Missouri Casualty Insurance Exam 2026

The Missouri Casualty Insurance Producer License

Missouri's Casualty line is "casualty insurance coverage against legal liability, including that for death, injury or disability" (RSMo 375.018). It has its own Pearson VUE exam, code 53, and Missouri sells it standalone rather than only as half of a combined licence.

Casualty is the liability half of the property-casualty book: automobile liability, general liability, workers' compensation, professional liability, umbrella and excess. It does not reach direct physical damage to property - that is the Property line, code 52.

Entry is short: be 18, pass the exam, apply and pay $100. No pre-licensing course and no fingerprints. The DCI's own resident-producer page lists exactly those three steps.

One thing this licence does not do on its own: surplus lines. The surplus lines licence at RSMo 384.043.2 is issued only to "a qualified holder of a current resident or nonresident property and casualty insurance producer license." Casualty alone is not enough - you need the combined P&C authority underneath it. This guide covers the surplus lines rules in detail because they belong to the casualty side of the book, but the licence stack is worth knowing before you plan around it.

Three Ways Into Missouri's Casualty Market

Casualty Insurance Producer (code 53): 100 items in 2 hours, $32. Property and Casualty Insurance Producer (code 55): 100 items in 3 hours, $40. Surplus Lines (code 82): 50 items in 1 hour, $25 - an add-on, not a route in.

The combined paper is the interesting comparison. Property and Casualty carries the same 100 items as Casualty alone but allows three hours instead of two. Missouri buys you an extra hour for the combined syllabus rather than adding questions - the Life and Accident & Health combination does add five items, so this is a property-casualty peculiarity rather than a general rule.

Every Missouri producer exam is two scored sections plus embedded pretest. On the Casualty paper that is 50 general and 40 Missouri scored items plus 10 pretest, so 90 of the 100 count. The handbook says the pretest items "are mixed in with the scored questions and are not identified" - you cannot spot them, so answer everything.

Passing is a scaled 70, not 70%. The handbook says the reported score "is neither the number of questions you answered correctly nor the percentage of questions you answered correctly," because Missouri equates across multiple forms of each exam. Do not compute your own percentage and try to predict a pass.

On value: the combined paper costs $8 more than Casualty alone and adding Property later costs another $32, so the combo saves $24 if property is anywhere in your plan - and it is the licence the surplus lines credential requires.

Most Tested Topics on the Missouri Casualty Exam

Missouri's casualty law splits hairs that most states do not, and the splits are exactly where the questions are: two motorist coverages in two sections pointing at two different statutes, a duty section with no numbers in it, and a comparative-fault rule that is only partly a statute. From the TESTivity Missouri regulations curriculum, statute-verified:

Start with the two motorist coverages, because Missouri is the state where getting them backwards is easiest. On a private passenger policy uninsured motorist must be provided, not merely offered: there is no rejection form in Missouri law and no opt-out in any of RSMo 379.203's five subsections. It comes in at the RSMo 303.030 bodily injury limits only, because RSMo 379.203.1 borrows just "the limits for bodily injury or death" from that section and leaves its property-damage figure behind.

But read the whole sentence, because it does not end there. The same subsection continues "or in the case of any commercial motor vehicle, as defined in section 301.010, any employer having a fleet of five or more passenger vehicles, such coverage is offered therein or supplemental thereto." For commercial motor vehicles and for employers running five or more passenger vehicles, Missouri drops from provided to offered - so "UM can never be turned down in Missouri" is true of the family car and false of the fleet.

Underinsured motorist is not the same coverage and is not mandated at all. RSMo 379.204's own catchline is "Underinsured motor vehicle coverage, construction of policy," and its whole job is to say how a UIM clause is read if one is written. Below 50/100 it is construed as excess coverage stacked on top of the tortfeasor's limits rather than as difference-in-limits. That is a favourable-to-the-insured reading, and it is the only thing the section does.

Now the citation trap. UM cross-references RSMo 303.030. UIM cross-references RSMo 303.020. And the duty to have insurance at all sits in RSMo 303.025, which sets no coverage limits at all - its only dollar figures are the criminal fines for driving uninsured. Three sections in the same chapter, three different roles. If a question asks which section sets the limits a certified motor vehicle liability policy must carry, the answer is RSMo 303.190.2(2) - not the duty section, and not the post-accident security section.

On comparative fault, be careful what you cite. Missouri applies pure comparative fault: the plaintiff's share diminishes the award proportionately and never bars recovery. But RSMo 537.765 is a products liability statute by its own terms - subsection 1 says "The doctrine of pure comparative fault shall apply to products liability claims as provided in this section." The rule for auto negligence came from the Missouri Supreme Court, not from that statute.

On the Second Injury Fund, know which era you are describing. Since injuries occurring after 1 January 2014, the Fund pays permanent total disability only, and only where the claimant shows "a medically documented preexisting disability equaling a minimum of fifty weeks of permanent partial disability compensation" falling into one of four categories: active military duty, a compensable injury, a non-compensable injury that "directly and significantly aggravates or accelerates" the work injury, or a prior loss of an extremity, eye or ear with a subsequent injury to the opposite one. Anything describing partial-disability claims against the Fund is describing pre-2014 law.

And on the guaranty association, note that workers' compensation is the exception to the cap. RSMo 375.775.1(1) pays workers' compensation benefits in full. Everything else is capped at $300,000 per claim - and there is a second $300,000 in the statute doing a completely different job: RSMo 375.772.2(7)(j) removes from "covered claim" status altogether any claim under a policy "with a deductible or self-insured retention of three hundred thousand dollars or more." One is a payment ceiling, the other is an eligibility bar. Cite each to its own subsection.

Missouri Surplus Lines: A Qualitative Test, Not a Declination Count

Most states tell you how many admitted carriers must decline before you may export a risk. Missouri does not print a number. Chapter 384 asks a qualitative question instead, and the definition it supplies is the thing to memorise.

The licence sits on top of a P&C producer licence. RSMo 384.043.2 issues a surplus lines licence only to "a qualified holder of a current resident or nonresident property and casualty insurance producer license," and the DCI says the same: "Residents must hold or be applying for a property and casualty insurance producer license." The prohibition is flat - "No insurance producer shall procure any contract of surplus lines insurance with any nonadmitted insurer, unless he possesses a current surplus lines insurance license."

There is a separate exam. Code 82, 50 items on state statutes, rules and regulations, one hour, $25. RSMo 384.043 requires "a qualifying examination approved by the director," with a grandfather for licensees holding permits before 1 July 1987 and non-resident reciprocity where the home state licenses you for surplus lines. The licence fee is $100 initial and $100 biennial, renewing on a two-year cycle keyed to the licensee's birth date; failure to pay terminates the licence.

The diligent-effort test, verbatim. RSMo 384.017(2) permits a placement where "the full amount or kind of insurance is not obtainable from admitted insurers who are actually transacting in this state the class of insurance required by the insured." Then it defines the escape hatch: "Insurance shall be deemed obtainable within the meaning of this section if there is available a market with admitted insurers that can supply the insured's requirements both as to type of coverage and as to quality of security and service."

And it defines its own terms, which is what makes this answerable. "'Type of coverage', as used in this section, refers to hazards covered and limits of coverage. 'Quality of security and service', as used in this section, refers to the rating by a recognized financial service." So the question is not "how many said no" - it is whether an admitted market exists that can match the hazards and limits the insured needs and meets a financial-strength rating. Both halves, not either.

No numeric declination requirement appears in RSMo 384.017, 384.021, 384.043, 384.051, 384.057 or 384.059, nor on the DCI's surplus lines pages - and the regulations say the same. Missouri's surplus lines rules are 20 CSR 200-6, not Division 700: Forms, Advisory Organizations, Fees and Taxes, and Domestic Surplus Lines Insurer. The rule that would have carried a declination test, 20 CSR 200-6.500 "Standards for Determining the Availability of Coverage," was RESCINDED on 30 July 2019, alongside 200-6.400 and, earlier, 200-6.600. So there is no declination affidavit, declination count or export list left standing in Missouri's surplus lines rules.

The exempt commercial purchaser switches the search off entirely - on two conditions, in order. RSMo 384.021 requires that the licensee disclose that "such insurance may or may not be available from the admitted market," and that the exempt commercial purchaser "has subsequently requested in writing" the nonadmitted placement. The writing must come after the disclosure. Order matters.

Eligible insurers: the White List, and what it is not. Missouri publishes a list of eligible surplus lines companies that the DCI calls the "White List", "updated nightly; NAIC updates are received quarterly." The licensee must verify the nonadmitted insurer either holds capital and surplus equal to the greater of the state minimum or $15 million (with exceptions floored at $4.5 million), or appears on the director's list or the NAIC International Insurers Department quarterly listing of alien insurers. This is a list of approved insurers, not of exportable coverages - no export list of pre-approved classes was located in Chapter 384 or on the DCI's pages, and the only statutory bypass of the diligent search is the exempt commercial purchaser route.

The filing calendar is four dates. Quarterly sworn statements are due within 45 days after the end of each calendar quarter (RSMo 384.057.2); the annual sworn statement and the insured's report are due before March 2; tax is due before April 16. Filing goes through the DCI's Surplus Lines Online Filings portal, and the obligation attaches to any producer holding an active surplus lines licence "during any part of the tax year" - one month of licensure still means a filing.

One apportionment rule worth remembering: for airlines, railroads and motor carriers, only the portion of the risk in Missouri is taxable, calculated proportionally to revenue miles within the state.

What It Costs

Two payments for the Casualty licence and nothing else. No course fee, no fingerprint fee. If surplus lines is the destination, budget the combined P&C exam instead of Casualty alone, plus $25 for the surplus lines exam and $100 for that licence.

Eligibility Requirements

At least 18, exam passed for each line applied for, $100 paid, and no act committed that is a ground for denial under RSMo 375.141 (RSMo 375.015(1)). No course, no prints.

Appointment runs on a 30-day clock in both directions. An insurer must file the appointment, and must file a termination notice, within the statutory window - a producer who assumes an appointment is live before the paperwork clears is exposed on both ends.

Premiums are held in trust from day one. RSMo 375.051 makes a producer "responsible in a trust or fiduciary capacity" for money collected - to the company where you act for the insurer, and to the applicant or insured where you act for them. Missouri's mechanical rule is unusual: you need not keep separate bank accounts per payor, provided the funds are "reasonably ascertainable from the books of account and records of the insurance producer." The obligation is unchanged; the bookkeeping burden falls on you.

And one thing you may never say to a prospect. RSMo 375.779.2: "It is an unfair trade practice for any insurer or producer to make use in any manner of the protection given policyholders by sections 375.771 to 375.779 as a reason for buying insurance from such insurer or producer." Selling on the strength of the guaranty association is a violation, and because it is labelled an unfair trade practice it routes into the RSMo 375.930 to 375.948 penalty machinery. The same subsection carries the flip side: where a policy exceeds guaranty limits, the insurer "shall prominently inscribe on an endorsement" the limits of guaranty association coverage.

Keeping the License

16 credit hours every two years, of which 3 are a single combined block. The 16 is statutory (RSMo 375.020.1). The 3 is regulatory and is not three hours of ethics alone: 20 CSR 700-3.200(2) requires producers to "complete three (3) hours of instruction covering ethics, Missouri law, and producer duties and obligations to the department during any two-(2-)year licensure period." RSMo 375.020.1 mandates business-ethics content without naming an hours figure, so cite the rule, not the statute - and note that Missouri's CE rule lives in 20 CSR 700-3, not 700-1.

The 16 does not grow with lines held. The DCI lists Life/Health 16, Property/Casualty 16, and "Life/Health + Property/Casualty: 16 hours any combination." Adding Property to Casualty does not add hours.

Excess hours carry forward to the immediately following two-year period (RSMo 375.020.4) - unusual, and worth planning around. What does not carry is a repeat: "Courses may not be duplicated during a renewal period."

Providers register through SBS (State Based Systems), Pearson VUE runs provider support, and the DCI links an approved-course catalog hosted by Sircon - but approval authority itself rests with the director, assisted by the nine-producer insurance advisory board under RSMo 375.019. Providers must report completions electronically within 30 days, and you can check your own record at SBS Connect.

A surplus lines licence renews on its own two-year cycle keyed to the licensee's birth date, at $100, and non-payment terminates it (RSMo 384.043).

The producer renewal cycle itself - the two-year term, the birth-date basis, the $25-per-month late penalty and the twelve-month reinstatement window - is in the Property & Casualty guide.

Quick Reference

Official Links