The Maryland Life and Accident and Health or Sickness Producer License
Maryland issues one producer licence carrying any of six lines of authority - Life, Health, Property, Casualty, Personal Lines and Variable Life and Annuity Products (Ins. § 10-103). This guide is about taking two of them at once. Maryland's official name for the health line is "Accident and Health or Sickness", not "Health" and not "Accident & Health", and the combined paper is titled accordingly: Life and Accident and Health or Sickness Producer - Combo, exam code 2030, series 20-30.
The route in is three steps and one of them recently disappeared. Be 18 (Ins. § 10-104), pass the exam, then apply and pay $54. There is no course requirement: Chapter 874/873 of 2024 (HB 265 / SB 336) repealed pre-licensing education and the minimum experience requirements effective October 1, 2024, and MIA Bulletin 24-19 of July 24, 2024 says applicants "will no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.
Order matters, and the portal enforces it. The bulletin at p.11 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." NIPR corroborates it operationally - it verifies exam results before it will let an application through. You cannot get ahead of yourself here even if you want to.
Two subjects get the long treatment here. The first is exam day - what Maryland's bulletin actually says about identification, arrival, prohibited items, accommodations and the GI Bill reimbursement, and the one thing it conspicuously does not say. The second is waivers - the two different Maryland lists that both look like exemptions, only one of which still does anything.
Everything else has an owner too. The application walkthrough is in the [Life guide](/insurance/maryland/life-only/licensing-guide); remote proctoring in the [Health guide](/insurance/maryland/health-only/licensing-guide); test-centre scheduling in the [Property guide](/insurance/maryland/property-only/licensing-guide); score reporting and retakes in the [Personal Lines guide](/insurance/maryland/personal-lines/licensing-guide); surplus lines in the [Casualty guide](/insurance/maryland/casualty-only/licensing-guide); and reciprocity and renewal in the [P&C guide](/insurance/maryland/property-and-casualty/licensing-guide).
One Combined Paper, or Two Separate Ones
| Paper | Code / series | Items | Time | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Life and Accident and Health or Sickness Producer - Combo | 2030 / 20-30 | 130 scored + 10 unscored = 140 | 2.5 hours | $62 |
| Life Producer | 2027 / 20-27 | 80 scored + 10 unscored = 90 | 1 hr 45 min | $62 |
| Accident and Health or Sickness Producer | 2024 / 20-24 | 80 scored + 10 unscored = 90 | 1 hr 45 min | $62 |
The combination is the cheaper sitting, and by a lot. Maryland charges $62 per paper regardless of size, so two single-line papers cost $124 against $62 for the combination. The MIA licence fee is $54 either way. A single-line applicant sits the genuine single-line paper, not a cut-down combined one - the bulletin's "Types of Licenses" table at p.2 lists all seven papers as separately bookable with distinct codes and distinct $62 fees, so if you only want Life you genuinely sit the 90-item Life paper.
What you buy with the saving is a tighter clock. 140 items in 150 minutes is about 64 seconds an item. The single papers give you 90 items in 105 minutes, about 70 seconds each; Personal Lines runs about 74 seconds and the Property and Casualty combination about 69. Across the seven Maryland papers, the Life and Health combination is the tightest per-item pace there is - which is the argument for sitting it only when both halves of the syllabus are genuinely ready.
On the unscored questions, Maryland's own documents disagree and you should know both numbers. Every per-exam content outline prints "(plus 10 unscored)", and the outline totals are internally consistent - 130 plus 10 makes the 140 you sit. The bulletin's Experimental Questions section at p.9 says candidates see 5. Both are official. Nothing you can do about it on the day: unscored items are unmarked and scattered, so answer all 140 as though every one counts.
Passing is 70%, and in Maryland that is a raw percentage. The Maryland Insurance Exam FAQ says: "To achieve a passing score on the exam, you must receive a 70% or higher." This is worth stating plainly because several states report a scaled score and say so in terms - the diagnostic phrase about the score being "neither the number nor the percentage of questions answered correctly" does not appear in Maryland's bulletin. What no Maryland source states is the denominator - whether the 70% runs on the 130 scored items or the 140 total - so do not plan around a specific number of allowable misses.
Spanish-language papers exist for every Maryland line, numbered in the 2043 to 2053 block at the same $62. The combined paper is 2050, Productor de Vida y Accidente y Salud o Enfermedad - Combo. Most competitor material omits this entirely.
Fail and you wait 4 days: "If you fail an exam, you can't take the same exam for four days." The full $62 is due again. No attempt cap is published - the bulletin states only the four-day restriction, which is not the same thing as saying attempts are unlimited. Score reporting, the diagnostic breakdown and the appeals process are covered in the [Personal Lines guide](/insurance/maryland/personal-lines/licensing-guide), which owns that module.
Most Tested Topics on the Maryland Life and Health Exam
The combined paper draws its Maryland items from both halves of the book, but three clusters do most of the separating: what the guaranty corporation actually pays when a life or health insurer fails, how long a buyer has to change their mind and what they get back, and the continuing-education arithmetic that keeps the licence alive. All three are places where the national answer and the Maryland answer come apart. Statute-verified:
| Concept | What Maryland does | Where it's written |
|---|---|---|
| Guaranty limits, where Maryland files them (life and health) | The limits sit in the POWERS section, not the coverage section: § 9-403 carries no dollar figure at all and the numbers live in § 9-407(k). That is the mirror image of the property-casualty side, where the caps sit in the obligations section. | Ins. § 9-407(k); contrast § 9-403 |
| Aggregate cap per life, Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Corporation | $300,000 overall aggregate per life across life, health and annuity benefits combined - except $500,000 aggregate for health benefit plans. | Ins. § 9-407(k)(4) |
| Component limits inside the guaranty aggregate | $300,000 life death benefit; $100,000 net cash surrender value; $250,000 present value of annuity benefits. Health tiers: $500,000 major medical, $300,000 disability and long-term care, $100,000 other health coverages. | Ins. § 9-407(k) |
| Deductible on a life and health guaranty claim | There is none. The wording is "may not exceed" - a true ceiling. The property-casualty corporation pays claims "in excess of $100 and less than $300,000"; the life and health side has no $100 floor and no strict inequality. | Ins. § 9-407(k); contrast § 9-306(a)(2) |
| Long-term care rider, guaranty classification | A long-term care rider on a life policy or an annuity is capped as the BASE contract type - as life, or as an annuity - not as long-term care. | Ins. § 9-407(m) |
| "Health benefit plan", and what the $500,000 tier excludes | The higher tier keys off a defined term that excludes accident-only, credit, dental-only, vision-only, Medicare supplement, long-term care and home health, disability, on-site clinic, and specified-disease or hospital-indemnity coverage. | Ins. § 9-401(g)(2) |
| Residency rule, guaranty coverage | "A person may be a resident of only one state." One state's corporation answers for one life - the statute forecloses stacking two associations. | Ins. § 9-404(c) |
| Guaranty assessments, and the long-term care split | Class A and Class B assessments on 30 days' notice, capped at 2% of a member's Maryland premiums per account per year. For long-term care, the Class B allocation is 50% accident and health / 50% life and annuity. | Ins. §§ 9-409(f)(1), 9-409(d)(2)(ii) |
| Free look on a replacement transaction, life or annuity | 30 days after delivery and "an unconditional full refund of all premiums or considerations paid ... including any life insurance policy fees or charges". A duty of the replacing insurer. For variable products the measure is the cash surrender value plus fees and charges deducted, including surrender charges. | COMAR 31.09.05.06A(5) |
| Free look, long-term care policy | 30 days. | COMAR 31.14.01.04 |
| What the free-look statute does not reach | § 16-101 excludes reinsurance, group life and group annuities from the whole title. § 16-105(a) also carves out a policy issued to an employee to fund a qualified plan under IRC §§ 401/403/404/501 where participation is a condition of employment - all three elements are required before the carve-out bites. | Ins. §§ 16-101, 16-105(a) |
| Replacement, the replacing insurer's five-day clocks | Notify any other affected existing insurer within 5 business days of receiving a completed application indicating replacement; send the existing insurer the illustration, policy summary or annuity disclosure within 5 business days after request; retain the replacement notification indexed by producer for at least 5 years or until the next domiciliary market conduct examination, whichever is later. | COMAR 31.09.05.06A(2)-(4) |
| Replacement credit for elapsed time | Where the replacing and existing insurers are the same insurer or affiliates under common ownership or control, the replacing insurer shall credit the elapsed time on the incontestability and suicide periods of the replaced policy, up to the face amount of the existing policy. | COMAR 31.09.05.06C(1) |
| Twisting, the two hooks Maryland uses | Prohibited twice over. § 27-213 is the Title 27 unfair-trade-practice section and binds any person: no oral or written statement that misrepresents or makes incomplete comparisons about a policy's terms, conditions or benefits to induce a policyholder to forfeit, surrender, retain, exchange or convert it or let it lapse. § 10-126(a)(16) is the parallel licence ground reaching a producer who does it intentionally or wilfully. COMAR 31.09.05 is the paperwork that polices both. | Ins. §§ 27-213, 10-126(a)(16); COMAR 31.09.05 |
| CE headline, producer biennial | 24 hours every two years, including 3 hours of ethics, on a cycle keyed to the last day of your birth month. Holding both lines does not multiply it. | Ins. § 10-408; MIA Continuing Education |
| CE carryover and repeat courses | "Carry over hours are not allowed." A course may not be duplicated within the same renewal period nor within 6 months. | MIA Producer Continuing Education Credit Requirements |
Start with where the guaranty numbers live, because the placement is the tell. A national outline teaches the dollar figures and moves on. Maryland puts the life and health limits in § 9-407(k) - the powers of the corporation - and leaves § 9-403, the coverage section, carrying no dollar figure at all. The property-casualty side is filed the opposite way round, with its caps in the obligations section at § 9-306(a)(2). If a question asks you where a limit is written rather than what it is, that asymmetry is the answer.
Then learn the two guaranty traps that the dollar figures hide. The first is the deductible: the property-casualty corporation pays "in excess of $100 and less than $300,000", so a $300,000 property claim yields $299,900. The life and health section says "may not exceed" - a true ceiling, no $100 deductible, and no strict inequality. Carrying the P&C arithmetic across the book gets you the wrong number. The second is § 9-407(m): a long-term care rider on a life policy or annuity is capped as the base contract, not as long-term care. A candidate who has memorised "$300,000 for long-term care" will reach for the wrong tier on a rider question. And note the third: the $500,000 tier belongs to "health benefit plan", a defined term that § 9-401(g)(2) empties of nine coverage types - Medicare supplement and long-term care among them. A Medicare supplement claim is not a $500,000 claim in Maryland.
On the free look, the national shorthand is simply wrong here, and it is wrong in a specific direction. Prep courses teach "free look equals return of premium." In Maryland that is true of two of the three regimes and false of the one that applies most often. § 16-105(b)(1) - the general rule for an individual life policy or annuity - gives 10 days and "a pro rata premium for the unexpired term". The replacement rule gives 30 days and an "unconditional full refund" including policy fees. Variable life gives 45 days from execution of the application or 10 days from receipt of the policy, whichever is later, and all premium payments back. The statutory baseline is the stingiest of the three. Learn the three numbers by their refund measure, not by the day count, and you will not mix them up.
One reconciliation to hold lightly. The MIA's own Consumer Guide to Annuities tells buyers that a fixed-annuity cancellation inside the free-look window "may be entitled to a full refund", which reads as more generous than § 16-105(b)(1)'s pro rata measure. § 16-105(b)(2) permits an insurer to use, instead of the statutory notice, "a notice the Commissioner deems not less favorable" - which is room for a more generous contractual promise on top of the statutory floor. For exam purposes, the measure to know is the statutory one.
And on continuing education, two deadlines circulate and only one of them is in the Code. Ins. § 10-116(a)(2) sets 15 days before expiration. The MIA recommends 30 days "to allow ample processing time", which is sensible advice given that providers have up to 10 days to report your completion - but it is advice, not law. A question asking for the deadline wants 15. A calendar you actually live by should use 30.
Exam Day in Maryland - One ID, and a Rule Instead of a List
Maryland's exam-day rules are Prometric's, published in the Maryland Insurance Administration Licensing Information Bulletin - the "LIB" - which carries the cover stamp "Effective as of October 1, 2024" and runs to twelve pages. They apply identically whether you sit at a Prometric test centre or in a remotely proctored location.
Bring exactly one piece of identification, and it has to satisfy four conditions at once. The bulletin's rule: "The candidate must present 1 non-expired, U.S. government-issued, photo- and signature-bearing ID." Unpack it:
| The condition | What it means |
|---|---|
| Non-expired | In date on the day you test. An expired document fails on its face |
| U.S. government-issued | Issued by a U.S. government body - federal, state or local |
| Photo-bearing | Carries your photograph |
| Signature-bearing | Carries your signature |
| If one element is missing | If the primary ID lacks the photo or the signature, bring a secondary ID that supplies the missing element. That is the only circumstance in which Maryland asks for a second document |
Here is the genuinely unusual part, and it is a structural point rather than a trivia point: Maryland publishes a RULE, not a LIST. Most candidate handbooks print an enumerated table of accepted documents - driver's licence, passport, military ID, and so on. No such list appears anywhere in Maryland's bulletin. That absence was checked deliberately, with two differently worded re-extractions of the document, and both returned the same answer: no list is printed. The bulletin gives you the test and expects you to apply it.
So apply it. A U.S. state driver's licence that is still in date, carries your photograph and carries your signature satisfies every condition the rule states - non-expired, U.S. government-issued, photo-bearing, signature-bearing. Nothing in the bulletin casts doubt on it; the bulletin simply never names it, in the same way it never names a passport or a military ID. Do not read the silence as a warning. The correct method in Maryland is to hold your document up against the four conditions rather than to hunt for it on a list that was never printed.
The name on that ID must match your registration exactly. The bulletin requires that it "must exactly match the name used to register for the exam and your appointment confirmation." This is the single most common self-inflicted wound at check-in: register in the name printed on the identification you intend to bring, not the name you usually go by, and fix any mismatch before the day rather than at the desk.
Failing the ID check is not a rescheduling - it is a missed appointment. The bulletin treats failure to present identification as a missed appointment requiring another full examination fee. That is $62 gone, plus the wait for a new slot. There is no discretion described.
| Rule | Maryland's number |
|---|---|
| Arrive | At least 30 minutes early |
| Reschedule or cancel | At least 24 hours before the appointment, or you forfeit the fee |
| ADA accommodations | Request with 30 days' advance notice, at no additional charge |
| Failure to present ID | Treated as a missed appointment - another full examination fee |
What you may not carry into the room. Electronic devices of every kind: phones, watches, smart watches, cameras, laptops, tablets, music players, radios and games. Personal items: briefcases, backpacks, purses, notebooks, reference materials, wallets, pens, pencils, food, drinks, most jewelry and head coverings.
And the three exceptions that are permitted: religious jewelry, wedding bands, and religious head coverings. Those come out of the general prohibitions on jewelry and head coverings, so a candidate who wears any of the three does not need to arrange anything in advance - but arriving early enough to answer a question about it is sensible.
Accommodations are a 30-day job, and they are free. Prometric requires 30 days' advance notice for an accommodation request under the ADA and makes no additional charge for it. Thirty days is longer than most candidates' entire study runway, so if you need one, start the request before you start revising, not after. Requests go through Prometric's accommodations process.
If you are a veteran, the exam may cost you nothing. The bulletin states on its first page 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. At $62 a paper, that ceiling is large enough to cover a first attempt, a retake and a second line of authority several times over. It is reimbursement, so you pay first and claim after - but almost no competitor material mentions it exists.
Two small logistics, in the right guides. Maryland's bulletin prints no test-centre addresses at all - centres surface dynamically at booking, and the [Property guide](/insurance/maryland/property-only/licensing-guide) owns the scheduling channels. Remote proctoring is available - the bulletin says you may test "at any Prometric test center in The United States or in a remotely proctored location" - and the [Health guide](/insurance/maryland/health-only/licensing-guide) owns the ProProctor rules.
Maryland's Two Exemption Lists - and the Live One Is the Opposite of the One You Expect
Search the current Prometric bulletin for an exemptions section and you will not find one. A full keyword sweep of the twelve-page document - exempt, exemption, waive, waiver, pre-licensing, and every designation acronym - returns nothing. That is not an oversight. It is the downstream consequence of the October 1, 2024 repeal: with no coursework requirement left, there is nothing to be exempted from.
But Maryland circulates two different lists that both look like exemptions, and they do completely different jobs. One is famous and dead. The other is live and almost unpublished. Candidates reliably learn the wrong one.
List A - the designation list. It exempted from COURSEWORK, it never touched the exam, and the coursework is gone. It still sits on an MIA-hosted PDF (Producer-Initial-Renewal-Licenses.pdf), which reads: "Individuals holding the following designations are exempt from the pre-licensing requirements, but still must successfully pass the Maryland exam for the line(s) requested." The designations it names, in the order it names them: AAI, ARM, CIC, CPCU, Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society, CLU, CEBS, Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, ChFC, CFP, FLMI, LUTCF, RHU, an entry printed as "Registered Employee Benefit Consultant (CEBS)", and HIA.
Two things are wrong with that list today, and one thing is wrong with it on its face. First, it never waived the exam - read the sentence again, the holder "still must successfully pass the Maryland exam." Second, the requirement it exempted from no longer exists: pre-licensing education and the minimum experience requirements were repealed effective October 1, 2024 by Chapter 874/873 of 2024 (HB 265 / SB 336), announced in MIA Bulletin 24-19 of July 24, 2024, and the provider roster went inactive on September 30, 2024. And third, one entry is printed as "Registered Employee Benefit Consultant (CEBS)" - an acronym that duplicates CEBS elsewhere on the same list and is almost certainly meant to read REBC. Read it as a typographical error rather than as a second CEBS route.
The document carrying that list has another tell, and it is a bigger one. The same PDF still names PSI as Maryland's exam vendor - "1-800-733-9267 or visit www.psiexams.com" - and still requires "20 pre-licensing course hours for each line of authority" and an exam "within 6 months from the date of the certificate". Maryland's exam vendor is Prometric. The document prints no revision date. A second MIA PDF, the licence fee schedule and filing tips, still says "After 1 year, pre-licensing education, passing appropriate MD exam and initial license application are required" on the expired-licence path. This is an MIA-versus-MIA conflict, not a vendor-versus-regulator one - the Prometric bulletin is clean of the repealed regime, and so is the MIA's own bulletin announcing the repeal.
List B - the exam waivers. These are the live ones, and they appear in neither the bulletin nor the stale PDF.
| Waiver | What it covers | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| The 90-day relocation waiver | An incoming producer is exempt from pre-licensing and examination where the application, or a status-change request on an existing Maryland non-resident licence, is received within 90 days of the previous home-state licence cancellation | MIA Producer FAQ; statutory hooks at Ins. §§ 10-119(b)(2)(ii) and 10-119(h)(1)-(2) |
| Lines requiring no exam at all | Credit, Travel, Variable Life and Variable Annuity | NIPR |
| The variable-lines substitute | For the variable lines, submit "a copy of NASD certification or proof of passing SECO exam" in lieu of a Maryland examination | NAIC Maryland paper licensing |
For a Life and Health candidate, the variable entries are the ones that matter. Two of the four no-exam lines - Variable Life and Variable Annuity - are the lines you would add on top of this licence, and Maryland does not make you sit a further Maryland paper for them. It takes securities credentials instead. That does not shorten the road to the underlying Life line, which still requires the 2030 or 2027 paper.
The relocation waiver's mechanics have a trap in them, and the [P&C guide](/insurance/maryland/property-and-casualty/licensing-guide) owns the walkthrough - including the path where the MIA says the application "may not be submitted online, only submit a paper application" - so filing through the portal defeats the very waiver you are trying to claim.
One negative worth stating plainly, because several other states have the rule and Maryland does not. There is no "a Personal Lines applicant who already holds Property and Casualty is exempt" rule anywhere in Maryland's materials. It was searched for specifically and it is absent. If you hold Maryland P&C and want the narrower Personal Lines line added, plan on the Personal Lines paper.
Finally, the one Maryland licence that is issued without an exam by design: the § 10-120 temporary licence. The exam waiver is built into the lead-in of the section itself, which authorises the Commissioner to issue the licence "Without regard to the examination requirements of this subtitle". It exists to keep a book of business alive when the producer running it dies or becomes disabled.
| § 10-120 temporary licence | The rule |
|---|---|
| Who may hold it | The surviving spouse, next of kin, personal representative or appointee of the personal representative of a deceased producer; the spouse, next of kin, employee or legal guardian of a mentally or physically disabled producer; or an employee of a firm, or an officer or employee of a corporation, of a deceased or disabled producer - § 10-120(a)(2)(i)-(iii) |
| Exam | None. "Without regard to the examination requirements of this subtitle" - § 10-120(a) |
| Term | 15 months after its effective date - § 10-120(e) |
| Extension or renewal | § 10-120 provides none. The section contains no extension or renewal provision at all |
| Decision deadline | The Commissioner must issue or refuse in writing within 30 days of receiving the application - § 10-120(d) |
| Fee | $27, and the MIA fee schedule restricts it to Maryland residents only |
| The form | § 10-120(c) points to "the form that the Commissioner provides" |
Fifteen months is a long temporary licence - long enough to run a full renewal-season cycle and sell or transition a book without hurrying. But read the term together with the silence next to it: because § 10-120 provides no extension mechanism, the 15 months is the whole of it. Whoever holds one should be treating month one as the start of a countdown toward either a permanent licence (exam, application, $54) or an orderly transfer of the book.
Practical note on the form. The MIA publishes no temporary-licence page, form or bulletin - only the $27 fee line on the schedule. § 10-120(c)'s "form that the Commissioner provides" is obtained by contacting the Producer Licensing Unit directly at producerlicensing.mia@maryland.gov, or by post to Maryland Insurance Administration, ATTN: Producer Licensing Unit, 200 St. Paul Place, Suite 2700, Baltimore, Maryland 21202. Do not expect to find it online.
What It Costs
Two payments to get licensed and nothing else: $62 to Prometric for the combined 2030 paper and $54 to the MIA through NIPR. No course fee - pre-licensing was repealed on October 1, 2024 - and Maryland publishes no fingerprint fee. Then $69 every two years to renew, which is $54 renewal plus a $15 fraud prevention fee.
Sitting the two lines separately costs $124 in exam fees against $62 combined. That is the clearest financial argument for the combined paper; the licence fee is $54 whichever route you take.
Two fee facts to hold with care. First, whether the $54 is per application or per line of authority is not stated by any Maryland source - the fee table carries one "Producer" row with no per-line multiplier, which is structure rather than a statement. Second, Maryland publishes no fingerprint step, which is not the same as a source saying fingerprints are not required: the MIA fee schedule itemises every producer licence fee and carries no fingerprint line, and the bulletin, the MIA Producer FAQ and NIPR's Maryland page are all silent. Do not confuse this with Maryland's separate MLO/mortgage fingerprint process, which runs through a different regulator and reaches Insurance Producer-MLOs only.
Other Maryland licence fees you may meet later: Public Adjuster $50; Insurance Adviser $200; Surplus Lines $200, or $100 if filed within 1 year of the producer licence expiry; Viatical Settlement Broker $250; and the Temporary Producer License (Due to Death / Disability), Maryland residents only, $27.
Eligibility Requirements
Be 18 (Ins. § 10-104), pass the exam for each line you want, then apply and pay $54. There is no course and no published fingerprint step. That is the whole gate.
Exam first, application second, and the portal will not let you reverse them. The bulletin at p.11: "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." NIPR verifies exam results before allowing a submission. Exam results take 2-3 business days to process, which is also the answer to "how long before I can add a line?" - if you already hold an active Maryland producer licence and want another line, pass that line's paper and it is added to the existing licence. Do not file a fresh producer application.
No deadline between passing and applying is published. The bulletin was checked twice with differently worded prompts and states none. Neither is a passing score's validity window published anywhere. Treat both silences as reasons to apply promptly rather than as permission to wait - and do not plan around a number you found in a national outline.
Where to file. NIPR is the portal. A paper alternative goes by post to Maryland Insurance Administration, ATTN: Producer Licensing Unit, 200 St. Paul Place, Suite 2700, Baltimore, Maryland 21202. Sircon is continuing education only in Maryland - it is not the application channel. The full step-by-step is in the [Life guide](/insurance/maryland/life-only/licensing-guide), which owns the application module.
Background review runs through the application's disclosure questions. The bulletin's only background text is the instruction that "If you answer 'Yes' to a background question on the application, submit your written statement accompanied by corresponding court documents." Court documents - not printouts, not summaries.
Then get appointed, and note the rule that is specific to your side of the book. A producer "may not sell, solicit, or negotiate any insurance on behalf of an insurer for which the insurance producer does not have an appointment" (§ 10-103(d)(1)), and § 10-118(d)(2) bars you from acting until you have actually RECEIVED written documentation of the appointment - the duty operates on you, not on the insurer. Life, health and annuity business has its own carve-out: under § 10-118(d)(3) an insurer may initially accept an application from an unappointed producer provided that, within 30 days, it either rejects the application under § 27-501 or appoints the producer and enters the appointment in its register. That relief belongs to the insurer's acceptance of the application; it is not a licence to go on writing while unappointed.
And the money you touch is not yours. COMAR 31.03.03.02A requires a producer who "does not make prompt remittance" of a carrier's or insured's premium to hold it in one or more premium accounts separate from any operating or personal account. Maryland sets no numeric remittance deadline - the trigger is the words "prompt remittance" - so do not import a day count from another state. Withdrawals are limited to six enumerated purposes, bank interest requires the carrier's written consent, and average-commission withdrawals require a letter from each carrier on file at all times stating the average commission percentage.
Keeping the License: 24 Hours, 3 of Them Ethics, Finished 15 Days Early
Important CE details: 24 hours of MIA-approved continuing education every two years, including 3 hours of ethics, on a cycle keyed to the last day of your birth month. Holding both Life and Accident and Health or Sickness does not multiply the 24. Carry-over hours are not allowed, and a course may not be repeated within the same renewal period nor within 6 months. Two deadlines circulate and both are real: Ins. § 10-116(a)(2) requires completion not later than 15 days before the licence expiration date, and the MIA separately recommends finishing 30 days out because providers have up to 10 days to report a completion. The 15 days is the statutory answer. Prometric is also the MIA's continuing-education vendor, with Sircon carrying transcripts and the approved-course lookup.
24 hours of MIA-approved continuing education every two years, including 3 hours of ethics. The cycle is keyed to your birth month - individual licences run two years and expire on the last day of the month in which the holder was born (Ins. § 10-115(d)) - so your CE deadline has nothing to do with when you were licensed. Holding both Life and Accident and Health or Sickness does not multiply the 24.
The deadline question has two right answers and one testable one. 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." The MIA's own Producer Continuing Education Credit Requirements index puts it more strictly and without hedging: "Complete CEs 30 days before the license expiration date." Both numbers are real. 15 days is the statute and the exam answer; 30 days is the calendar you should actually keep, because providers have up to 10 days to report a completion: a course you finish 16 days out can still be sitting unreported 6 days out, which is no place to be when a renewal transaction needs the hours on file.
Two rules that quietly cost people hours. "Carry over hours are not allowed" - finish 30 hours in a cycle and 6 of them evaporate. And duplicate courses are not allowed within the same renewal period, nor within 6 months - so re-sitting a favourite ethics course two cycles running is fine, but re-sitting it inside the same period, or inside six months of the last attempt, is not.
Three vendors, and you will meet Prometric twice. The MIA states that "PROMETRIC is the Maryland Insurance Administration's vendor for continuing education services" - the same company that gave you the 2030 exam - on 1-800-324-4592. Sircon carries the CE transcript and the approved-course lookup. NIPR carries the licence transaction. Check your own transcript on Sircon before your birth month rather than discovering a shortfall at renewal.
Product training is a separate obligation from CE, and the two overlap confusingly. Life and health producers owe 2 hours in a course designated Long Term Care "as part of L/H hours" - inside the 24, not on top of it - plus the LTC Partnership training; the [Health guide](/insurance/maryland/health-only/licensing-guide) owns those gates and the open question about whether the Partnership hours count inside the 24.
Annuity training is where the overlap actually bites. The MIA's CE Credit Requirements index lists a 4-hour initial Annuity Suitability course among the CE rows, but MIA Bulletin 22-11 states: "The annuity training is not a CE requirement. This is training required prior to selling an annuity product." The reconciliation is that it is a sales prerequisite governed by COMAR 31.09.12.08 - 4 credits for a producer with no prior annuity training, 1 credit for one trained under the previous Model, one-time, completed "before engaging in the recommendation or sale of annuities" - and a course can be dually approved so that it also yields CE hours. Report it as both, because both statements are the MIA's.
Two legacy CE reliefs exist and neither takes new qualifiers. Producers aged 70 or older as of April 30, 2013 are CE-exempt (Bulletin 13-07). 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). If you did not already qualify on those dates, you never will.
Renewal itself - the $69, the 90-day early window, the one-year late-renewal path with the $100 reinstatement fee, and what happens when a licence has been expired more than a year - is in the [P&C guide](/insurance/maryland/property-and-casualty/licensing-guide), which owns the renewal module. One line of warning belongs here though: Maryland licences are not perpetual, and the stale MIA fee-schedule PDF adds a repealed pre-licensing step to the long-expired path. Ignore that clause.
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