The Maryland Property and Casualty Producer License
Maryland licenses Property and Casualty as separate lines of authority, each with its own exam, and also sells them together on one paper: Property and Casualty Producer - Combo, exam code 2032, series 20-32. It runs 130 items - 120 scored plus 10 unscored - in 2 hours 30 minutes for $62. That is the widest producer authority Maryland issues short of adding life and health, and a full P&C authority already reaches personal-lines risks; the separate Personal Lines line is the narrower subset, not a step on the way.
Entry is short and the order is fixed. Be 18 (Ins. § 10-104), pass the exam, then apply and pay $54. There is no pre-licensing course: MIA Bulletin 24-19 repealed the pre-licensing education and experience requirements effective October 1, 2024, so applicants "will no longer be required to complete a program of study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 itself survived the repeal.
Exam first, application second - and the portal enforces it. The Prometric bulletin puts it 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 corroborates operationally - it "verifies exams prior to allowing submission of an application", so a pre-exam filing is simply blocked. The step-by-step application walkthrough lives in the Life guide, which owns that module.
This is the licence surplus lines sits on top of. Placing business with a non-admitted insurer takes property and casualty authority plus a separate licensed surplus lines broker (Ins. § 3-306), at a $200 licence fee. The diligent-effort and affidavit machinery is covered in the Casualty guide, which owns the surplus-lines module.
And this guide carries the two housekeeping modules for the whole Maryland set. Reciprocity - moving into Maryland, or out of it, where the MIA's own FAQ warns against the obvious online filing in both directions - and renewal, where the licence term splits by licensee type and the continuing-education deadline exists in two different published forms. Both are below, in full.
Four Papers, One $62 Fee, and a Pace That Barely Moves
Property and Casualty Producer - Combo (2032): 130 items, 120 scored plus 10 unscored, 2 hours 30 minutes, $62. Property Producer (2031): 90 items, 80 scored plus 10 unscored, 1 hour 45 minutes, $62. Casualty Producer (2026): the same 90 items in the same 1 hour 45 minutes, $62. Personal Lines (2029): 110 items, 100 scored plus 10 unscored, 2 hours 15 minutes, $62.
Every Maryland producer paper costs the same $62, which makes the arithmetic on the combined route unusually blunt: two standalone papers cost $124 against $62 for the one that confers both lines. Maryland's bulletin lists all seven papers as separately bookable with distinct codes and distinct fees, so a single-line applicant genuinely sits the single-line paper - the combination is a choice, not a default.
The pace hardly changes across the four. 150 minutes over 130 items is about 69 seconds an item; 105 minutes over 90 items is about 70 seconds; 135 minutes over 110 items is about 74 seconds. So the combined exam is not a tighter clock than the standalone papers - it is a longer sitting covering two syllabuses at the same rhythm. Budget for stamina rather than for speed.
Spanish-language papers exist for every Maryland line, in the code range 2043 to 2053, at the same $62 fee - 2047 Productor de Vida and 2049 Líneas Personales are the published examples. Most competitor material omits this entirely.
Passing is 70%, and it is a raw percentage. The Maryland Insurance Exam FAQ states it directly: "To achieve a passing score on the exam, you must receive a 70% or higher." That is not a scaled score - the diagnostic language some states use about a reported number being neither the count nor the percentage of correct answers does not appear in Maryland's bulletin. Note also where the facts live: the bulletin carries no content outlines (p.12 sends you to the Prometric website for them) and no passing standard, which sits in the Exam FAQ - three documents for three pieces of the same picture.
Fail and you wait 4 days: "If you fail an exam, you can't take the same exam for four days." Maryland publishes no cap on attempts - only that 4-day restriction - and a retake is the full $62 again. Where the test centres are, how the remote option works and how the score report reaches you are each owned elsewhere in this set: test centres in the Property guide, online proctoring in the Health guide, results in the Personal Lines guide, and exam-day rules in the Life & Health guide.
Most Tested Topics on the Maryland Property and Casualty Exam
The combined paper draws its Maryland items from both halves of the book, but the questions that separate passes from fails cluster in three places: what the guaranty corporation actually pays when a property-casualty insurer fails, what the Insurance Commissioner can do to a producer and to an insurer, and the renewal and continuing-education numbers. Statute-verified, and written to the words in the Code rather than to a national outline:
| Concept | What Maryland does | Where it's written |
|---|---|---|
| Guaranty ceiling, P&C covered claim | Covered claims are paid "in excess of $100 and less than $300,000" - a $100 deductible under the payment and a strict inequality over it. The band is stated in the obligations section, not in the definition of a covered claim | Ins. § 9-306(a)(2) |
| Guaranty payment, workers' compensation claim | Covered workers' compensation claims are paid IN FULL - no deductible arithmetic, no ceiling. This is the carve-out from the $100/$300,000 band, in the very next paragraph | Ins. § 9-306(a)(3) |
| Guaranty aggregate, surety bond | Surety carries its own limit: $1,000,000 aggregate per bond, shared pro rata among claimants on that bond - a per-bond aggregate, not a per-claim cap | Ins. § 9-306(b)(3)-(4) |
| Guaranty exclusion, insured net worth | Narrower than it sounds: what is excluded is a FIRST-PARTY claim by an insured whose net worth exceeded $50,000,000 on December 31 of the year before the insurer became insolvent. A third party's claim against that same large insured stays covered. The exclusion sits in the DEFINITION at § 9-301(d)(3), not in the obligations section where the dollar band lives | Ins. § 9-301(d)(3) |
| Guaranty corporation, P&C name and sales use | The Property and Casualty Insurance Guaranty Corporation, Title 9 Subtitle 3. Using the corporation's existence to sell, solicit or induce the purchase of insurance is prohibited | Ins. Title 9, Subtitle 3 |
| Rebating, property and casualty lines | § 27-212 governs everything except life, health and annuities - subsection (a) says so in terms. Same $50 educational, promotional or merchandise threshold as the life-side section, but only this section penalises the INSURED who knowingly receives or accepts a rebate | Ins. § 27-212(a), (c), (d)(1) |
| Unfair claim practices, single act versus general business practice | Two sections, and the trigger is the difference. § 27-303: 10 practices, one act is enough, $2,500 per violation - $125,000 for the first-party P&C bad-faith limb at § 27-303(9). § 27-304: 18 practices, actionable only "when committed with the frequency to indicate a general business practice." Both are INSURER duties | Ins. §§ 27-303, 27-304, 27-305(a) |
| Penalty ladder, producer versus insurer | $100 to $5,000 per violation against a producer, instead of or in addition to suspension or revocation. $100 to $125,000 per violation against an insurer holding a certificate of authority. Restitution orders are NOT penalties and carry no stated ceiling | Ins. §§ 10-126(c), (d); 4-113(d)(1)-(2); 27-305(c) |
| Producer reporting, administrative versus criminal | Both clocks are 30 days, and both start somewhere unexpected. Adverse administrative action: 30 days after FINAL DISPOSITION. Criminal prosecution: 30 days after the producer's INITIAL APPEARANCE before a court - not the charge, not the conviction. Misdemeanour vehicle-law violations are exempt from the criminal clock | Ins. § 10-126(f)(1), (g)(2), (g)(3) |
| Regulator, how the Commissioner takes office | The Maryland Insurance Administration is an independent State agency, and the Insurance Commissioner is APPOINTED by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate to a four-year term. Not elected, and not a division of a larger department | Ins. §§ 2-101, 2-103(a) |
| CE completion deadline, the two published numbers | The statutory deadline is 15 days: a producer must complete the CE "not later than 15 days before the expiration date." The MIA separately recommends 30 days to absorb processing. Providers have up to 10 days to report a completion | Ins. § 10-116(a)(2); MIA continuing-education page |
| Licence expiration, individual producer | Two years, expiring "the last day of the month in which the holder of the license was born." This is in the Code, not delegated to the MIA - and appointments terminate when the licence expires | Ins. § 10-115(a)(1), (a)(2), (d) |
Start with the guaranty band, and run the arithmetic from the quoted words rather than from memory. Ins. § 9-306(a)(2) obliges the corporation on covered claims "in excess of $100 and less than $300,000." Those are two separate conditions. In excess of $100 is a deductible: the first $100 of every covered claim is simply not paid. Less than $300,000 is a strict inequality - the ceiling is a value the statute does not reach, not a value it pays up to. Now take a $300,000 covered claim. Strike the first $100, because the corporation is obliged only on the excess, and you have $299,900. Test that figure against the ceiling: $299,900 is less than $300,000, so it clears, and the corporation pays $299,900. A national outline that teaches "the cap is $300,000" will lead you to answer $300,000, and the two words less than are exactly what makes that answer wrong. Two carve-outs then sit around the band: workers' compensation covered claims are paid in full under § 9-306(a)(3), with no deductible and no ceiling at all, and surety bonds run on a separate $1,000,000 aggregate per bond shared pro rata under § 9-306(b)(3)-(4). And the net-worth exclusion is not in § 9-306 at all, and it is narrower than it sounds: § 9-301(d)(3) removes from the definition of a covered claim a first-party claim by an insured whose net worth exceeded $50,000,000 on December 31 of the year before the insurer became insolvent - it does not touch a third party's claim against that insured. That placement is why it survives a reading of the obligations section alone.
Then learn the two 30-day producer clocks by their starting events, because that is the whole question. National courses teach "report within 30 days of conviction." Maryland says nothing of the kind. An adverse administrative action runs 30 days from final disposition (§ 10-126(f)(1)); a criminal prosecution runs 30 days from the producer's initial appearance before a court (§ 10-126(g)(3)) - which is normally the earliest court event, not the last one - and a misdemeanour violation of the Maryland Vehicle Law, or of another jurisdiction's vehicle law, is exempt from the criminal clock entirely (§ 10-126(g)(2)). Note too the actor scope on the claims-practice sections: §§ 27-303 and 27-304 impose duties on an insurer, nonprofit health service plan or health maintenance organization, not on a producer. A fact pattern in which one producer mishandles one file is not a § 27-303 violation by that producer, and the frequency limb in § 27-304 is measured by COMAR 31.15.07.09B's sampling test - 3 of 50 or 6 of 100 depending on claim volume - never by a share-of-portfolio threshold, which Maryland does not use.
Finally, keep "penalty" and "restitution" apart, and keep the two rebating sections apart. The money figures on the ladder are not all the same species: $100 to $5,000 per violation against a producer (§ 10-126(c)) and $100 to $125,000 per violation against an insurer (§ 4-113(d)(1)) are penalties; the restitution powers at §§ 10-126(d), 4-113(d)(2) and 27-305(c) are not penalties and carry no stated ceiling, and § 27-305(c)(4) caps attorney's fees at one-third of actual damages recovered, which is a fee cap rather than a fine. On rebating, Maryland runs two sections split by line that share the same $50 threshold for educational materials, promotional materials or articles of merchandise: § 27-209 for life, health and annuities, § 27-212 for everything else. Your side of the book is § 27-212, and it carries the provision the life-side section does not - subsection (c) makes it unlawful for the INSURED, or an employee of the insured, to knowingly receive or accept a rebate. On a property-casualty question, the person taking the inducement can be in breach too.
Moving Into Maryland, Moving Out, and the Portal That Gets It Wrong
Maryland issues non-resident producer licences on a reciprocal basis, and the non-resident fee is $54 - the same figure a resident pays. That part is unremarkable. What is not unremarkable is what happens when a producer physically moves, in either direction across the State line. Maryland attaches a waiver to relocation, the waiver is worth skipping an exam for, and on both directions of the move the obvious thing to do - open NIPR and file - is the thing that forfeits it. The warning appears in the MIA's Producer FAQ and effectively nowhere else, which is why this module exists.
The window is 90 days, and it runs from the cancellation of your previous home-state licence. Not from the day you sign a lease, not from the day you register a car. Both of the inbound routes below are keyed to that same event, so the first thing to establish when you relocate is the exact cancellation date on the old licence.
Inbound path 1 - you already hold an active Maryland NON-RESIDENT licence. Then you do not file an application at all. You submit a status change request - converting the existing non-resident licence to resident - by email, fax or mail, within the 90 days. There is no new application and no new licence: it is an amendment to the one you have. Take the waiver with it: the MIA states you are exempt from pre-licensing and examination.
Inbound path 2 - you do not hold a Maryland non-resident licence. Then you do file a new licence application, with the $54 fee, inside the same 90-day window, and you are likewise exempt from pre-licensing and examination. But read the MIA's sentence on how: "The application may not be submitted online, only submit a paper application." NIPR will not carry this filing. If you submit through the portal because the portal is where applications normally go, you have filed an ordinary new-resident application - and an ordinary new-resident application is the one that comes with an exam attached. The paper requirement is not a formality; it is the mechanism that delivers the waiver. Paper goes to the Maryland Insurance Administration, ATTN: Producer Licensing Unit, 200 St. Paul Place, Suite 2700, Baltimore, Maryland 21202.
The statute backs both routes, in two places. Ins. § 10-119(b)(2)(ii) waives the examination where the application is received within 90 days after cancellation of the prior state's licence, with certification that the producer was in good standing. Ins. § 10-119(h)(1)-(2) comes at it from the other side: a producer moving into Maryland applies as a resident within 90 days, and is exam-exempt for the lines of authority previously held. Read (h)(2) carefully, because it scopes the waiver - it reaches the lines you already had. A Casualty-only producer relocating who wants full Property and Casualty authority in Maryland is asking for something the previous licence did not carry.
Outbound is where Maryland's warning is written in terms. Leaving the State, the instinct is to go and buy a Maryland non-resident licence, because you still want to write Maryland business. The MIA says, verbatim: "Do Not apply for a new non-resident license on www.nipr.com OR mail in a new non-resident license application if you are within 90 days of the Maryland resident license cancellation." Note that the prohibition covers both channels - this one is not a paper-versus-portal distinction, it is a do-not-file-a-new-application instruction.
What you file instead, outbound, is a two-part request on your existing licence: a change of address, plus a re-activation as a non-resident, submitted within 90 days of clearance. It goes to producerlicensing.mia@maryland.gov or by fax to (410) 468-2399. The shape of the fix is the same as inbound path 1 - amend the licence you hold rather than buy a new one - and the reason is the same: a new application starts a new process that the 90-day relief was designed to let you skip.
A third clock sits underneath both of these, and it is 30 days, not 90. Ins. § 10-119(g)(1)(ii) and (g)(2): a non-resident licensee whose legal residence changes must file certification from the new resident state within 30 days of the change - with no fee and no new application. So a producer holding a Maryland non-resident licence who moves from Delaware to Pennsylvania owes Maryland a 30-day certification filing even though nothing about the Maryland licence itself is changing. Separately, Ins. § 10-117(b)(1)-(2) gives every licensee 30 days to file a change of legal name, trade name, e-mail address or address, and failure to do so is itself a violation of § 10-126(a)(1).
Letters of Clearance are good for 90 days from the date of issuance. That is the same length of fuse as the relocation window but it is not the same fuse - the clearance letter's 90 days run from issuance, while the waiver's 90 days run from cancellation. Request the letter promptly and file promptly, because a clearance letter that expires before your application lands is a document you have to obtain again.
Two things reciprocity does not carry across. First, appointment. Ins. § 10-103(d)(1) is flat: "an insurance producer may not sell, solicit, or negotiate any insurance on behalf of an insurer for which the insurance producer does not have an appointment," and § 10-118(d)(2) goes further - the producer may not act until it has received written documentation of the appointment. The bar runs against you, not against the insurer, whatever your former home state shows. Second, the Maryland product gates: the flood and bail-bond continuing-education requirements described in the renewal section below attach to what you sell in Maryland, not to how you got the licence.
And note what the 90-day rules are not. They are relocation relief, not a general reciprocity waiver. The full catalogue of Maryland exam waivers - the lines that require no exam at all, and the variable-products route - sits in the Life & Health guide, which owns the waivers module. The one thing worth saying here is that Maryland's current Prometric bulletin contains no exemptions section at all, which is a consequence of the October 2024 pre-licensing repeal: with no coursework requirement left, there is nothing for a coursework exemption to attach to.
Renewing a Maryland Producer License
Maryland's licence term is two years for everybody - and the date it ends on depends on what kind of licensee you are. That single split is what reconciles two official sources that look, on their face, as though they contradict each other, and it is the first thing to get straight.
For an individual producer, the birth-month rule is STATUTORY. It is not an MIA administrative convention that could change with a form redesign. Ins. § 10-115(d) reads: "A license renewed under this section shall have an expiration date that is the last day of the month in which the holder of the license was born." § 10-115(a)(1) supplies the biennial term, and § 10-115(a)(2) adds the consequence people forget - your appointments terminate when the licence expires, so a lapse does not merely stop you writing new business under your own authority, it unwinds your carrier relationships.
For a business entity, the term runs two years from the DATE OF ISSUANCE - and § 10-115 does not provide for that at all. The reason is obvious once you see it: a corporation has no birth month, so the statutory rule has nothing to attach to. The MIA supplies the issuance-anniversary rule by published practice. Any study material that states one of these two rules flatly for all Maryland producers is wrong, and if you find two sources disagreeing about whether Maryland renews on a birthday or on an anniversary, check which licensee type each one is describing before you decide one of them is out of date.
| Item | The Maryland rule |
|---|---|
| Term, individual producer | Two years, expiring the last day of your birth month - Ins. § 10-115(a)(1) sets the biennial term, § 10-115(d) sets the date |
| Term, business entity | Two years from the DATE OF ISSUANCE - MIA published practice; § 10-115 contains no business-entity provision |
| Renewal fee | $69 - a $54 renewal fee plus a $15 fraud prevention fee |
| Early window | Up to 90 days before expiration |
| CE required | 24 hours per two-year cycle, including 3 hours of ethics |
| CE deadline, statutory | Complete not later than 15 days before the expiration date (Ins. § 10-116(a)(2)) |
| CE deadline, recommended | 30 days - the MIA's own recommendation, to allow processing time |
| Provider reporting | A provider has up to 10 days to report a completion |
| Carryover | Not allowed - excess hours die with the period |
| Duplicate courses | Not permitted within the same renewal period, nor within 6 months |
| Late renewal | Allowed for up to 1 year past expiration: the required CE, the renewal fee, and a $100 late/reinstatement fee |
| Expired more than 1 year | The licence cannot be renewed at all - pass the Maryland exam again and file an initial application |
| Appointments | Terminate when the licence expires (Ins. § 10-115(a)(2)) |
The two continuing-education deadlines are both real, and 15 days is the one the exam wants. Ins. § 10-116(a)(2) says 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." That is the Code. Separately, the MIA's Producer Continuing Education Credit Requirements index instructs, flatly: "Complete CEs 30 days before the license expiration date." That is advice, not law - but it is good advice, and the reason is in the table above: a provider has up to 10 days to report a completion. Finish a course exactly on the statutory day - 15 days out - and a provider using its full window posts your credit with 5 days to spare. Finish it a week later and the statute has already been missed regardless of what the provider does. Learn 15 for the exam; work to 30 in practice.
Late renewal is a one-year corridor, and then it closes for good. Inside the year, you reinstate with the required CE, the renewal fee and a $100 late/reinstatement fee. Past the year, the licence cannot be renewed: the producer must pass the Maryland exam again and file an initial application - which for a Property and Casualty producer means sitting exam code 2032 a second time, at $62, and paying the $54 application fee. Maryland licences are not perpetual, and the one-year boundary is hard.
One stale MIA document will tell you otherwise, and it is worth naming. The MIA's own licence-fees-and-filing-tips PDF still states that after one year, "pre-licensing education, passing appropriate MD exam and initial license application are required." The exam and the initial application are correct. The pre-licensing education clause is repealed - MIA Bulletin 24-19, dated July 24, 2024, removed the pre-licensing education and experience requirements effective October 1, 2024, and the provider roster went inactive on 30 September 2024. This is an MIA-versus-MIA conflict rather than a vendor-versus-regulator one, and the bulletin is the later and controlling document. If you find that sentence on an official page, you have found a document that has not been reissued, not a surviving requirement.
Five product-specific training gates sit alongside the 24 hours, enumerated on the MIA's Producer Continuing Education Credit Requirements index. Two of them are yours:
| Gate | Line of authority | One-time or recurring | Counts toward the 24? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flood - 2 hours in a course designated Flood | Property & Casualty | Recurring | Yes - the MIA writes it "as part of P/C hours" |
| Bail Bond - 4 hours in a course designated Bail Bond | Property & Casualty, and only if you sell, solicit or negotiate bail bonds | Recurring | Yes - again "as part of P/C hours" |
| Long Term Care - 2 hours in a course designated Long Term Care | Life / Health | Recurring | Yes - "as part of L/H hours" |
| LTC Partnership - an 8-hour initial course, then a 4-hour refresher | Life / Health | Both - 8 hours initially, then a 4-hour refresher every two years | UNCONFIRMED - this is the one row that omits the "as part of" phrasing the other three carry, so do not assume it counts |
| Annuity Suitability - a 4-hour initial course | Life | One-time | Disputed - see the conflict below |
Bail bonds is the Maryland gate you would not predict from any other state. The MIA's continuing-education page states it verbatim: "Effective October 1, 2017 each Insurance Producer who possesses a license to sell property and casualty insurance and who sells, solicits, or negotiates bail bonds shall receive four hours continuing education that directly relates to bail bonds." Read the trigger closely - it is conduct, not authority. Holding P&C authority does not switch the requirement on; selling, soliciting or negotiating bail bonds does. And because the MIA writes it "as part of P/C hours", those 4 hours live inside the 24 rather than on top of them. The flood requirement works the same way - 2 hours, recurring, inside the 24 - but it is not conduct-triggered in the same terms.
On the annuity gate, two MIA documents disagree and this guide picks no winner. The Producer Continuing Education Credit Requirements PDF lists Annuity Suitability among the continuing-education rows. MIA Bulletin 22-11 says the opposite in terms: "The annuity training is not a CE requirement. This is training required prior to selling an annuity product." Both are MIA documents. The reconciliation people usually reach for is that the training is a sales prerequisite which a dually-approved course can also satisfy for CE, but that reconciliation is not stated by either source, so treat it as an explanation rather than a finding. What Bulletin 22-11 does state, and what is worth carrying either way: the governing regulation is COMAR 31.09.12.08; the course is 4 credits for a producer with no prior annuity training and 1 credit for one trained under the prior Model; it is one-time; and it must be completed "before engaging in the recommendation or sale of annuities." The gate attaches to the Life line, so it reaches a P&C producer at the point they add life authority, not before.
Where the renewal actually happens: NIPR. Applications and renewals run through nipr.com or by paper to the MIA's Producer Licensing Unit. Sircon is continuing education only in Maryland - transcripts and approved-course lookup - and is not an application channel here, which is a distinction worth holding onto if you are licensed in states where Sircon does both.
What It Costs
Two payments to get licensed - $62 to Prometric for exam code 2032 and $54 to the Maryland Insurance Administration with the application - and nothing else that Maryland publishes. No course fee since the October 2024 repeal, and no fingerprint fee on any MIA fee schedule.
Then $69 every two years to keep it: a $54 renewal plus the $15 fraud prevention fee. Renew late and add $100; renew more than a year late and the price is the whole process again, exam included. Whether the $54 application fee is charged per application or per line of authority is not stated by any Maryland source - the fee table carries a single "Producer" row with no per-line multiplier - so budget from the table, not from an assumption.
Eligibility Requirements
At least 18 (Ins. § 10-104), the exam passed for the lines you are applying for, and the $54 fee. No pre-licensing course and no minimum experience - both repealed effective October 1, 2024. The MIA now tells candidates plainly that they "may find their own insurance exam preparation courses or they may order their own study materials."
Apply through NIPR, at nipr.com, or by paper to the Maryland Insurance Administration, ATTN: Producer Licensing Unit, 200 St. Paul Place, Suite 2700, Baltimore, Maryland 21202. Note that Sircon is continuing education only in Maryland and is not an application channel. The detailed walkthrough is in the Life guide, which owns the application module; the exam-day rules and the exam-waiver catalogue are in the Life & Health guide.
Background review runs through the Uniform Application's disclosure questions, and the Prometric bulletin states the whole of the follow-up: "If you answer 'Yes' to a background question on the application, submit your written statement accompanied by corresponding court documents." Maryland publishes no fingerprint step for a resident producer licence - the MIA fee schedule itemises every other fee and carries no fingerprint line, and the bulletin, the MIA Producer FAQ, the MIA licensing page, NIPR's Maryland page and NAIC's Maryland paper-licensing page are all silent. That is an absence of any published requirement rather than a published exemption, so confirm it with the MIA if it matters to your timeline. Do not confuse it with the Maryland MLO fingerprint process, which is a different regulator and reaches Insurance Producer-MLOs only.
Then get appointed before you write anything. Ins. § 10-103(d)(1) bars a producer from selling, soliciting or negotiating on behalf of an insurer without an appointment, and § 10-118(d)(2) is stricter still - you may not act until you have received written documentation of it. The insurer has 30 days to enter the appointment in its register (§ 10-118(b)(2)), but the prohibition operates on you in the meantime.
Premium money is fiduciary from day one, and Maryland's trigger is behavioural rather than numeric. COMAR 31.03.03.02A requires a producer "that does not make prompt remittance" to hold premium in one or more premium accounts separate from any operating or personal accounts - there is no numeric remittance deadline anywhere in Maryland, so do not import one from another state's rule. Withdrawals are limited to six enumerated purposes; moving bank interest to an operating account needs the carrier's written consent, and average-commission withdrawals need a letter from each carrier on file at all times stating the average commission percentage. One protection runs the other way: under Ins. § 10-127, an insurer may not cancel for nonpayment where the premium was paid to the producer.
Adding a line later is exam-only. Pass the appropriate paper and file - the MIA allows about 2 to 3 business days to process exam results into the system. Prometric's current bulletin states no deadline between passing and applying and no validity window for a passing score. The one Maryland document that does is the MIA's Producer-Initial-Renewal-Licenses.pdf - "The examination results are valid for 6 months" - and that document is stale in other respects, still naming PSI as exam vendor and 20 hours of repealed pre-licensing. Treat 6 months as the outside figure the MIA has in print, and file promptly rather than testing it.
Keeping the License
Important CE details: 24 hours per two-year cycle, 3 of them ethics, on a cycle keyed to your birth month. Maryland publishes two different completion deadlines and both are real: Ins. § 10-116(a)(2) requires completion not later than 15 days before the expiration date, and the MIA's own CE index instructs producers to complete CEs 30 days before the expiration date. Providers have up to 10 days to report a completion, carryover hours are not allowed, and the same course may not be repeated within the same renewal period nor within 6 months. The MIA heads its product block "Additional requirements for Producers who also sell:", so these gates attach to what you actually sell rather than to the licence itself. If you sell flood, 2 hours in a course designated Flood sit inside the 24, and a further 4 hours designated Bail Bond if you sell, solicit or negotiate bail bonds.
24 hours every two years, of which 3 must be ethics, on a cycle keyed to your birth month. The 24 does not multiply with the number of major lines you hold - a producer carrying Property, Casualty, Life and Health owes the same 24 as one carrying Property alone. The deadlines, the late-renewal corridor and the product-specific training gates are set out in full in the renewal section above, which owns that machinery.
You will meet Prometric twice. Prometric administers the exam and is the MIA's continuing-education vendor - the MIA states that "PROMETRIC is the Maryland Insurance Administration's vendor for continuing education services" - with Vertafore/Sircon as the transcript and approved-course lookup system at sircon.com. The CE line is 1-800-324-4592. Check your own transcript there rather than waiting for a renewal notice to tell you something is missing.
Two structural limits catch people. Carryover is not allowed - the MIA says so in terms, "Carry over hours are not allowed" - so hours banked beyond 24 in one period are simply gone at the reset. And a duplicate course does not count twice: the same course may not be taken again within the same renewal period, nor within 6 months.
Two legacy exemptions still exist and neither is open to new qualifiers. Producers who were aged 70 or older as of April 30, 2013 are CE-exempt (MIA 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 (MIA Bulletin 13-10). Both are closed classes - nobody qualifies into them now - so they are worth recognising on an exam question and worth ignoring in your own planning.
Other Maryland licence types carry different totals, which is a useful contrast rather than an alternative for you: a title-only licensee owes 16 hours - 13 Title plus 3 Ethics, and a Funeral Director licensed for Life only owes 16 - 13 L/H plus 3 Ethics. A producer holding property and casualty authority is on the standard 24, with the flood and bail-bond hours counted inside it.
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