The Montana Life Producer License
Life is the first of the lines of authority listed at MCA 33-17-214(2)(a), and Montana's description of it is unusually explicit: life insurance coverage on human lives "including benefits of endowment and annuities," and the coverage "may include" funeral insurance as defined in 33-20-1501, benefits in the event of death or dismemberment by accident, and benefits for disability income. Fixed annuities sit inside this line. Variable life and variable annuities do not - they need the separate Variable line at 33-17-214(2)(e).
The structural fact that shapes everything else on this page is that Montana has no combined Life & Health producer examination. The candidate handbook's AVAILABLE EXAMINATIONS table has no such row, and the examination statute at MCA 33-17-212(5) lists nine classifications - life, disability, property, casualty, surety, surety bail bond, limited lines credit, title and prepaid legal - as nine separate things. If you want both Life and Disability authority in Montana you sit two complete examinations and pay two fees. The Life & Health guide on this site exists to explain that route; it is not a single exam.
There is one combined-line row in the handbook's table that looks like an exception and is not. Life and Disability Consultant is a consultant license under MCA 33-17-505, a different license class with a different exam and a different fee schedule. Read the LICENSE TYPE column, not the EXAM column.
The regulator you will be dealing with is the Commissioner of Securities and Insurance, and the title is not a courtesy. MCA 2-15-1903 is one sentence long: "The state auditor shall be ex officio the commissioner of insurance of this state." The auditor is one of the six elected executive officers named in Mont. Const. Art. VI, Sec. 1(1), with a four-year term under Sec. 1(2). One elected official regulates insurance and securities and audits the state.
How the Montana Life Exam Is Built
Montana's producer exams come in two parts and the two vendor documents that describe them were published nine months apart. The candidate handbook, publication #122700, carries a cover stamp of June 2025 and gives the fee, the time limits and the passing standard. The content outlines, publication #122703, carry a cover stamp of 03/2026 and say "Content Outlines: Effective March 2, 2026"; they are where the question counts live. You need both, and where they disagree you should know which one you are reading.
| Scored | Pretest | Time | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Part 1 - General: Life | 50 | 5 | 1 hr 15 min |
| Part 2 - State: Life | 36 | 5 | 45 min |
| Total | 86 | 10 | 2 hours |
Counting every item you will actually answer rather than only the scored ones, that is 96 questions in 120 minutes - about 75 seconds per question, and the two parts are not paced alike: Part 1 gives you roughly 82 seconds an item and Part 2 roughly 66. The Montana part is the tighter one. Every figure on this page is computed on all items, scored and pretest together, because that is what is in front of you at the desk.
The passing standard is a scaled 75, and the handbook is explicit that this is not a percentage: "The scaled score that is reported to you is neither the number of questions you answered correctly nor the percentage of questions you answered correctly." It adds that with a passing score of 75, a score below 75 "indicates how close the candidate came to passing." Do not compute how many questions you can afford to miss.
Fail and you retake everything. The handbook says so in terms: "Candidates who fail an examination and wish to retake it must retake the entire examination, i.e., Parts 1 and 2." There is no carry-over of a passed part, and no window in which a passed part stays alive. Reservations for a retake cannot be made at the test center, and you must wait 24 hours before making one.
The exam is $65 and a passed exam is good for 12 months - MCA 33-17-211(1)(d) requires that you have passed "within 12 months of application," and NIPR and the handbook both say the same thing in their own words.
Most Tested Topics on the Montana Life Exam
Part 2 is 36 scored questions on Montana law, and the reliable way to lose them is to answer from a national course. Montana's life rules diverge from the baseline in several places where the divergence is easy to state and easy to test.
| Concept | The Montana rule | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Free look, ordinary individual life | 10 days from delivery, or longer if the policy provides; a returned policy is void from the beginning | MCA 33-15-415 |
| Free look, replacement policy | 30 days, with an unconditional full refund - three times the ordinary period, and it is the replacing insurer's duty | ARM 6.6.306(1)(d) |
| Free look, annuity without a Buyer's Guide | Not less than 15 days where the disclosure document and Buyer's Guide were not provided at or before application; runs concurrently with any other free look | MCA 33-20-905(3) |
| Suicide exclusion, and the money that follows it | A policy may exclude suicide within 2 years of issue; if it does, it must pay not less than a reserve - and the reserve rule is a different subsection reaching every permitted exclusion | MCA 33-20-121(1)(b)(v), (2) |
| Incontestability, with the exchange tacking rule | 2 years from the policy date of issue; on an exchange or conversion with the same insurer the clock runs from the ORIGINAL policy's date of issue | MCA 33-20-105(1), (2)(a) |
| Grace period, individual life | 30 days, or one month of not less than 30 days at the insurer's option; the 4-week limb is only for industrial policies billed more often than monthly | MCA 33-20-104 |
| Reinstatement window and its interest ceiling | 3 years from default, 2 for industrial, on evidence of insurability and overdue premiums with interest not exceeding 6% compounded | MCA 33-20-112 |
| Misstatement of age, and whose age counts | Benefits adjust to what the premium would have bought at the correct age - of the insured OR of any other person whose age was considered in determining the premium | MCA 33-20-107 |
| Which life provisions are compulsory | 33-20-104 through -108, -110 through -116, and -131; annuity contracts are taken out of the regime entirely, saving only 33-20-114 | MCA 33-20-103(1), (2) |
| Funeral director bar on a life license | A funeral director, undertaker or mortician may not hold a life or disability license, nor may an officer, employee or representative of one, nor anyone with an interest in or benefit from such a business | MCA 33-17-211(1)(h)(i)-(iii) |
| Viatical rescission window | The longer of 30 days after the contract is executed by all parties or 15 days after the viator receives the proceeds | MCA 33-20-1308(3) |
The free look is the single most valuable row in that table, and the reason is where it is not. A candidate who goes looking for Montana's free look in Title 33 chapter 20 - the life insurance chapter, which is where every other required life provision lives - will find nothing and may conclude Montana mandates none. It is in chapter 15, The Insurance Contract, at 33-15-415, and it reaches "each individual life or disability insurance policy." One statute, two lines of business. Then notice that Montana has three different free-look numbers running at once: 10 days for an ordinary policy from a statute, 30 days for a replacement from a rule, and 15 days for an annuity sold without a Buyer's Guide from a different statute. An item that asks for "the Montana free look" without more is testing whether you noticed there is no single answer.
The second-most-missed item is who owes the replacement clocks. Montana's replacement rules follow the NAIC 2000 model shape, and under ARM 6.6.305 the producer's duties carry no day count at all - they are anchored to events, chiefly presenting and reading a signed replacement notice "not later than at the time of taking the application." Every numeric clock sits on an insurer: the replacing insurer notifies affected existing insurers within five business days of a completed application (ARM 6.6.306(1)(b)), and the existing insurer furnishes policy values within five business days of the owner's request (ARM 6.6.308(1)(b)). "The producer has five days to notify the existing insurer" is a clean, confident, wrong answer.
Applying for the Montana Life License
CSI publishes the resident path as four numbered steps, and the order matters because two of them are easy to do in the wrong sequence.
Step 1 - pass the exam. Book with Pearson VUE online or on 800-274-8906, at least 24 hours ahead; walk-ins are not accepted. Step 2 - apply through NIPR. CSI runs no application portal of its own: its licensing page says "to complete your licensing transactions online, please visit the National Insurance Producer Registry at www.nipr.com." Step 3 - submit the Applicant Rights and Consent to Fingerprint form to CSI by email. Step 4 - send the fingerprint card and the $30 fee directly to the Montana Criminal Records Division - not to CSI.
The state's own application fee is zero. This is worth pausing on because it is unusual enough to look like an error on a portal screen. MCA 33-2-708 is a long, itemised fee schedule, and the only line in it containing the words "resident insurance producer" is subsection (1)(b)(ii), a $100 lapsed-license reinstatement fee. The schedule prints an original fee and a biennial renewal fee for the nonresident producer ($100 and $50), the surplus lines producer ($50 and $100), the adjuster, the consultant, the viatical settlement broker and the navigator. For the resident producer it prints neither. NIPR's Montana fee table agrees, showing $0. NIPR will still charge its own transaction fee, which it does not publish as a static amount - the figure appears in its fee estimator at checkout.
There is no appointment fee either. The handbook's LICENSE FEES section prints, under both Resident Producer and Nonresident Producer, the single line "Appointment of producer, each insurer ... no fee." And the appointment is not your paperwork: MCA 33-17-236(2) puts it on the carrier - "the insurer shall, not later than 15 days from the date on which the agency contract is executed," file written notice with the commissioner. Under 33-17-236(5) an appointment is "perpetual until canceled by the insurer," so there is nothing annual to remember. One trap in (4)(c): where the insurer files late, the appointment takes effect only when it files, and is not backdated to the contract.
Apply within 12 months of passing. MCA 33-17-211(1)(d) requires that the applicant "has successfully passed the examinations for each kind of insurance for which the individual has applied within 12 months of application." The handbook and NIPR both restate it. Neither CSI nor NIPR publishes a processing time, so do not plan around one.
There is also a route that skips the exam entirely, and it is broader than most people expect. MCA 33-17-216 lets the commissioner issue a temporary license without an examination, qualified only as to age, residence and trustworthiness, on five grounds: the death of a licensed producer, to a surviving spouse, next of kin, administrator or executor or their employee; the disability of a producer by injury or physical or mental illness, to a spouse, next of kin, employee or legal guardian; the death or disability of the individual designated in a partnership or corporate license, to an employee or officer; to the designee of a producer entering active service in the United States armed forces; and in any other circumstance where the commissioner finds the public interest best served.
A temporary license runs not more than 90 days, extendable at the commissioner's discretion for up to 90 more, and it costs nothing. One limb runs far longer: a temporary license issued on a producer's death may continue until the executor or administrator disposes of the insurance business, not to exceed 15 months - though a next-of-kin temporary license may not be extended once an administrator or executor is appointed and qualified. Temporary licensees are the one category expressly exempt from continuing education under MCA 33-17-1203(3)(a).
Montana Life License Fees
Two payments, to two organisations, neither of which is the State of Montana.
The $65 goes to Pearson VUE when you reserve, by credit card, debit card or voucher; the handbook says fees are not accepted at the test center and are non-refundable and non-transferable. The $30 goes to Montana Criminal Records with your fingerprint card. Everything the state itself could charge you - the application, the appointment, the renewal - is zero.
Do not let the 48-hour rule turn $65 into $130. You must call at least 48 hours before your appointment to change or cancel it. With that notice you may transfer the fee to a new reservation or request a refund; without it you forfeit the fee outright.
Montana Life License Eligibility
The general qualifications are at MCA 33-17-211(1): at least 18 years old; has not committed an act that is a ground for refusal, suspension or revocation under 33-17-1001; has paid the fees stated in 33-2-708; has passed the examinations within 12 months of application; is a resident of Montana or of another state granting reciprocal privileges; is competent, trustworthy and of good reputation; and has enough experience or training to be "reasonably familiar with the provisions of this code that govern the applicant's operations as an insurance producer."
Then comes the qualification that belongs to this line and to no other. MCA 33-17-211(1)(h) applies only to an applicant "applying for a license as to life or disability insurance," and it is drafted in the negative - the commissioner must be satisfied the applicant is not something. Three limbs: (i) is not a funeral director, undertaker or mortician operating in this or any other state; (ii) is not an officer, employee or representative of one; (iii) does not hold an interest in or benefit from such a business.
This is not a formality and it is not a conflict-of-interest disclosure. It bars the licence itself, and the exception is written into the same paragraph - (1)(h) opens "if applying for a license as to life or disability insurance, except as permitted by 33-20-1501(1)(c)(ii)," so the way through is part of the bar rather than a separate discovery elsewhere. It reaches beyond the funeral director personally to anyone employed by, representing, or financially benefiting from a funeral business anywhere in the country. The companion prohibition runs at the carrier: MCA 33-18-301 forbids a life insurer to own or operate a mortuary, to contract that a named funeral director "shall conduct the funeral," or to sell life insurance through a funeral director or mortuary employee - and subsection (6) makes a violation a misdemeanor punishable by a fine up to $1,000, up to six months' imprisonment, or both.
There is one narrow way through, and it is worth knowing precisely because a partial answer sounds right. MCA 33-20-1501(1)(c) splits funeral insurance in two. Funeral insurance written inside a life insurance policy under (c)(i) "may not be sold by or through a person licensed under Title 37, chapter 19" - the funeral licensing title - "regardless of whether" that person also holds an insurance producer's license. Funeral insurance sold as a limited policy or certificate with a guaranteed death benefit under (c)(ii) may be sold by a licensed insurance producer, or by "a person licensed under Title 37, chapter 19, parts 3 and 4," who also holds a Montana life producer licence. Note the asymmetry the drafter built in: the prohibition at (c)(i) reaches all of chapter 19, while the permission at (c)(ii)(B) is confined to two of its parts. 33-20-1501(1)(d) caps the initial policy or certificate limit under (c)(ii) at $25,000. ARM 6.6.1006 adds a specialized funeral insurance producer license, which terminates automatically if the Board of Funeral Service suspends or revokes the underlying funeral license.
One more eligibility rule that catches people later rather than at application: under MCA 33-17-211(1)(e), a license "issued based upon Montana state residency" terminates if the licensee relocates to another state. Moving is a licensing event in Montana, not an address change.
Montana Life Producer Continuing Education
Important CE details: CSI lists a training obligation that most Montana producers never meet and that a seasoned life producer may already be inside without realising it. MCA 33-20-1303(2)(b) provides that a resident or nonresident insurance producer "must be considered to meet the licensing requirements of a viatical settlement broker and must be permitted to operate as a viatical settlement broker" if licensed with a life line of authority here or in the home state "and has been licensed for at least 1 year." So a Montana life producer of a year or more does not sit outside that credential - they qualify into it, and what they file is a notification rather than a licence application. MCA 33-2-708(1)(b)(viii) prices exactly that step: an original NOTIFICATION fee of $50 for a life producer acting as a viatical settlement broker. What comes with it is continuing education under MCA 33-20-1303(5), whose hours must be in life insurance, viaticals or ethics, on a 24-month period aligned to the licence renewal cycle - and failing it without an approved extension terminates the authority.
The core requirement is MCA 33-17-1203(1)(a): 24 credit hours in each 24-month period, including at least 3 hours of ethics and at least 1 credit hour on changes in Montana insurance statutes and administrative rules. The Life & Health guide owns that arithmetic and the penalty structure. What belongs here is the one continuing-education obligation that is specific to what a Life producer actually sells.
Montana's annuity training gate is triggered by conduct, not by your license. CSI lists it under MCA 33-20-807, and the operative words are "producers selling annuities" - not producers holding a Life line. That distinction has a practical consequence: you can be licensed for Life for years, selling nothing but term insurance, and owe nothing. The obligation arrives the day you sell your first annuity contract.
The course is a one-time requirement of at least 4 credits. MCA 33-20-807(2)(b) puts it this way: "the minimum length of the training required under this subsection (2) must be sufficient to qualify for at least four continuing education credits, but may be longer." ARM 6.6.812(1) has CSI approve it "using the process for review and approval of continuing education courses set forth at 33-17-1201 et seq., MCA," and 6.6.812(2) incorporates the general CE rules by reference. So it is approved as a CE course - which is not the same as saying its hours discharge part of the 24.
Montana adopted the NAIC 2020 best interest standard at MCA 33-20-801 et seq., effective 1 October 2021, so the training sits on top of a duty-of-care regime rather than a bare suitability one. The Long-Term Care gate, which is structured very differently - 8 hours initially and 4 hours every 24 months, and placed in a statute rather than a rule - is covered on the Health guide.
One thing Montana does not offer, and it affects planning more than most producers expect: there is no carry-forward of surplus hours. Nothing in MCA 33-17-1203, MCA 33-17-1205 or ARM subchapter 6.6.42 lets you bank extra credits for the next cycle, and ARM 6.6.4206 goes the other way - no credit for a course repeated within the same biennial cycle. What Montana provides instead is a good-cause extension of up to 1 year under 33-17-1203(2). The Casualty guide covers how that works.
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