Property and Casualty Authority in Montana
Montana does not sell a combined Property & Casualty producer licence in the way most states do, because it does not examine for one. The candidate handbook's AVAILABLE EXAMINATIONS table has no combined P&C producer row, and MCA 33-17-212(5) treats property insurance at (c) and casualty insurance at (d) as two of nine separate classifications. So the route is two full examinations - Property, then Casualty - producing one licence with two lines of authority under MCA 33-17-214(2).
The Property and Casualty Consultant exam in the handbook's table is not the shortcut it appears to be. It is a 100-question, two-hour paper for a consultant licence under MCA 33-17-505, a different licence class that costs $50 to apply for and $100 to renew biennially under MCA 33-2-708 - where the resident producer pays nothing at either point. Read the LICENSE TYPE column.
And there is a third line here that Montana offers but does not appear to examine. MCA 33-17-214(2)(f) lists, among the lines a producer may hold, "personal lines of property and casualty insurance coverage sold to individuals and families for primarily noncommercial purposes." But the nine examination classifications at MCA 33-17-212(5) do not include personal lines, and Pearson VUE's Montana exam table has no personal lines row. Neither CSI's licensing page nor either of its steps pages mentions personal lines at all, and a search of Title 33 chapter 17 turns up the phrase only in 33-17-214.
We are not going to guess at how that gap is bridged. The plausible mechanisms - that the line is granted on reciprocity to a nonresident who holds it elsewhere, or that it follows from holding both Property and Casualty - are inferences, and no Montana source states either. If you need the personal lines line specifically, email producerlicensing@mt.gov and get the answer in writing.
The Two Examinations, Side by Side
| Examination | Part 1 scored | Part 2 scored | Pretest | Total time | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Property | 50 | 32 | 10 | 2 hours | $65 |
| Casualty | 50 | 37 | 10 | 2 hr 15 min | $65 |
| Both | 100 | 69 | 20 | 4 hr 15 min | $130 |
189 items across 255 minutes counting pretest questions. The Casualty paper carries the longer Montana portion - 37 scored questions against Property's 32 - and gets an extra fifteen minutes for it.
Each paper passes at a scaled 75 in its own right. There is no aggregate, no averaging across the two, and no partial credit: passing Property does nothing for a failed Casualty. The handbook says the standard was set for "each examination" after a comprehensive study.
Each pass carries its own twelve-month clock. MCA 33-17-211(1)(d) requires the applicant to have passed "the examinations for each kind of insurance for which the individual has applied within 12 months of application." If you sit Property in January and take a year off before Casualty, the Property pass may have expired by the time you apply for both.
The question counts come from content outlines #122703 (cover 03/2026); the seat times, fee and rules come from handbook #122700 (cover June 2025). The Property guide covers scheduling and test-center logistics; the Casualty guide covers the background check.
Most Tested Topics Across Both Montana P&C Papers
The material below is what a P&C producer is examined on beyond the coverage-specific rules the single-line guides carry: what happens when a carrier fails, who regulates you, what it costs to get it wrong, and what a policyholder can and cannot sue over.
| Concept | The Montana rule | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| P&C guaranty per-claim cap, and its operator | An amount "not exceeding" $300,000 - a ceiling, not a band, and never more than the insolvent insurer's own obligation | MCA 33-10-105(1)(a)(ii), (iii) |
| P&C guaranty, unearned premium | Not exceeding $10,000 for each policy - the unit is the policy, not the claimant | MCA 33-10-105(1)(a)(ii)(A) |
| P&C guaranty and workers' compensation | Paid in full. Workers' compensation and excess workers' compensation covered claims are uncapped | MCA 33-10-105(1)(a)(ii)(B) |
| High-net-worth exclusion on the P&C side | There is none - a genuine divergence from the NAIC model and from most states | MCA 33-10-101; 33-10-102(2); 33-10-105 |
| What makes a claim a covered claim | The insurer must become insolvent after 1 July 1971 - the date attaches to the insolvency, not to when the policy was issued | MCA 33-10-102(2)(a) |
| What the P&C association does not reach | Life, title, surety, disability, credit, mortgage guaranty and ocean marine - seven excluded kinds | MCA 33-10-101(3) |
| Who the insurance regulator is | The elected State Auditor, ex officio: "the state auditor shall be ex officio the commissioner of insurance of this state" | MCA 2-15-1903; Mont. Const. Art. VI, Sec. 1(1) |
| Maximum penalty on a producer | $5,000 per violation - a different ceiling from the $25,000 that applies to everyone else | MCA 33-1-317 |
| Unfair claim settlement practices, and who it reaches | Fifteen paragraphs, one frequency test in the flush lead-in, and the actor is "a person" - so it reaches producers | MCA 33-18-201 |
| Suing an insurer for bad faith | The common-law tort is abolished; a narrow statutory action replaces it on six of the fifteen paragraphs, without the frequency element | MCA 33-18-242 |
| Premiums a producer holds | A separate trust account, in a fiduciary capacity; commingling allowed except for title producers | MCA 33-17-1102(1) |
| Who files an appointment, and when | The insurer, within 15 days of executing the agency contract; perpetual until cancelled; a late filing does not backdate | MCA 33-17-236(2), (4)(c), (5) |
| Montana's twisting definition | The verb list includes "retain" - inducing a policyholder to KEEP a policy by incomplete comparison is twisting here | MCA 33-18-204 |
| Producer record retention | At least 3 years after completion of the transaction, against 5 years imposed on insurers for replacement records | MCA 33-17-1101(4) |
The penalty row is the one most often answered with the wrong number, because the wrong number is in the same sentence as the right one. MCA 33-1-317 authorises "a fine not to exceed the sum of $25,000 upon a person found to have violated a provision of this code or regulation promulgated by the commissioner, except that the fine imposed upon insurance producers or adjusters may not exceed $5,000 per violation." Stop reading at the first figure and you answer a producer question with everyone else's ceiling. There are two more in different places: MCA 33-1-318(3) adds $5,000 per violation in the injunction and cease-and-desist track, additional to other penalties; and MCA 33-18-1005(1) makes violating a cease-and-desist order under 33-18-1004 worth $1,000 per day, each day a separate violation, "may not exceed a $10,000 aggregate." Four ceilings, three sections, and acting without a licence has none of its own - MCA 33-17-1004 stacks the general sections on top of two others, opening "in addition to the requirements and penalties described in 33-17-201 and 33-17-411."
The bad-faith row is Montana's sharpest divergence from what a national course teaches, and the mechanism matters as much as the outcome. In most states bad faith is a judicial tort. Montana abolished it by statute. MCA 33-18-242 says an insured "may not bring an action for bad faith in connection with the handling of an insurance claim," and applies the same bar to third-party claimants, leaving breach of contract, fraud and this section. What the section gives back is narrow and specific: an insured or a third-party claimant may sue, but only for violations of 33-18-201(1), (4), (5), (6), (9) or (13) - six of the fifteen - and "a plaintiff is not required to prove that the violations were of such frequency as to indicate a general business practice." So the private action drops the very element the regulatory section requires. The insurer has a complete defence where it "had a reasonable basis in law or in fact for contesting the claim or the amount of the claim." Limitations are 2 years from the violation for an insured and 1 year from settlement or judgment for a third-party claimant. The section was amended twice in the 2023 session.
And the guaranty association's silence is as testable as its numbers. A high-net-worth insured exclusion is a standard feature of the NAIC property and casualty guaranty model; Montana's act has none. The scope section 33-10-101, the covered-claim definition at 33-10-102(2) and the cap provision at 33-10-105 were each read to the end and none contains a net-worth exclusion. What 33-10-102(2)(b) does exclude is punitive and exemplary damages, returns of premium under retrospective rating plans, and amounts due reinsurers or insurance pools as subrogation or reinsurance recoveries. Read the covered-claim definition carefully for one more reason: the 1 July 1971 date attaches to the insolvency, so a policy written in 1965 is covered if its carrier fails today.
Nonresident Licensing, Waivers and Reciprocity in Montana
Montana waives its examination in six situations, and they are set out as a closed list. MCA 33-17-212(6) says an examination is not required of: an individual lawfully licensed as an insurance producer for the kinds of insurance to be transacted as of or immediately prior to 1 January 1961 who continues to be licensed; an applicant for a licence covering the same kinds of insurance for which the applicant was licensed in Montana, other than under a temporary licence, within the 12 months immediately preceding the application, unless the commissioner suspended, revoked or terminated that licence; an applicant for a nonresident producer licence; a limited lines travel insurance producer and those registered under that licence; an association applying under 33-17-211; and a casualty producer, for a separate prepaid legal examination, if selling prepaid legal insurance as of 26 April 2013 and maintaining a casualty licence in good standing.
No professional designation appears anywhere on that list. CLU, CPCU, ChFC, CIC, FLMI, LUTCF - none of them waives a Montana examination, and this is a closed-list finding rather than a failure to find one: 33-17-212(6) is an exhaustive "an examination is not required of" enumeration read to its end. A string search of the handbook for "exempt," "waiver," "waived," "designation," "CLU" and "CPCU" likewise returns no designation provision.
There is no coursework-exemption list either, and the reason is structural. In states that require pre-licensing education, the coursework exemptions and the examination waivers are two different lists doing two different jobs, and they are often entirely disjoint. Montana requires no pre-licensing education at all, so there is no coursework requirement to be exempted from. Do not let a course provider's national comparison chart turn the six examination exemptions into a coursework list.
The handbook contains no exemptions section at all, which is itself worth knowing. Its table of contents runs Overview, Introduction, Montana Insurance Licensing Information, Exam Reservations, Exam Day, How to Prepare for the Exam, Content Outlines. There is no exemptions or waivers heading anywhere in it. Its entire treatment of the subject is one deferral: "If you feel that you are exempt from testing, please email producerlicensing@mt.gov to confirm." Pearson VUE passes the whole question to CSI - so a candidate relying on the handbook alone would never learn the six statutory exemptions exist.
Coming in as a nonresident. The exemption at 33-17-212(6)(c) removes the examination, and 33-17-212(7)(a) goes further: an individual applying for a nonresident producer licence "who was previously licensed for the same lines of authority in another state may not be required to complete any prelicensing education or examination." CSI's nonresident steps page sets the application fee at $100, corroborated by MCA 33-2-708(1)(b)(i) - which also prices the biennial renewal at $50 and a lapsed-licence reinstatement at $100, so a nonresident pays at every stage where a resident pays nothing. It requires an active home-state licence in good standing, routes the application through NIPR, and notes that "paper applications are generally not accepted." On fingerprints its language hedges: fingerprinting is "typically not required" for nonresident applicants who were previously fingerprinted - "typically" is CSI's word.
The 90-day rule is not what its name suggests, and this is worth getting right. MCA 33-17-212(7)(b) is not a relocation provision. It is a condition on the nonresident exemption: the exemption is available only if the individual is currently licensed in the other state, or the application is received within 90 days of the cancellation of the previous licence, with a certification of good standing or NAIC database records showing good standing for the lines requested. It governs how stale a lapsed out-of-state licence may be, not how long someone has after moving.
Moving out of Montana ends a Montana resident licence outright. MCA 33-17-211(1)(e): "Licenses issued based upon Montana state residency terminate if the licensee relocates to another state." Terminate - not lapse, not suspend. There is no grace period in the statute.
Moving into Montana is the direction nobody publishes. MCA 33-17-211, 33-17-212, 33-17-214 and 33-17-216 were each read to the end and none addresses inbound relocation; neither CSI steps page covers it; and no CSI insurance licensing FAQ page could be located. The likely practical route is the 12-month same-line exemption at 33-17-212(6)(b) combined with a resident application - but that is an inference and it is flagged here as one, not offered as the answer. Email producerlicensing@mt.gov before you rely on it.
How a Montana Producer License Stays Alive
Start with what Montana does not say. No Montana statute states a producer licence term. MCA 33-17-214(5) is the operative sentence and it is one line long: "Each license remains in effect unless it is suspended, revoked, or terminated or the license lapses." 33-17-214(3) requires the licence itself to state "general conditions relative to expiration or termination," which pushes the answer onto the document rather than into the code. CSI supplies the most specific published guidance there is: "Your renewal date can be found in the upper right-hand corner of your license."
The biennial rhythm is real, but it comes from continuing education and fees rather than from a term. MCA 33-17-1203(1)(a) sets a 24-month CE period. MCA 33-17-1205(1) requires each individual to "file biennially in a format supplied by the commissioner certification as to the approved courses, lectures, seminars, and instructional programs successfully completed by that individual during the preceding biennium." And MCA 33-2-708 uses "biennial renewal" for the classes that pay a fee - nonresident producers, surplus lines producers, adjusters, consultants, viatical brokers and navigators. Resident producers pay none of those.
What actually ends a licence is a missed CE filing, and Montana says so in the bluntest terms it uses anywhere. MCA 33-17-1205(2): "If an individual fails to comply with this section, the individual's license lapses. An individual with a lapsed license may not conduct insurance business under another person's license, including a business entity license affiliation." That second sentence exists to close the obvious workaround of operating under an agency's licence while your own is dead. This is the only statutory lapse trigger Montana publishes.
CSI's practical warning sits 30 days earlier than the deadline. Its licensing page says: "If you do not complete your CE 30 days in advance of your license expiration, your license may lapse." That is not conservatism - it reflects the reporting lag. Course completions are reported to CSI by the provider, not by you, and CSI says it may take up to 30 days for a provider to report one. So the real deadline is a month before the date on your licence.
Renewing is still a transaction, even though it is free. CSI's licensing page says "Renew your producer, adjuster or consultant license online at NIPR," and points to NIPR for renewal fees, periods and rules. A Montana resident producer renewal carries no state fee, but it is not an automatic rollover that happens because your CE is in order - there is a filing to make.
There IS a window, and it is not where you would look for it. No statute states one and CSI's licensing page does not either - but CSI's nonresident steps page carries the rule in two sentences: "Licenses must be renewed biennially, with a renewal period starting 90 days before expiration," and "Late renewals are possible up to one year after expiration, but inactive licenses cannot be renewed and require reapplication." So the shape is a 90-day renewal window before expiry, a one-year late-renewal tail after it, and reapplication from scratch once a licence has gone inactive. CSI publishes this on the nonresident page and does not restate it on the resident one, so a resident producer would have to find it by accident. Ask CSI to confirm it applies to a resident licence before relying on it.
Appointments are the one piece of licence maintenance that is not your job. 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 of appointment with the commissioner. (5): "An appointment is perpetual until canceled by the insurer" - nothing annual to renew. (4)(a) makes an appointment effective on the earlier of the contract execution date or the filing date, but (4)(c) is the trap: where the notice is filed late, the appointment is effective only when the insurer files it, with no backdating. And there is no appointment fee at all - the handbook prints "Appointment of producer, each insurer ... no fee" for residents and nonresidents alike.
One licence condition that has nothing to do with time. Under 33-17-211(1)(e) a licence issued on Montana residency terminates if you relocate to another state. That is not a lapse to be cured with a reinstatement fee; it is a termination, and the way back is the nonresident route covered above.
Montana Property and Casualty License Fees
$130 in examination fees, because Montana has no combined P&C paper and each of the two examinations costs $65. $30 for the fingerprint check, once, if both lines go on one application. $0 to the state at every stage - no pre-licensing course, no application fee, no appointment fee, no renewal fee.
Apply for the two lines separately and the background check comes round again: CSI's fingerprint instructions expressly reach an applicant "adding a line of authority to an existing license." Applying for Property and Casualty together avoids a second card and a second $30.
If you are going on to surplus lines, that is a separate licence with real fees. MCA 33-2-708(1)(b)(iii) prices the surplus lines producer's original licence at $50, its biennial renewal at $100, and its lapsed-licence reinstatement at $200 - the largest reinstatement figure in the schedule. The Property guide covers the diligent-effort standard and the surplus lines tax.
Montana Property and Casualty License Eligibility
MCA 33-17-211(1) carries the general qualifications, and none of the life-and-disability-specific bars applies here - a funeral director may hold Property and Casualty. What does apply, and what a P&C producer is most likely to be examined on, is the body of conduct rules that attaches once the licence exists.
Premiums are held in trust, in a fiduciary capacity. MCA 33-17-1102(1): "All insurance premiums or return premiums received by an insurance producer must be held in a separate trust account," and the producer "shall act in a fiduciary capacity and shall, in the applicable regular course of business, account for and pay the insurance premiums or return premiums the insurance producer receives to the insured, insurer, or insurance producer entitled to them." Commingling is permitted - except for title insurance producers - provided "the amount of the deposit held for each respective person is reasonably ascertainable from the records and accounts of the licensee." (2) forbids diverting or appropriating funds you are not lawfully entitled to.
Two prohibitions sit in a part whose caption points the wrong way. MCA Chapter 18 Part 3 is captioned "Insurers -- Noninsurance-Related Prohibitions," which reads as though producers are out of scope. They are not. MCA 33-18-302 (defamation) opens "No person shall make, publish, disseminate, or circulate, directly or indirectly, or aid, abet, or encourage the making, publishing, disseminating, or circulating of any oral or written statement..." and MCA 33-18-303 (boycott, coercion and intimidation) opens "No person shall enter into any agreement to commit or by any concerted action commit any act of boycott, coercion, or intimidation resulting in or tending to result in unreasonable restraint of or monopoly in the business of insurance." Both bind "no person." Cite the section text, never the part caption.
Twisting reaches one verb most states' definitions do not. MCA 33-18-204 forbids any statement "misrepresenting or making incomplete comparisons" as to policy terms, conditions or benefits "for the purpose of inducing or attempting or tending to induce the policyholder to lapse, forfeit, surrender, retain, exchange, or convert any insurance policy." Inducing someone to keep a policy by an incomplete comparison is twisting in Montana. The section has not been amended since 1959.
Rebating is broader than a discount. MCA 33-18-208 binds "a person" and forbids, on life, disability and annuity contracts, any rebate of premiums or special favour in dividends, any "valuable consideration or inducement whatever not specified in the contract," any agreement promising returns, profits, stocks, bonds or securities as an inducement, and "anything of value whatsoever not specified in the contract." It was amended in the 2025 session. Property, casualty, title and surety have their own parallel section at 33-18-210, which is also where Montana's underwriting-age limits live.
Records are kept for three years, and the licence is displayed. MCA 33-17-1101 requires a resident producer to maintain a Montana place of business accessible to the public, a home office being expressly permitted; to display the licence conspicuously where the public is customarily admitted; to give name and licence number on request to anyone they sell, solicit or negotiate with; and to keep complete records of transactions under the licence for at least 3 years after completion. Amended in the 2023 session.
And one thing Montana does not restrict. There is no controlled-business limitation - no percentage cap on business written on the licensee's own, a family member's or an employer's risks. Neither the fourteen disciplinary grounds at 33-17-1001(1) nor the qualifications at 33-17-211(1) contains one, and Chapter 17 Part 11 has only the three sections above and a commission-sharing rule.
Montana Property and Casualty Continuing Education
Important CE details: Not every Montana licensee is on the 24-hour track, and the exception is instructive about what CSI actually cares about. MCA 33-17-1203(1)(b) puts limited lines credit producers, prepaid legal producers and surety bail bond producers on 5 credit hours per biennium, with ethics drawn from the remaining hours rather than fixed at 3 - but it keeps, unchanged, the same mandatory 1 credit hour on changes in Montana insurance statutes and administrative rules. A licensee whose entire obligation is five hours still spends one of them on what the legislature and CSI changed. Note the arithmetic does not follow the person: a property and casualty producer who also holds a limited line owes the 24, not the 5.
The requirement is MCA 33-17-1203(1)(a): 24 credit hours per 24-month period, at least 3 of ethics, at least 1 on changes in Montana insurance statutes and administrative rules. The Life & Health guide covers that arithmetic and the Montana-law hour; the Casualty guide covers the absence of any carry-forward and the good-cause extension. This page owns the part that is specific to how a Montana licence lives and dies.
In Montana, continuing education is not a condition of renewal - it is the thing that keeps the licence in existence. That distinction sounds academic and is not. In a state with a licence term, missing CE means failing to renew on a known date. Montana states no term in its statutes, but CSI does publish an expiration date on the licence itself and a 90-day renewal window before it - so there is a date to miss. What MCA 33-17-1205(2) adds is a second, independent way to lose the licence: fail to file the biennial certification and "the individual's license lapses," whatever the date on the card says.
The filing is a certification, not a transcript you assemble. 33-17-1205(1) requires each individual subject to 33-17-1203 to file biennially, "in a format supplied by the commissioner," certification as to the approved courses, lectures, seminars and instructional programs successfully completed during the preceding biennium. Separately, providers report completions directly to CSI - so the underlying records reach CSI without you, while the certification is yours to make.
A lapsed producer cannot shelter under an agency. The second sentence of 33-17-1205(2) is unusually specific: a lapsed licensee "may not conduct insurance business under another person's license, including a business entity license affiliation." A producer whose personal CE has slipped is not covered by the agency's licence, and the agency is exposed too - under MCA 33-17-1001(2) a business entity's licence may be suspended, revoked, refused or denied if a disciplinary ground applies to an individual designated in it.
Coming back from a lapse is thinly documented and the documentation sits on the wrong page. No statute and no ARM rule states a reinstatement window; CSI's nonresident steps page states one - late renewal is possible up to one year after expiration, after which an inactive licence requires reapplication - and CSI's resident page does not repeat it. The two published fee figures also disagree: $100 in MCA 33-2-708(1)(b)(ii) against $0 on NIPR. So the practical advice for a P&C producer is to treat CSI's 30-day CE warning as the real deadline, keep the certification filing on its own calendar, and confirm the late-renewal window in writing rather than assuming the nonresident page speaks for the resident licence.
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