maine-specific law and rules (36 scored): the Superintendent's powers, licensing rules, marketing and unfair-practice law, plus the life-only and accident-and-health-only chapters covering everything from the guaranty association to Medicare supplement and ACA rules.
Take it combined or split it
Most candidates sit the combined 12-ME-01 and walk out qualified for both life and health at once. But Maine also offers each half as a standalone exam if you only need one line.
Life Producer (12-ME-41) is 75 scored questions in 1 hour 45 minutes at $55. Accident & Health Producer (12-ME-42) is 88 scored questions in 2 hours at $55. Taken separately the fees add up to more than the single combined exam, so the combined route is usually the better deal if you want both.
What Maine adds on top of the general material
The 36 Maine-specific questions are where general study guides fall short, so give this block real attention. On the life side: the ten-day free look, solicitation and cost-disclosure rules (buyer's guide, policy summary, illustrations), replacement and annuity suitability, viatical and life settlements with STOLI restrictions, and AIDS/HIV testing consent.
On the health side: Medicare supplement benefit standards and guaranteed issue, the ACA marketplace and essential health benefits, COBRA and Maine continuation coverage, HMO and utilization-review regulation, and required provisions like newborn, maternity, and dependent-child coverage.
Common to both: the Superintendent of Insurance's powers, the Maine Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association, licensing and appointment rules, and the unfair-trade-practice list (twisting, rebating, misrepresentation, defamation, false advertising, fraud).
Booking and exam-day logistics
Book through Pearson VUE — online at pearsonvue.com/us/en/me/insurance.html or by phone at (800) 274-4959. Reserve at least 24 hours before the date you want; Maine does not allow walk-in testing.
Pay the exam fee when you book, by credit card, debit card, or voucher. Fees are not accepted at the test center, and they are non-refundable and non-transferable except under the change/cancel policy (call 48 hours ahead to move or cancel without forfeiting).
Show up 30 minutes early with one current, government-issued, photo-bearing ID in English (driver's license, passport, passport card, military ID, or state/national ID card). Maine recognizes no grace period — an ID that expired yesterday counts as expired.
In-state centers are in Bangor and Westbrook; the nearest out-of-state options are Boston and Springfield, Massachusetts. Since May 2025 there is no remote OnVUE option, so plan to test in person.
From passing score to active license
Once you pass, apply for the license itself — passing the exam and holding the license are two separate steps. Apply online through the National Insurance Producer Registry (NIPR) at nipr.com.
The Maine resident producer application-and-license fee is $25, paid through NIPR (a small NIPR transaction fee applies on top). That single fee covers the license for life — Maine resident producer licenses are perpetual with no renewal fee.
Maine runs a state and federal criminal-history records check rather than collecting fingerprints. If you answer yes to a background question, upload supporting documents through NIPR's Attachment Warehouse. Anyone subject to 18 U.S.C. 1033 must secure written 1033 consent from the Bureau before the application can be approved.
Plan on roughly three to five weeks for issuance. Once approved, you can print your license within 24-48 hours at maine.gov/insurance.
Continuing education and renewal
Maine resident producers complete 24 hours of continuing education every two-year cycle, and 3 of those hours must be ethics. Repeating the same course inside one period doesn't count twice.
Holding more than one line doesn't multiply the requirement. If you carry both Life & Health and the other major line, it's still 24 hours total — not 48.
Because resident licenses are perpetual, you never file a renewal or pay a renewal fee. The Bureau renews you automatically on the first business day after your CE due date, provided all 24 credits (including the 3 ethics) are reported. Miss the credits and the auto-renewal stalls until you make them up.
Some products carry their own training gates on top of CE — for example, the one-time annuity and long-term-care training required before you can sell those products.
Quick Reference
Official Links
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