What This License Is
A Massachusetts Casualty line of authority covers insurance against legal liability for injury to persons or damage to property — personal and commercial auto liability, general liability, workers' compensation, professional liability and the commercial casualty lines. It is issued by the Division of Insurance.
Like Property, it is a standalone exam. Massachusetts offers no combined Property & Casualty sitting, so full P&C authority is two exams at $37 each. Casualty alone is a legitimate licence — plenty of Massachusetts producers hold it — but note that a personal-lines book needs Property too, and that a producer writing only personal auto and homeowners may be better served by the separate Personal Lines licence.
The licence fee is $300 for the three-year term rather than $225, because Casualty authority carries the statutory $75 lead paint surcharge. That surcharge is once per term, not per line, so adding Property afterwards costs only another exam fee.
Exam Options & Format
The Casualty Producer exam is 80 scored questions plus 10 unscored pretest items — 50 scored general-knowledge and 30 scored Massachusetts-specific — at $37 through Pearson VUE.
That 30-question state block matters more on this line than on any other. Massachusetts auto law is not a regional variation; it is a distinct system, and the compulsory limits changed as recently as July 1, 2025. A national course written before then will teach you the wrong numbers with complete confidence.
The passing standard is a scaled score of 70 — and that is not the same thing as 70% correct. The handbook is blunt about it: the reported score "is neither the number of questions answered correctly nor the percentage of questions answered correctly." Raw answers are converted onto a common scale so that a slightly harder form is not a harder pass.
Massachusetts does not publish a time limit. The handbook describes how the on-screen clock behaves and then says the number of questions and the time limit "can be found in the exam's content outline" — but the published outlines carry topic weightings and question counts, not minutes. Treat any site quoting you a Massachusetts exam duration as quoting the old Prometric handbook. Your actual limit is confirmed when you book and shown on screen when you sit down.
The old Prometric code 16-54 was retired with the vendor change. Book "Producer - Casualty" by name through Pearson VUE's Massachusetts portal — in person only, as late as one calendar day ahead subject to availability.
Most Tested Topics on the Massachusetts Casualty Exam
Massachusetts auto and workers' compensation law supplies most of this line's state section, and it is unusually rich in specific numbers. Every figure below is cited:
| Concept | The Massachusetts rule |
|---|---|
| Compulsory auto limits | 25/50 bodily injury, 25/50 uninsured motorist, $30,000 property damage, $8,000 PIP — for policies written or renewed on or after July 1, 2025 (Ch. 275 of the Acts of 2024, amending c. 90 § 34A). The prior limits were 20/40 and $5,000 PD |
| Fault system | No-fault — PIP pays the injured person's own medical and related costs regardless of fault, with a tort threshold controlling the right to sue for pain and suffering |
| PIP scope | $8,000 per person, covering the named insured, household members, authorised operators, passengers including guest occupants, and pedestrians struck by the insured's vehicle. Wage loss is capped at 75% of average weekly wage for the year before the accident (c. 90 § 34A) |
| PIP and health insurance | If the injured person has health coverage, PIP pays only the first $2,000 of medical expenses incurred within two years; the health plan takes over from there, leaving PIP's remaining limit for wage loss, replacement services and bills the health plan denies (c. 90 § 34A) |
| PIP deductibles | Seven options: $100, $250, $500, $1,000, $2,000, $4,000, $8,000 (c. 90 § 34M). The insurer must begin medical payments within 10 days of notice of disability from a physician, or give written notice it will not |
| Tort threshold | Pain-and-suffering damages require medical expenses in excess of $2,000 — unless the injury involves death, loss of a body member, permanent and serious disfigurement, loss of sight or hearing, or a fracture (c. 231 § 6D) |
| UM and UIM | Uninsured motorist is compulsory at 25/50. Underinsured must be made available but is optional (c. 175 § 113L) |
| Negligence rule | Modified comparative, 51% bar — a claimant whose negligence is greater than the defendants' combined negligence recovers nothing; otherwise the award is reduced by the claimant's share (c. 231 § 85) |
| Residual market | The Massachusetts Automobile Insurance Plan (MAIP), administered by Commonwealth Automobile Reinsurers (CAR). Every private passenger writer must participate, and assignments are allocated in proportion to voluntary-market volume. It is a mechanism, not an insurer |
| Prohibited rating factors | Sex, marital status, race, education and credit information — barred for both underwriting and rating in private passenger auto. Most states permit credit scoring and gender |
| Rate system | Managed competition since April 2008 — insurers set their own rates, approved first by the Division. Massachusetts abandoned state-set "fix-and-establish" rates that year |
| SDIP surcharge appeal | To the Board of Appeal within 30 days of the notice date, with a non-refundable $50 fee (211 CMR 74.00; c. 175 § 113P). A surchargeable at-fault accident is one paying more than $1,000 with the operator more than 50% at fault |
| Workers' comp threshold | Required from the first employee — Massachusetts has no employee-count minimum (c. 152 § 25A) |
| Workers' comp benefits | Temporary total disability: 60% of average weekly wage, capped at the state average weekly wage, for up to 156 weeks (c. 152 § 34), administered by the Department of Industrial Accidents |
| Workers' comp deadlines | Notice as soon as practicable; claim within 4 years of becoming aware of the injury and its work connection (c. 152 §§ 41, 44) |
The $2,000 health-insurance coordination rule is the highest-value item on this page and the one most reliably missed. In an ordinary PIP state, PIP is primary for the whole limit. In Massachusetts, an injured person with health coverage gets only $2,000 of medical expense from PIP before their health plan takes over. It also interacts with the $2,000 tort threshold in a way the exam enjoys: the same figure appears in two different statutes doing two different jobs, and the threshold has five exceptions that bypass the dollar test entirely — death, loss of a body member, permanent and serious disfigurement, loss of sight or hearing, and a fracture.
The second trap is the prohibited rating factors. Candidates trained nationally assume credit-based insurance scores are standard and that gender and marital status are ordinary rating variables. Massachusetts bans all five — sex, marital status, race, education and credit — for underwriting and rating alike. What remains permitted is years of driving experience, accident and violation history, the vehicle itself, and garaging location.
Massachusetts Temporary Producer Licenses — Who Gets One and What It Allows
Massachusetts issues a temporary insurance producer licence under M.G.L. c. 175 § 162Q, and the first thing to understand is what it is not. It is not a shortcut into the business, not a provisional licence for someone waiting on exam results, and not available to an ordinary new applicant. It exists for one purpose, stated in the statute: so that an existing book of business keeps being serviced when the person servicing it suddenly cannot.
The core grant. The Commissioner may issue a temporary licence for a period not to exceed 180 days without requiring an examination if the Commissioner determines that the temporary licence is necessary for the servicing of an insurance business. Two features do a lot of work there. It is discretionary — may, not shall — and it is conditioned on business necessity rather than on the applicant's circumstances.
Who qualifies. The statute lists four situations:
1. Death or disability. The classic case: a licensed producer dies or becomes disabled, and someone must service the book. The temporary licence can go to the surviving spouse or court-appointed personal representative of a deceased producer, or to the designee of a producer disabled by illness, injury or medical condition.
2. An employee situation within a licensed entity. Where a business entity holds a licence, a temporary licence may issue to a member or employee so the entity's business continues.
3. Military service. A producer entering active service, or the designee of one, so a book is not abandoned to a deployment.
4. Any other circumstance the Commissioner deems to be in the public interest. The catch-all, exercised case by case.
Conditions the Commissioner may attach. Section 162Q gives the Commissioner explicit authority to limit the temporary licensee's activities in any way necessary to protect insureds and the public, to require the temporary licensee to be sponsored by a licensed producer or insurer, and to require whatever the Commissioner considers reasonable to protect the public. In practice a temporary licence is often a servicing licence — renewals, claims and existing clients — rather than a licence to go out and write new business.
And it can be revoked. The statute permits revocation if the interest of insureds or the public is endangered. That is a lower and broader bar than the § 162R grounds that govern a full licence — a temporary licence is a privilege granted for a specific protective purpose, and it ends when that purpose is not being served.
Why this matters to a casualty producer. Casualty books — commercial auto, general liability, workers' compensation — are exactly the books that cannot go unserviced for a quarter. Certificates of insurance, mid-term endorsements, renewal marketing on annual policies and open claims all keep moving whether or not the producer does. If you run an agency, § 162Q is the succession mechanism to know about before you need it, because the 180 days start from issuance, not from the event.
One thing it is not: an exam waiver for you. The only other routes to a Massachusetts producer licence without an examination are prior licensure in another state for the same lines (§ 162O), nonresident reciprocity (§ 162U) and reinstatement within 12 months of a lapse (§ 162M). The Property & Casualty guide covers the reciprocity routes in detail. Professional designations — CLU, CPCU, CIC, FLMI — do not appear anywhere in Massachusetts law as a basis for waiving the exam.
What It Costs
$37 for the exam and $300 for the three-year licence — about $337 on a first-attempt pass, plus NIPR's transaction fee. The licence is $300 rather than $225 because Casualty authority carries the statutory $75 lead paint surcharge.
That surcharge is the reason the second P&C line is cheap here. It is charged once per licence term regardless of how many of Property, Casualty and Personal Lines you hold, so adding Property to a Casualty licence costs a $37 exam and nothing more at the next renewal.
Eligibility Requirements
You must be at least 18 years old and, for a resident license, maintain your residence or principal place of business in Massachusetts (M.G.L. c. 175 § 162L). There is no citizenship requirement and no education requirement beyond passing the exam.
Massachusetts does not fingerprint resident producer applicants. Your background is reviewed through the application's written disclosure questions instead — and that duty does not end at licensure: § 162V requires you to report any administrative action to the Division within 30 days of final disposition, and any criminal prosecution within 30 days of the initial pretrial hearing date, with copies of the underlying documents. Nothing about the Casualty line changes the eligibility test — but note that a temporary licensee under § 162Q may hold authority without having taken any exam at all, which is a different track entirely.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: Massachusetts runs a 36-month CE cycle. Your first renewal after original licensure requires 60 credits; every renewal after that requires 45. Either way, 3 hours must be Massachusetts-approved ethics — coded MAE in the CE system. Excess classroom hours carry forward, but only one cycle. Casualty producers selling NFIP flood coverage need an additional 3 hours of Massachusetts-approved flood CE.
The cycle is 36 months, keyed to your birth month: 60 credits before your first renewal, 45 each cycle thereafter, always including 3 hours of Massachusetts-approved ethics (code MAE). Excess classroom hours carry forward one cycle only.
Casualty producers who also write NFIP flood coverage need 3 hours of Massachusetts-approved flood CE on top (DOI Bulletin 2006-07). There is no casualty-specific product training equivalent to the annuity or LTC requirements on the life and health side.
The Property & Casualty guide covers the renewal mechanics — the 90-day early window, the CE-posting delay before NIPR will accept a submission, and the 12-month reinstatement rule at double the unpaid fee.
Quick Reference
Official Links
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