The Maryland Accident and Health or Sickness Producer License
Maryland's health line has a name, and it is worth learning before you book anything: Accident and Health or Sickness. That is what the licence is called on Prometric's Types of Licenses table and what you will select at booking. The product itself has a second name - Title 15 of the Insurance Article regulates accident and sickness insurance - so both phrases describe the same authority, and exam items use the statutory one.
The standalone paper is exam code 2024, series 20-24: 80 scored questions plus 10 unscored, 1 hour 45 minutes, $62. A single-line applicant sits the genuine single-line paper. Maryland does not make you buy the combined Life and Health exam to get this line.
There is no pre-licensing course. MIA Bulletin 24-19, dated July 24, 2024, records the repeal - "Chapter 874/873 (HB0265/SB0336) of 2024 - Repealing the Pre-licensing Education and Experience Requirements for Certain Producer License Applicants - Effective October 1, 2024" - and states that applicants "will no longer be required to complete a program of study that has been established or approved by the Commissioner, nor meet minimum experience requirements prior to taking the examination." The exam requirement survived the repeal untouched. The MIA now tells candidates plainly that they "may find their own insurance exam preparation courses or they may order their own study materials."
The order of operations is fixed and the portal enforces it. The bulletin says "Once you have passed your license exam (if an exam is required), you must submit your license application along with any other required documents and your fee", and NIPR "verifies exams prior to allowing submission of an application" - so a pre-exam filing is not merely discouraged, it is blocked. The full application walkthrough is the Life guide's deep-dive; the resident and non-resident individual fee is $54 either way.
On fingerprints, read carefully. Maryland publishes no fingerprint step for producer applicants - and the honest way to say that is to name the evidence. Six primary sources are silent: the 12-page Prometric bulletin, whose only background text is "If you answer 'Yes' to a background question on the application, submit your written statement accompanied by corresponding court documents"; the MIA Producer FAQ; the MIA Producer Initial and Renewal Licenses page; the MIA fee schedule, which itemises every other fee and carries no fingerprint line; NIPR's Maryland page; and NAIC's Maryland paper-licensing page. None of them affirmatively says a producer is exempt, so budget nothing for prints and confirm with MIA licensing if your employer's onboarding form insists otherwise.
The Standalone Paper, the Combined Paper, and the Spanish Option
Accident and Health or Sickness Producer, code 2024 / series 20-24 - 80 scored plus 10 unscored, 90 items in 1 hour 45 minutes for $62.
Life and Accident and Health or Sickness Producer - Combo, code 2030 / series 20-30 - 130 scored plus 10 unscored, 140 items in 2.5 hours, also $62.
Look at those two fees again, because the arithmetic here is not the arithmetic in most states. Maryland charges the same $62 for every producer exam, including the combined paper. So the combined route does not cost more money - it costs more time and 50 more scored questions, and it confers Life as well. If life cases are anywhere in your plan, sitting code 2030 once is cheaper than sitting 2024 now and 2027 later, which is $124.
Spanish-language versions exist for every Maryland line, running through exam codes 2043 to 2053, at the same $62 fee. Most competitor material omits this entirely. Confirm the code for the line you want at booking rather than assuming it.
On unscored questions, Maryland's own documents disagree and this guide will not pick a winner. Every per-exam content outline says "(plus 10 unscored)", and the outline totals are internally consistent - 80 scored plus 10 unscored is the 90-item paper. But the bulletin's Experimental Questions section at p.9 says candidates see 5. Both figures are printed by the vendor. Nothing you can do at the desk depends on which is right: unscored items are not identified and answering every question is correct either way.
The passing standard is a raw 70%. The Maryland Insurance Exam FAQ states it directly: "To achieve a passing score on the exam, you must receive a 70% or higher." This is not a scaled score - the diagnostic language about a report that is "neither the number nor the percentage of questions answered correctly" does not appear in Maryland's bulletin. What no Maryland source states is which denominator the 70% runs against, the 80 scored items or the 90 on the screen, so do not plan around a specific number of allowable misses.
The content outlines are not in the bulletin. Page 12 says only "You can access your outlines by going to the Prometric website", and the question counts and time limits live in 22 separate per-exam outline PDFs. None of those PDFs carries a printed revision date, so treat any date you see attached to one as unverified.
If you fail, the bulletin's rule is short: "If you fail an exam, you can't take the same exam for four days." The retake is a fresh $62. No attempt limit is published - the bulletin states only the four-day restriction, which is not the same thing as unlimited attempts. The Personal Lines guide owns the results and retake module in Maryland.
Most Tested Topics on the Maryland Accident and Health or Sickness Exam
Maryland's health law produces state-specific items in two clusters: continuation coverage, where the state deliberately reaches further down the market than federal COBRA does, and claim and appeal clocks, where the numbers are ordinary but the units are not. Statute-verified, from the TESTivity Maryland curriculum:
| Concept | What Maryland does | Where it's written |
|---|---|---|
| Continuation on job loss, group health | 18 months of continuation after the change in status - and "change in status" expressly includes both "involuntary termination ... other than for cause" and "voluntary termination of the insured's employment by the insured employee". A quit qualifies. The group contract "shall provide" it, so this is an entitlement running to the insured, not an offer duty owed to the employer | Ins. §§ 15-409(a)(2), (b)(1)-(2), (c) |
| Who qualifies for continuation, the insured test | "Insured" is defined as an employee who is a resident of the State and was covered under the current or a predecessor group contract with the same employer for at least 3 months before the change in status. The test is on the person, not on the employer's headcount | Ins. § 15-409(a)(4) |
| Employer size and continuation, state versus federal | Federal COBRA starts at 20 employees. The MIA states: "Only Maryland's law requires continuation coverage for an individual whose employer group has fewer than 20 employees." Where both laws could apply, an individual "need not make an election of one or the other," and differences are "resolved in favor of the consumer" | MIA Bulletin LH 08-13 |
| Continuation election window, group health | The election period begins on the date of the change in status and ends at least 45 days after it. On request, the employer must deliver or first-class mail the election notification form within 14 days | Ins. § 15-409(e)(2)-(3) |
| Continuation on divorce, qualified secondary beneficiary | No month cap at all. Coverage runs until the earliest listed event - eligibility for other group benefits, Medicare entitlement, acceptance of nongroup coverage, election to terminate, or, for a former spouse, the date that individual remarries. A "qualified secondary beneficiary" is a spouse covered as such for at least 30 days immediately preceding the divorce, or a dependent child | Ins. §§ 15-408(a)(6), (b)(2), (c) |
| Continuation on death of a spouse, group health | 18 months on the death of a spouse; on the death of a dependent child, coverage ends when the child would no longer qualify under the group contract. ⚠ Sourced from the MIA bulletin rather than the section text - verify before relying on it | Ins. § 15-407; MIA Bulletin LH 08-13 (PARTIAL) |
| Continuation premium and conversion, group health | Payment goes to the employer, and may not exceed the employer's contribution plus what the insured would have paid, plus a reasonable administrative fee subject to Commissioner review and approval - Maryland fixes no COBRA-style 102% figure. Monthly instalments if elected; coverage identical to similarly situated individuals; no evidence of insurability and no new waiting period. Continuation "does not affect or limit the right of an insured to conversion privileges under a group contract" - two separate rights | Ins. §§ 15-409(d), (k); 15-408(j) |
| Clean-claim payment clock, health carrier | 30 calendar days from receipt to mail payment or send notice that the carrier (1) refuses and why, (2) disputes the legitimacy or the amount, or (3) considers the claim not clean and specifies what is required. Undisputed portions go out within the same 30 days. Maryland runs one 30-day standard for paper and electronic alike - there is no split | Ins. § 15-1005(c), (f) |
| Late clean-claim interest, health carrier | Tiered, and it escalates: 1.5% per month for days 31 to 60, 2% per month for days 61 to 120, 2.5% per month after day 120 - plus a fine of up to $500 per arbitrary or capricious violation and § 4-113(d) penalties for a pattern | Ins. § 15-1005(g), (h) |
| Provider filing and appeal windows, clean claim | Providers get a minimum of 180 calendar days from the date of service to submit, and a minimum of 90 working days after a denial to appeal. Where erroneous denials occurred and the provider notifies within 1 year, the claims must be reprocessed without resubmission. ⚠ Two different units inside one subsection | Ins. § 15-1005(e) |
| Insurer claim clocks, life and health policies | 10 working days to provide claim forms, instructions and reasonable assistance after notification, and 10 working days to answer an MIA inquiry (or the period the MIA specifies, whichever is greater) - but 30 plain days to pay, refuse with specific reasons, or explain why the claim could not reasonably be processed and state what further information is needed | COMAR 31.15.08.03B(12), (13), (15) |
| Internal grievance decision, health carrier | The carrier decides in 30 working days on a standard grievance and 45 working days on a retrospective denial, with 24 hours in an emergency case and 5 working days to send notices or request more information. A member has at least 180 days to file a grievance after an adverse decision on a retrospective denial. Notices may not use "generalized terms such as 'experimental procedure not covered'" and must give the specific rationale, identify the decision-maker and supply Health Advocacy Unit contact details | Ins. § 15-10A-02 |
| External review, who has how long and in which unit | The member has 4 months after the adverse or grievance decision to complain to the Commissioner. The Commissioner notifies the carrier within 5 working days; the carrier responds within 7 working days. The Commissioner decides within 45 plain days, extendable up to an additional 30 working days, and 24 hours on an expedited emergency complaint. The decision binds the carrier, whose only recourse is judicial review | Ins. §§ 15-10A-03(a), (b)(1)(ii), (c)(1), (c)(2); 15-10A-04 |
| Long-term care CE gate, health line | 2 hours in a course designated Long Term Care as part of the life and health hours - so it is recurring, and it counts inside the 24 rather than on top of them | MIA Producer Continuing Education Credit Requirements |
| LTC Partnership training gate, initial and refresher | An 8-hour initial course, then a 4-hour refresher every two years - the only gate on the MIA's list that is both initial and recurring. ⚠ Whether these hours count toward the 24 is UNCONFIRMED: this row omits the "as part of" phrasing the other gates carry | MIA Producer Continuing Education Credit Requirements |
| Small employer, health market definition | Maryland's threshold is 50, not 100 - and the number is not in Title 15. § 15-1201 says "'Small employer' has the meaning stated in § 31-101 of this article", and § 31-101 defines it as an employer that during the preceding calendar year employed an average of not more than 50 employees, counted as full-time employees plus full-time equivalents (aggregate non-full-time hours divided by 120 per month) | Ins. §§ 15-1201(x); 31-101(aa)(1)-(2) |
| Public program landscape, Maryland health | Maryland expanded Medicaid under the ACA to adults up to 138% of the federal poverty level effective January 1, 2014, administered by the Maryland Department of Health through the Maryland Medical Assistance Program. The marketplace is a state-based exchange - Maryland Health Connection, run by the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, not HealthCare.gov. The children's programme is the Maryland Children's Health Program (MCHP) | Maryland Department of Health; Maryland Health Benefit Exchange; COMAR 10.09.11 |
The continuation rows decide more points than anything else on this paper, because a national course teaches federal COBRA and Maryland differs on four of its five headline numbers. COBRA teaches 20 or more employees; Maryland's qualifying test is on the insured - a Maryland resident with three months of coverage under the same employer - and the MIA says in terms that "Only Maryland's law requires continuation coverage for an individual whose employer group has fewer than 20 employees." COBRA teaches involuntary termination; § 15-409(a)(2) writes voluntary quits into the definition of the trigger. COBRA teaches a 60-day election; Maryland's is at least 45 days. COBRA teaches 102% of the group rate; Maryland says the employer contribution plus the insured's would-be contribution plus a reasonable administrative fee subject to Commissioner review and approval, and fixes no percentage. And the one that catches even careful candidates: continuation after a divorce has no month limit at all - the § 15-408 list of ending events contains remarriage, not a number.
The second cluster is a units problem, and it is deliberately set up to be one. Maryland writes some clocks in working days and some in plain days, and the two sit side by side. Under COMAR 31.15.08 a life or health insurer has 10 working days to get claim forms to a claimant and 10 working days to answer the MIA, but 30 plain days to pay, refuse or explain - so the shortest-looking number in the chapter is not the one that governs payment. Neither COMAR 31.15.08.02 (7 defined terms) nor its property-casualty sibling 31.15.07.02 (12 defined terms) defines "day" or "working day" at all. And note the cross-line contrast, because a single "Maryland acknowledges in X days" answer is wrong: acknowledgment is 10 working days on the life and health side and 15 working days on property, casualty and title.
Then there is the 45 trap in external review. The numeral 45 appears on both sides of the same subtitle meaning different amounts of real time: the carrier's 45 on a retrospective grievance is 45 working days (§ 15-10A-02), while the Commissioner's 45 is 45 plain days (§ 15-10A-03(c)(1)) - and the Commissioner's extension flips back to working days, up to 30 more. Never answer a Maryland external-review item without naming the actor first. The same discipline applies inside § 15-1005, where a provider gets 180 calendar days to submit a claim and 90 working days to appeal a denial, two units in one subsection.
Taking the Maryland Exam From Your Own Room
Maryland lets you sit this exam remotely, and it says so twice. The Licensing Information Bulletin, at p.3: "You may take the exam at any Prometric test center in The United States or in a remotely proctored location." Prometric's Maryland programme page, in its own summary line: "Remote Proctoring: Yes, remotely proctored exams are available." That is worth knowing because it runs against a trend - several states' vendors have discontinued remote testing, and material written about those states does not describe Maryland.
The remote delivery platform is ProProctor, and Prometric publishes its candidate rules at prometric.com/proproctorcandidate. Read that page before you book, not after: Maryland's own bulletin does not publish technical requirements - no bandwidth figure, no operating-system list, no webcam specification - so the vendor page is the only authority for what your machine has to do, and this guide will not invent specifications the state has not published.
Booking. The exam is scheduled through Prometric either way you sit it. The MIA's instruction is "To schedule your examination, visit www.prometric.com/maryland/insurance or call 1-800-610-1174", and the Maryland-specific scheduling portal is at myaccount.prometric.com/login/MDINS/MDINS. You choose the delivery route at booking - the remotely proctored option is selected there, alongside centre appointments. Two published phone-hour figures circulate and neither has been withdrawn: the bulletin at p.4 says 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET, while prometric.com/maryland/insurance says 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET. Call inside the narrower window and the conflict never bites you. Maryland prints no test-centre addresses anywhere in the bulletin - they surface dynamically in the scheduling portal - and the Property guide covers the centre route.
The ID rule, which is the part remote candidates get wrong. Maryland's requirement does not change because nobody is standing at a counter: "The candidate must present 1 non-expired, U.S. government-issued, photo- and signature-bearing ID." One document, four tests - non-expired, US government-issued, bearing a photograph, bearing a signature. If your primary ID is missing the photo or the signature, a secondary ID supplying the missing element is required. The name on it "must exactly match the name used to register for the exam and your appointment confirmation", which is the single most common self-inflicted failure: a middle initial on the booking and none on the card, or a maiden name on one and a married name on the other.
Note carefully what Maryland does and does not publish here. It publishes a RULE, not a list. No enumerated roster of acceptable documents appears anywhere in the 12-page bulletin. So the question to ask about any card in your wallet is not "is it on the list" - there is no list - but "is it non-expired, US government-issued, and does it show my photo and my signature." Apply the four tests to the document you actually intend to use, and if the answer to any of them is no, sort it out before the appointment rather than at launch. Failing to present acceptable ID is treated as a missed appointment, and the bulletin's consequence is blunt: it requires "another full examination fee" - another $62.
The room and what may be in it. The bulletin's prohibitions are written for a test centre, but the exam is the same exam and the restrictions travel with it. Prohibited are electronic devices - phones, watches, smart watches, cameras, laptops, tablets, music players, radios, games - and personal items including briefcases, backpacks, purses, notebooks, reference materials, wallets, pens, pencils, food, drinks, most jewelry and head coverings. The published exceptions are religious jewelry, wedding bands and religious head coverings. In a centre those items go into a locker. In a remote session there is no locker, which is the practical difference: the desk and the room have to be clear before you launch, and anything you would have handed over at a counter simply must not be in the space. Prometric's ProProctor candidate page carries the room and workstation procedure for a remote session - including how the environment is checked - and Maryland's bulletin does not restate it, so follow the vendor page for that part.
The 30 minutes, translated. Maryland's exam-day instruction is to arrive at least 30 minutes early. The state publishes no separate remote launch time, so do not read the absence of one as permission to start at the appointment minute. Treat the 30 minutes as your check-in budget: it is the time the state expects the identity and environment steps to consume before the exam clock starts, and remote check-in is where a driver mismatch, a second monitor or an unreadable ID surfaces. Being ready 30 minutes out costs you nothing and buys you the entire margin the bulletin assumes you have.
The 24-hour window is the same on both routes. You must reschedule or cancel at least 24 hours before the appointment or forfeit the fee. There is no remote-specific grace here - a home session you abandon inside 24 hours costs the same $62 as a centre appointment you skip. If your connection or machine is doubtful, moving the booking on day two is free; discovering it at launch is not.
Accommodations run through Prometric, and the notice period is real. ADA accommodations require 30 days' advance notice and carry no additional charge, requested at prometric.com/accommodations. Thirty days is longer than most candidates leave between deciding to test and testing, so if you will need an accommodation, start that request before you pick an exam date rather than after.
Results. You get your result on screen at the end of the exam and a score report by email, with reports also available at scorereports.prometric.com. Fail and the rule is four days before you may sit the same exam again, at the full $62. The bulletin also carries an Appeals Process section at p.10 if you believe something went wrong with the administration itself. The Personal Lines guide owns the results and retake module in depth.
One last sequencing point specific to this line. Passing is step one of two: the application goes to the MIA afterwards, at $54, through nipr.com or on paper to the Maryland Insurance Administration, ATTN: Producer Licensing Unit, 200 St. Paul Place, Suite 2700, Baltimore, Maryland 21202. If you are moving into Maryland with an existing licence, do not book anything yet - the exam may come out of your sequence entirely, and the Property and Casualty guide covers both of Maryland's 90-day relocation windows, including the path that is paper-only.
What It Costs
Two payments, two payees. Maryland charges a flat $62 for every producer exam - the standalone Accident and Health or Sickness paper and the combined Life and Health paper cost the same - and $54 for the licence application, resident or non-resident.
What is not on this list matters as much as what is: there is no pre-licensing course to buy, because the requirement was repealed effective October 1, 2024, and Maryland publishes no fingerprint step and no fingerprint fee for producer applicants. At renewal the figure rises to $69, which is the $54 renewal fee plus a $15 fraud prevention fee.
Eligibility Requirements
Be at least 18 (Ins. § 10-104), pass the Accident and Health or Sickness examination, then file the application and the $54 fee. There is no course requirement, no experience requirement and no published fingerprint step. Whether the $54 is charged per application or per line of authority is not stated by any source - the MIA fee schedule carries one Producer row with no per-line multiplier - so if you intend to add a line later, ask rather than assume.
Background disclosure is by written statement, not by print. The bulletin's entire instruction on the subject is: "If you answer 'Yes' to a background question on the application, submit your written statement accompanied by corresponding court documents." A disclosure does not stop an application; an undocumented one does.
Veterans should check the GI Bill before paying Prometric. The bulletin states at p.1 that "Veterans who sit for certain Maryland insurance examinations can be reimbursed up to $2,000 for each exam under the GI Bill", and that dependents of disabled veterans may also qualify. That is per exam, and $62 sits a long way under the ceiling.
Adding this line to an existing Maryland licence means passing code 2024 and filing - the MIA quotes 2 to 3 business days to process exam results into the system. Coming to Maryland from another state is a different route with its own deadlines: the exam can drop out of the sequence entirely if the timing is right, and one of the two paths is paper-only, so the Property and Casualty guide's reciprocity module is the one to read first.
Keeping the License
Important CE details: 24 hours of Commissioner-approved CE every two years including 3 hours of ethics, on a cycle keyed to your birth month (Ins. § 10-408). The statutory deadline is 15 days: Ins. § 10-116(a)(2) requires the continuing education to be complete not later than 15 days before the licence expiration date. The MIA's own CE index instructs producers to complete CEs 30 days before the expiration date, so both numbers circulate - 15 is the one in the Code. Carryover hours are not allowed, duplicate courses are not allowed within the same renewal period nor within 6 months, and providers have up to 10 days to report a completion. Two product gates ride on this licence: 2 hours in a course designated Long Term Care as part of the life and health hours, and, for Partnership business, an 8-hour initial course or a 4-hour refresher every two years. Prometric is the MIA's continuing education vendor and Sircon carries the transcript and the approved-course lookup.
24 hours of Commissioner-approved CE every two years, 3 of them ethics (Ins. § 10-408), on a cycle keyed to your birth month. Holding more than one major line does not multiply the requirement - it is 24 in total.
The deadline that gets missed is 15 days, and it is statutory. Ins. § 10-116(a)(2): "An insurance producer shall complete the continuing education required under paragraph (1) of this subsection not later than 15 days before the expiration date of the insurance producer's license." Separately, the MIA's Producer Continuing Education Credit Requirements index instructs, without hedging: "Complete CEs 30 days before the license expiration date." Both numbers are real and they are not in conflict - 30 days is advice, 15 days is the Code, and 15 is the testable answer. The 30-day advice exists for a mechanical reason: providers have up to 10 days to report a completion, so a course finished on day 16 may not post before day 15.
Carryover is not allowed - the MIA states it flatly, "Carry over hours are not allowed" - and duplicate courses are not allowed within the same renewal period nor within 6 months. Transcripts and the approved-course lookup live on Sircon (www.sircon.com). Note that you meet Prometric twice in Maryland: it is the exam vendor and "PROMETRIC is the Maryland Insurance Administration's vendor for continuing education services", with a separate CE line at 1-800-324-4592.
Two product gates can ride on this licence, and they follow the product rather than the licence - the MIA heads the block "Additional requirements for Producers who also sell:". They also behave differently from each other. The Long Term Care gate is "2 hours in course designated Long Term Care as part of L/H hours" - recurring, and counting inside the 24 rather than on top of them. The LTC Partnership gate is "8-hour initial ... or 4-hour refresher every two years" - the only gate on the MIA's list that is both an initial requirement and a recurring one. Whether the Partnership hours also count toward the 24 is not confirmed: that row is the one row on the MIA's index that omits the "as part of" phrasing the others carry, so plan the 8-hour initial as potentially additive and ask your provider before you build your cycle around it.
Two more things about the MIA's gate list, both worth knowing so you do not misread it. It enumerates five gates across all lines - Flood and Bail Bonds on the property-casualty side, Long Term Care and LTC Partnership here, and Annuity Suitability on the life side - and it does not say that any line lacks a gate, so treat its silence about a line as silence, not as an exemption. And the annuity row carries a documented conflict: the CE index lists it among the CE rows, while MIA Bulletin 22-11 says "The annuity training is not a CE requirement. This is training required prior to selling an annuity product." That gate belongs to the Life line; the Life and Health guide covers it.
A small legacy exemption still exists but is closed to new qualifiers: producers aged 70 or over as of April 30, 2013 are CE-exempt (Bulletin 13-07), and producers who as of October 1, 2008 had held licences for 25 or more consecutive years complete only 8 hours per period (Bulletin 13-10). The renewal mechanics themselves - the birth-month expiration at Ins. § 10-115(d), the 90-day early window, the one-year late-renewal path with its $100 late fee, and what happens to a licence expired more than a year - are the Property and Casualty guide's renewal module.
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