The Nebraska Personal Lines Producer License
Personal Lines is a real line of authority in Nebraska with its own examination - series 13-21, "Nebraska Producer's Examination for Personal Lines Insurance," 100 scored questions in two hours for $43. It covers noncommercial property and casualty risks: the homeowner, the private passenger auto, the personal umbrella.
It is priced identically to the broader single lines, which makes the choice unusually clean. Property alone is $43. Casualty alone is $43. Personal Lines is $43. The combined Property and Casualty paper is $47 for 150 questions. So Nebraska charges essentially the same for a narrow authority as for a broad one, and the decision is about what you intend to write rather than about cost.
One thing Personal Lines is not is a partial credit toward the broader lines. Nebraska publishes no provision under which holding Personal Lines confers Property or Casualty, or under which holding Property and Casualty confers Personal Lines. They are separate entries on the licence.
This guide owns score reporting and retakes for every Nebraska line, and carries the auto cancellation schemes and claim-handling clocks that a personal lines producer works with daily.
How the Nebraska Personal Lines Exam Is Built
| Scored | Unscored | Time | Fee | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal Lines, series 13-21 | 100 | 5 | 2 hours | $43 |
| Property & Casualty, series 13-04 | 150 | 5 | 2 hr 30 min | $47 |
105 items in 120 minutes - about 69 seconds each. Passing is 70%, and Nebraska prints it as a raw count rather than scaling it: "100 Items (70%) or 70 correct."
The bulletin publishes the scored count and the cut score; the time limit comes from the content outline for series 13-21, which the bulletin does not carry at all. The Property guide covers booking and test centres; the Life guide covers the three different unscored-item figures PSI publishes.
Attempts are unlimited - "Nebraska Insurance examinations are open eligibility. You may test unlimited until you pass."
Most Tested Topics on the Nebraska Personal Lines Exam
A personal lines producer in Nebraska works inside two cancellation schemes, a set of claim clocks measured in an unusual unit, and a credit-information regime. Most of the exam value is in knowing which rule governs which policy.
| Concept | The Nebraska rule | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Which auto policies fall in the personal scheme | A policy insuring "a natural person as named insured or one or more related individuals resident of the same household," covering private passenger or station wagon types, or a four-wheel pickup, panel or delivery vehicle not used in the insured's business | 44-514(1) |
| Grounds to cancel after 60 days | Three heads: nonpayment; fraud or material misrepresentation, or violation of the policy's terms or conditions; and driving-record grounds reaching the named insured or any household or customary operator | 44-515(1)(a)-(c) |
| The look-back buried in the grounds | It belongs to romanette (iv) alone - a licence subject to revocation or suspension under 60-4,182 to 60-4,186 by reason of the DMV-disclosed driving record - and only where that record falls in the policy period or, on a renewal, in that period or the 180 days immediately preceding its effective date | 44-515(1)(c)(iv) |
| The new-business window | 44-515 does not apply to a policy in effect less than 60 days when notice is mailed - unless it is a renewal policy | 44-515(2) |
| Auto cancellation notice | 30 days, except nonpayment, which needs at least 10 days accompanied by the reason | 44-516(1) |
| Getting the reason for a cancellation | The insured demands it not less than 25 days before the effective date; the insurer must supply it within 5 days of the request | 44-516(2) |
| Auto NONRENEWAL notice | Only 20 days - and 44-515's grounds restriction expressly does not apply to nonrenewal, so no listed ground is needed | 44-517(1); 44-515(3) |
| Renewal does not waive earlier grounds | Renewing a policy is not a waiver or estoppel as to grounds for cancellation existing before the renewal took effect | 44-517(3) |
| The other auto scheme | Most policies outside 44-514's definition, commercial auto included, fall to 44-523: 30 days at (1)(a) for reasons other than nonpayment, 10 days at (1)(b) for a premium-finance-company cancellation - and a cancellation violating the section is VOID | 44-523(1)(a), (1)(b), (4) |
| Property cancellation and nonrenewal | 60 days for both, with the reason, under a single statute covering personal and commercial alike | 44-522(2) |
| What "days" means in a claim rule | WORKING days, by express definition in both claim-practice rules | 210 NAC 60 s. 003.05; Ch. 61 s. 003.05 |
| The claim clocks | 15 working days to acknowledge a claim, to reply to the Director, to reply to the claimant, to supply forms, to begin investigating, and to affirm or deny after proofs of loss | 210 NAC 60 ss. 006-008 |
The two-scheme split is the highest-value thing on this page, and the trap is in the definition rather than in the numbers. Nebraska's personal auto cancellation rules live at 44-514 to 44-521, and 44-514(1) defines which policies they reach. It does not say "personal automobile," and it does not say "private passenger" alone. It says a policy "insuring a natural person as named insured or one or more related individuals resident of the same household," where the insured vehicles are of two types only: a private passenger or station wagon type not used as a public or livery conveyance nor rented to others, or any other four-wheel vehicle of the pickup, panel or delivery type not used in the insured's occupation, profession or business. Four express exclusions follow, including assigned-risk plan policies and policies issued principally to cover personal or premises liability with incidental auto coverage. Everything the definition does not reach falls to 44-523 - though not everything does: 44-523(3) excludes an assigned-risk plan policy and a personal or premises liability policy carrying incidental auto coverage from that scheme too, and 44-514(1) excludes them from the personal one, so those sit outside both.
And the two schemes then behave differently in a way that is easy to state and easy to test. Under the personal scheme: cancellation is 30 days, or 10 for nonpayment with the reason attached, and nonrenewal is only 20 days. Under 44-523: cancellation is 30 days at (1)(a), but that subdivision governs only notices "given for reasons other than for nonpayment of premium." The nonpayment case is not simply missing - (1)(b) carries its own ten days for a cancellation initiated by a premium finance company, and (1)(a) opens "Except as provided in subdivision (1)(b)." What 44-523 contains nowhere is a nonrenewal rule. It does contain something the personal scheme lacks: 44-523(4), which makes "any attempted cancellation in violation of the provisions of this section ... void."
The claim-handling unit is the other reliable source of marks, and Nebraska is explicit in both directions. Both 210 NAC Chapter 60 (property and casualty) and Chapter 61 (life, sickness and accident) carry a definitions section reading, in terms, that "days" means working days. So every fifteen-day claim clock in those rules is fifteen working days. The Legislature agrees where it wants the same result - 44-1540(14) writes "fifteen working days" into the statute - and says "calendar" out loud where it wants that instead, as the prompt-pay statute does with "thirty calendar days." A candidate who assumes calendar days unless told otherwise will get the claim rules wrong and the prompt-pay rules right, which is the worst of both.
Nebraska Exam Results, Diagnostics and Retakes
You learn the outcome before you leave the building. The bulletin: "your score will be displayed on screen at the end of the examination and a score report will be emailed to you." There is no waiting period and no separate results portal.
The number means what it appears to mean. Nebraska's 70% is a raw cut score, not a scaled one, and PSI prints it twice over in the exam table - as a percentage and as an absolute count. "100 Items (70%) or 70 correct" for a single-line paper; "150 Items (70%) or 105 correct" for a combined one. Nothing in the document describes scaling, and no sentence warns that the reported figure is neither a count nor a percentage. So ordinary arithmetic applies: on the Personal Lines paper you need 70 of the 100 scored questions, and the 5 unscored items cannot help or hurt you.
The diagnostic report comes only with a failure. "If you fail, the emailed score report will include the diagnostic report indicating your strengths and weaknesses by examination type." A passing candidate gets a score and nothing to study from - which is worth knowing if you are sitting one paper to gauge your readiness for another.
There is no substantive appeal, and the bulletin is explicit that the comment route is all there is. Candidates may enter comments through the Comments link on the test question screen; PSI does not respond individually; and "this is the only review of the examination available to candidates."
Attempts are unlimited, and Nebraska states it affirmatively rather than leaving it to silence: "Nebraska Insurance examinations are open eligibility. You may test unlimited until you pass." That is a published permission, not an absence of a rule - which is a meaningful difference when you are relying on it.
The one restriction is same-day rebooking, and the bulletin gives a worked example: "it is not possible to make a new examination appointment on the same day you have taken an examination ... a candidate who tests unsuccessfully on a Wednesday can call the next day, Thursday, and retest as soon as Friday." So the practical minimum turnaround is two days, not zero. Note also that the Department's own checklist says there is no waiting period between attempts at all - the bulletin's same-day bar is the operational rule, and the two documents are describing the same thing at different levels of detail.
A pass is good for one year, and so is the money. You must apply for the licence within one year of passing, and the bulletin puts the fee on the same clock: the examination fee "is valid for one year from the date of payment." NIPR and the Department both state the twelve-month exam validity independently, so three sources agree.
And a retake is a fresh $43. Fees are paid at reservation, and nothing in the bulletin offers a reduced retake price. Combined with unlimited attempts, that makes the cost of persistence linear and predictable - which is the trade Nebraska has made against states that cap attempts.
Nebraska Personal Lines License Fees
$43 for the examination and $50 for the licence - identical to Property, to Casualty, and to Life.
Because Nebraska prices a narrow authority the same as a broad one, the only financial argument between Personal Lines and the combined Property and Casualty paper is the $4 difference. The real trade is fifty extra scored questions of study against a materially wider authority.
A retake is a full $43 with no reduced rate, and the fee is forfeited outright in the four circumstances the Results section sets out.
Nebraska Personal Lines License Eligibility
44-4053 governs: eighteen or older, no act that is a ground for discipline under 44-4059, fees paid, and the examinations passed for the lines applied for. The Life guide covers the fourteen grounds; the Health guide covers Nebraska's self-disclosure regime.
One restriction shapes personal lines underwriting more than any licensing rule does, and it is worth knowing as a producer rather than as a candidate. Nebraska permits insurance credit scoring in personal lines but restricts it: an insurer may not use income, gender, address or ZIP code, ethnicity, religion, marital status or nationality in a credit model, and may not deny, cancel or nonrenew personal insurance on credit information alone.
Nebraska sets no claims-count nonrenewal bar of the kind some states impose - no rule saying two weather claims in three years cannot be used. What limits the insurer instead is the structure of the cancellation statutes themselves: on the auto side the grounds at 44-515 are a closed list of three heads, and the driving-record ground is time-bounded by the 180-day look-back at (1)(c)(iv). On the property side, the seven grounds at 44-522(3) bite only after sixty days, and every notice must state its reason.
And a personal lines producer sits inside the claim-handling rules, not outside them. Both 210 NAC Chapter 60 and Chapter 61 run on "every insurer," and both governing acts define insurer to include agents, brokers, insurance consultants, adjusters and third-party administrators. So the fifteen-working-day clocks reach a producer acting in a claims role - taking a first notice of loss, fielding a claimant's calls - and not only the carrier behind them.
Nebraska Personal Lines Continuing Education
Important CE details: Nebraska asks for continuing education from exactly the people it asked for an examination, and the two lists were built to match. Four lines require no examination - Prepaid Legal, Credit, Variable Life and Variable Annuity, and Surplus Lines Licensee - and the first of the six CE exceptions at 44-3903 covers licensees for whom no examination is required. So a surplus lines licensee owes no continuing education on that credential for the same reason they sat no exam for it. The symmetry is worth holding as a structure rather than as two separate lists, because it also tells you where to look when a line's CE treatment is unclear: ask first whether Nebraska examined for it.
Twenty-one general hours plus three ethics hours, twenty-four in total, per twenty-four-month period, under 44-3904 - the three ethics hours being "in addition" to the twenty-one by the statute's own words. The Life and Health guide covers the arithmetic and the conditional first-period exemption; the Casualty guide covers reporting.
The hours do not scale with the number of lines you hold, and that cuts in a particular direction for a narrow authority. A Personal Lines producer owes the same twenty-four hours as a producer holding Life, Health, Property and Casualty together. The requirement attaches to the person, not to the licence's contents, so there is no continuing-education saving in holding a narrower line - only a study saving at the exam.
Nebraska's exemption list is short and none of it reaches a personal lines producer. Section 44-3903 carries six exceptions: licensees for whom no examination is required; those selling only credit life and credit accident and health insurance; travel insurance; self-service storage facility insurance; holders of such limited or restricted licences as the director may exempt; and the first-period exemption. Personal Lines is an examined line, so the first exception does not reach it, and none of the others describes it.
A flood gate may reach you depending on how your licence is written. The Department's guidance attaches the one-time three-hour NFIP course to producers "licensed in property/casualty lines of authority." Whether a Personal Lines authority falls inside that phrase is not something the Department addresses in terms - Personal Lines is a distinct line at 44-4054, separate from Property and from Casualty. If you intend to write flood, ask the Department rather than assuming either way. The Property guide covers the gate itself.
There is no carry-forward and no repeating a course for credit within the same period.
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