The New Hampshire Life Producer License
New Hampshire licenses one thing — a producer — and lists lines of authority on it. There are no separate agent, broker and consultant licences here; RSA 402-J folded them into a single credential, and the Life line is one entry on it. The Life line covers life insurance and fixed annuities.
Life is available as a standalone exam, series 12-61, and you do not have to sit the combined Life, Accident & Health paper to get it. That matters more in New Hampshire than in most states because of a change that took effect on July 6, 2026: PSI withdrew remote proctoring from the Life exam and from the combined Life, Accident & Health exam. Both are now test-center only. The Accident & Health exam by itself, and every property and casualty paper, remain remotely proctorable. If testing from home is important to you, that carve-out shapes which paper you sit.
Variable life and variable annuities are securities as well as insurance. They require the New Hampshire Life line plus FINRA registration — a Series 6 or 7 with a Series 63 where the broker-dealer requires it. The Life line alone does not reach them.
The path is short. You are eligible at 18 with no course behind you, you register with PSI and sit the exam, and then you apply through NIPR and pay $210. Nothing is fingerprinted. The Life & Health guide walks the test-center visit itself; this guide owns the application.
Life Alone, or the Combined Life & Health Paper
Three papers can put the Life line on a New Hampshire licence, and the trade-off has changed since 2025.
| Paper | Series | Items | Time | Fee | Remote proctoring |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Life | 12-61 | 100 | 2 hr | $59 | No — withdrawn 7/6/2026 |
| Life, Accident & Health | 12-63 | 150 | 2 hr 30 min | $72 | No — withdrawn 7/6/2026 |
| NH Life Insurance Laws and Regulations | 12-78 | 40 | 1 hr | $59 | Not stated |
Taking Life and Accident & Health as two separate papers costs $118 against $72 for the combined one, so the combined paper is $46 cheaper and one appointment shorter if you want both lines. If you only ever intend to sell life and annuities, 12-61 is the cheaper and shorter route.
The 12-78 paper is a different animal. It is the state-law-only exam, sat by candidates who are exempt from the general portion — most often someone bringing an existing licence in from another state where the exemption does not fully reach. You do not choose it as a shortcut; you sit it when the Department tells you that is the paper you owe.
PSI adds 5 to 10 unscored experimental questions to the examinations, which do not count toward your result. The outlines publish a total item count rather than splitting scored from pretest, so treat "100 items" as the paper in front of you and not as a scored-question count. The tutorial before the exam takes up to 15 minutes and does not come out of your two hours.
Most Tested Topics on the New Hampshire Life Exam
New Hampshire rewrote its life policy-requirements statute in 2022, and the rewrite is the reason this exam does not behave the way national prep material predicts. RSA 408:13 is short — six paragraphs — and it leaves out things most states put in statute. Where it is silent, the answer usually lives in a Department rule, not in the RSA. From the TESTivity New Hampshire regulations curriculum, statute-verified:
| Concept | The New Hampshire rule |
|---|---|
| Free look, individual life | 10 days, and it is mandatory — the return provision must appear "in a conspicuous place on the face page" in wording the rule prescribes verbatim: the policy "may, at any time within 10 days after its receipt by the policyholder, be returned," whereupon it is "deemed void from the beginning" and premium refunded. It is not in RSA 408:13, which is why the life chapter looks silent — it is a form rule (N.H. Admin. Code Ins 401.05(f)) |
| Grace period, individual life | Required, but New Hampshire does not fix the length in statute. RSA 408:13, II requires a grace period for every premium "except the first," during which the death benefit continues, and then delegates: "The commissioner may adopt rules to establish the length of the grace period." Pro-rata premium for the grace period may be charged. A question asking for "the statutory grace period in New Hampshire" is testing whether you know there is no number in the statute (RSA 408:13, II) |
| Incontestability, individual life | 2 years while in force during the insured's lifetime — and a post-issue increase in death benefit carries its own fresh 2 years running from the date of issue of that increase, not from the original policy date (RSA 408:13, IV) |
| Suicide exclusion, individual life | Framed as a cap, not a mandate. New Hampshire does not require a suicide clause; it says that if the policy includes one, "such exclusion shall not apply after the second anniversary of the effective date of the policy." Two years is the ceiling on the exclusion, not a required exclusion period (RSA 408:13, VI) |
| Misstatement of age or gender, life | New Hampshire's provision reaches age OR GENDER where most states name age alone, and the remedy is a mortality-charge purchase formula: the death benefit becomes "that which would be purchased by the most recent mortality charge at the correct age or gender" (RSA 408:13, V) |
| Death claim interest, life | Beneficiaries must be notified within 30 days of the insured's death if the claim has not been paid, and the insurer may not withhold payment "for a period longer than reasonably necessary to transmit" it. Interest runs at the policy's deposit rate or the Two Year Treasury Constant Maturity Rate — and at a penalty rate of 10% annually beginning 31 calendar days after the later of receipt of proof of death or determination of liability (RSA 408:11) |
| Nonforfeiture, life | New Hampshire has a Standard Nonforfeiture Law for Life Insurance at RSA chapter 409. A paid-up nonforfeiture benefit is available on proper request made not later than 60 days after the due date of the premium in default; a cash surrender value on surrender within 60 days of default, once premiums have been paid for 3 full years (ordinary) or 5 (industrial) (RSA 409:2) |
| Life settlement rescission | The owner may rescind by the earlier of 30 calendar days after all parties execute the contract or 15 calendar days after the proceeds have been SENT. The statute says sent, not received, and New Hampshire calls the chapter the Life Settlements Act rather than a viatical act (RSA 408-D:11, VI) |
| Annuity best interest standard | Adopted as rule Ins 305, effective February 16, 2024 — a producer recommending an annuity must act in the consumer's best interest "without placing the producer's or the insurer's financial interest ahead of the consumer's interest." Note what New Hampshire did not adopt: the NAIC model's producer-training section has no counterpart in Ins 305 (Ins 305.05) |
| Replacement right to return | A 30-day unconditional refund on a replacement transaction — three times the ordinary free look. Replacement is governed by rule Ins 302, not by statute (Ins 302.06(a)(4)) |
Two of these decide more points than the rest together. The first is the free look, and it is the trap New Hampshire sets for anyone who studies from the statute. Read RSA chapter 408 end to end and you will not find a right to return; a careful candidate can reason all the way to "New Hampshire has no free look" and be confidently wrong. The right exists, it is 10 days, and it is compulsory — it simply lives in the Department's form rules at Ins 401.05(f). Note the asymmetry while you are there: individual life gets 10 days, individual accident and health gets 30 under Ins 401.06(b)(10), and a replacement gets 30 under Ins 302.06(a)(4). Three different numbers from the same body of rules.
The second is the grace period, for the same reason in reverse. National material teaches 31 days and most states supply it. New Hampshire supplies the requirement and expressly hands the length to the Commissioner. If an item offers you "31 days" as the statutory New Hampshire grace period, the statute does not say that — what RSA 408:13, II says is that there shall be a grace period and that the Commissioner may set how long it runs.
One more that is cheap to bank: misstatement of age or gender. Nearly every other state's provision says age. New Hampshire's says age or gender, and computes the adjusted benefit from the most recent mortality charge. A distractor that reads "the death benefit is adjusted to what the premium would have purchased at the correct age" is only half of New Hampshire's rule.
Applying for Your New Hampshire License, Step by Step
New Hampshire runs applications through NIPR, and the bulletin puts the instruction in one line: "All applications are to be submitted electronically through the National Insurance Producer Registry at http://www.nipr.com." The order matters and it is the opposite of a handful of states — you pass first, then you apply. New Hampshire does not require an application, an approval, or a candidate ID before you may sit the exam.
Step 1 — Register with PSI and sit the exam. No course certificate, no state pre-approval, no application number. You register with PSI, pay $59, and book. Because the Life exam is now test-center only, that means booking one of the six New Hampshire centers — the Property guide lists all six with addresses.
Step 2 — Pass. Your score appears on screen when you finish and a score report is emailed to you. Original passing exam results must be on file before the licence issues, which PSI transmits; you do not carry paper to the Department.
Step 3 — File the Uniform Application at nipr.com. The fee is $210 — RSA 400-A:29, X(a)'s "application and license fee" — plus NIPR's own transaction fee at checkout. Because New Hampshire puts every line on one licence, that $210 does not multiply by the number of lines you request. Sircon also transacts New Hampshire resident producer business, so a producer already working in Sircon is not obliged to switch.
Step 4 — Answer the background questions, and mean it. This is the whole of New Hampshire's background check. There are no fingerprints. A "yes" answer requires a written explanation and the underlying court or regulatory documents, and all documentation for an electronic application must reach the Department within 30 days or the application is denied. That 30-day clock starts when you file, not when the Department asks.
Step 5 — Get appointed before you write business. RSA 402-J:14 is explicit that a producer "shall not act as an agent of an insurer unless the insurance producer becomes an appointed agent of that insurer," and the appointing insurer files the notice — within 15 days of the date the agency contract is executed or the first application is submitted, whichever comes first. That filing is the carrier's obligation rather than yours, and it costs $25. It is also the step most commonly left undone by a new producer's first employer.
How long does it take? New Hampshire publishes no processing time, and with no fingerprint leg there is no background-check queue to wait behind — which is exactly why New Hampshire issues faster than most states. There is also no published deadline between passing the exam and applying. The one date to watch is that your exam fee is valid for one year from payment, which is a fee-validity rule and not a score-validity rule; the state publishes no score-validity period at all.
If you are already licensed elsewhere, most of this sequence disappears — RSA 402-J:9 takes both the exam and any prelicensing education off a producer who was licensed for the same lines in another state, on 90-day windows. The Property & Casualty guide walks that in full.
What the New Hampshire License Costs
New Hampshire is one of the cheapest states in the country to get licensed in, and the reason is what it does not charge you for. There is no pre-licensing course to buy, because the requirement was repealed on July 11, 2008. There is no fingerprint fee, because New Hampshire fingerprints no resident producers at all. What is left is the exam and the license.
| Item | Cost | Paid to |
|---|---|---|
| Exam, this line | $59 per attempt | PSI |
| Pre-licensing education | $0 — not required | — |
| Fingerprints / background check | $0 — not required | — |
| Application and license fee | $210 | NH Insurance Department, via NIPR |
| NIPR transaction fee | A few dollars, shown at checkout | NIPR |
| Running total | about $269 |
The $210 is set by RSA 400-A:29, X(a) as an "application and license fee," and it is charged per licence rather than per line of authority — New Hampshire issues one producer licence and lists the lines on it. Adding a line later costs you an exam plus the $50 amendment fee under RSA 400-A:29, X(c) — not another $210.
The exam fee is not refundable and not transferable, and the bulletin puts that in capitals for a reason: if you fail, you re-register and pay again. There is no discount on a retake. The fee itself stays valid for one year from the date of payment, so a registration you never use does not evaporate immediately.
The fees you will meet later are worth knowing now. From RSA 400-A:29, X: biennial renewal $150, appointment $25 and termination of appointment $25, amendment to a licence $50 (a name or address change is excluded from that fee), additional fee for late renewal $150, and late completion of continuing education $50. Reinstatement is not in that fee schedule: NIPR publishes $300 for a New Hampshire reinstatement, while the Department's own FAQ describes the late charge as double the licence fee and RSA 402-J:7 states the penalty as double the unpaid renewal fee. Confirm the current figure with the Department before relying on it.
A note on what New Hampshire does not charge: there is no separate line-of-authority fee, no exam-eligibility fee, and no fingerprint or background-check fee anywhere in RSA 400-A:29. The absence of a fingerprint fee in the fee schedule is itself good evidence of the absence of the requirement — fingerprint states price it.
Eligibility Requirements
RSA 402-J:6 sets a short list, and it is worth reading for what is absent as much as for what is there. The Commissioner issues the licence to an individual who:
- is at least 18 years of age;
- has not committed any act that is a ground for denial, suspension or revocation under RSA 402-J:12;
- has paid the fees set out in RSA 400-A:29; and
- has successfully passed the examinations for the lines of authority requested.
That is the whole test. There is no pre-licensing education, no fingerprint card, no criminal history record check, and no residency waiting period. New Hampshire is one of a small number of states that runs a producer licensing system with no biometric background check at all — nothing in RSA 402-J, nothing in RSA 400-A:29's fee schedule, and nothing in rule chapter Ins 1300 creates one.
What replaces it is self-disclosure. The Uniform Application carries background questions, and a "yes" answer obliges you to submit a written explanation and the court or regulatory documents behind it. Those documents must reach the Department within 30 days of the electronic application or the application is denied. A felony conviction remains an express ground to deny or revoke under RSA 402-J:12, I(f) — New Hampshire simply learns about it from you rather than from a records check.
One ground in that list is distinctly New Hampshire and worth naming: RSA 402-J:12, I(k) makes "improperly using notes or any other reference material to complete an examination for an insurance license" a statutory ground for denial or revocation in its own right. Most states handle exam misconduct as a vendor matter. New Hampshire wrote it into the licensing statute, and the administrative fine reaches $2,500 per violation.
Keeping the New Hampshire Life License
Important CE details: 24 hours per 24-month cycle. Ethics has a floor AND a ceiling: at least 3, at most 10. Deadline is 60 days before expiry, and expiry is the last day of your birth month. First-cycle producers are covered by their exam pass. No carryover, no long-service or designation exemption, $50 penalty for a late filing.
New Hampshire licences are biennial, and they expire on the last day of your birth month — not on the anniversary of issue, and not on a fixed statewide date. Your first term is therefore short or long rather than a clean two years: it runs to the second birth month after the licence is issued, which in practice is anywhere from about 13 to 25 months.
RSA 402-J:7 frames the licence as continuous rather than expiring: it "shall remain in effect unless revoked or suspended as long as the fee set forth in RSA 400-A:29 is paid and educational requirements for resident individual producers are met by the due date." Miss either and it stops.
The CE requirement — RSA 402-J:7-a and Ins 1302.03:
- 24 hours of Commissioner-approved instruction in the preceding 24 months.
- At least 3 and no more than 10 of those hours may be ethics. New Hampshire caps ethics as well as requiring it, which is unusual — most states set only a floor. You cannot fill the cycle with ethics courses.
- A credit hour means at least 50 minutes of instruction, and the same course cannot be counted twice in one renewal period.
- Everything must be completed and reported 60 days before your renewal date. Not by the expiration date — sixty days ahead of it.
- Passing the state producer licensing exam satisfies the ensuing renewal (Ins 1302.03(g)). A brand-new producer does not owe CE for the first cycle.
The 60-day lead is the single most expensive detail on this page, because it is not the deadline people assume. Your licence expires on the last day of your birth month; your CE was due two months before that. The renewal window itself opens 60 days before expiration and closes at midnight on the expiration date, so the CE deadline and the opening of the renewal window fall on roughly the same day. A producer who starts thinking about renewal when the window opens has already missed the CE deadline.
Fall short and Ins 1302.05 is blunt: no further licence issues until compliance is demonstrated. A $50 late-CE fee applies on top. Miss the renewal fee instead and RSA 402-J:7 charges a penalty of double the unpaid renewal fee. A lapsed licence can be reinstated within 24 months without re-examination; past two years you apply as a new licensee and sit the exam again.
New Hampshire allows no carryover of excess hours into the next cycle, and grants no exemption for long service or for professional designations — a producer with thirty years and a CLU owes the same 24 hours as everyone else. The only exemptions are nonresident reciprocity and the exam-passage credit above.
Quick Reference
Official Links
Don't study generic. Study New Hampshire.
You've got the roadmap. Now get the New Hampshire-specific Life question bank, mock exams, and video course built by instructors with 20+ years teaching this material.