What This License Is
A New Jersey Casualty line of authority covers liability insurance - the obligation to pay for injury or damage you cause others. Auto liability, general liability, commercial auto, professional liability, workers' compensation and umbrella all sit here. It is issued by DOBI as one line on a single New Jersey producer licence.
New Jersey keeps Property and Casualty as separate lines with separate exams, which is a real structural difference from most states. There is no combined P&C exam - the 40-hour combined course exists and DOBI recognises a combined licence, but you sit two exams: 91 questions here and 79 on Property.
This is the harder and longer of the two, and it is the one where New Jersey's own law bites hardest. Property questions turn on policy forms that look much the same in any state; casualty questions turn on the Automobile Reparation Reform Act, the comparative-negligence bar and the workers' compensation statute - all New Jersey's own.
If your practice will be personal auto and homeowners for individuals, look at Personal Lines first: one 112-question exam and 20 hours covers both property and casualty for noncommercial risks. Casualty as a standalone line is for producers who will write liability for businesses.
Exam Options & Format
The Casualty exam is 91 scored questions in 3 hours 30 minutes at 70% correct, plus five to nineteen unscored experimental items.
Every New Jersey producer exam runs the same 210 minutes regardless of length, so pacing varies by line rather than by clock. At 91 questions this one sits in the middle - a shade over two minutes a question, comfortable if you have done timed practice.
PSI publishes no series or exam-code number for New Jersey. Names only.
No attempt limit, no waiting period beyond the same-day rebooking restriction, another exam fee per attempt, and a passing score valid for one year - which is the deadline to file your application, and tighter than the two years many states allow.
A CPCU, AAI, ARM or CIC waives the 20-hour course but not the exam, and the waiver expires in 90 days. The Life guide sets out the full designation table and the certificate-versus-waiver trap.
Most Tested Topics on the New Jersey Casualty Exam
New Jersey's auto system is unlike anything in the national curriculum, and its workers' compensation rules attach earlier than most. These are checked against the statutes:
| Concept | The New Jersey rule |
|---|---|
| Auto liability system | Choice no-fault. Every Standard policy carries personal injury protection, and the driver elects between the Limitation on Lawsuit (verbal threshold) and No Limitation on Lawsuit options (N.J.S.A. 39:6A-1 et seq.) |
| Liability minimums | 35/70/25 - $35,000 per person, $70,000 per accident, $25,000 property damage, effective 1 January 2026 under P.L. 2022, c. 87. They were 25/50/25 from 2023 through 2025 |
| PIP, Standard Policy | Selectable from $15,000 up to $250,000, with $250,000 always available for certain catastrophic injuries (N.J.S.A. 39:6A-4) |
| The Basic Policy | PIP $15,000 (up to $250,000 for permanent brain or spinal-cord injury, significant disfigurement, or immediate trauma-centre treatment); property damage liability fixed at $5,000; bodily injury liability is NOT included - it is an optional $10,000 for all persons per accident; and no UM/UIM is available at all |
| Verbal threshold | The Limitation on Lawsuit option bars pain-and-suffering claims unless the injury is death · loss of a fetus · dismemberment or loss of a body part · significant disfigurement or scarring · a displaced fracture · or a permanent injury |
| Uninsured motorist | Mandatory on the Standard policy. The floor is the statutory minimum - 35/70 for policies issued or renewed on or after 1 January 2026 - and the insured's own liability limits act as a ceiling: N.J.S.A. 17:28-1.1(b) provides that UM/UIM limits "shall not exceed the insured's motor vehicle liability policy limits." The Basic policy carries none at all |
| Negligence rule | Modified comparative with a 51% bar - a claimant recovers only if their negligence is not greater than the combined negligence of those they sue, so a claimant at exactly 50% still recovers, one at 51% recovers nothing (N.J.S.A. 2A:15-5.1) |
| Residual auto market | The Personal Automobile Insurance Plan (PAIP) - the assigned-risk plan for drivers who cannot obtain coverage voluntarily |
| The dollar-a-day policy | The Special Automobile Insurance Policy (SAIP), about $365 a year, for drivers enrolled in federal Medicaid with hospitalisation - covering only emergency treatment and serious brain or spinal-cord injury up to $250,000 plus a $10,000 death benefit, with no liability coverage (N.J.S.A. 39:6A-3.3) |
| Workers' comp, who must carry it | Every New Jersey employer not covered by a federal programme, from the first employee - there is no numeric threshold. Failing to insure is a disorderly-persons offence, and a fourth-degree crime where the failure is knowing (N.J.S.A. 34:15-79) |
| Workers' comp, wage replacement | Temporary total disability pays 70% of the average weekly wage, capped at 75% of the statewide average weekly wage and floored at 20% of it, after a 7-day waiting period that becomes retroactive if disability exceeds seven days, for up to 400 weeks (N.J.S.A. 34:15-12(a)) |
| Workers' comp, how to comply | Buy from an authorised carrier, or qualify as an approved self-insurer (approved by the Commissioner of Banking and Insurance on financial ability). Assigned-risk coverage runs through the New Jersey Workers' Compensation Insurance Plan |
Start with the limits, because this is the freshest stale fact in New Jersey insurance. The minimums moved to 35/70/25 on 1 January 2026 - seven months ago as of this writing. Study material written any earlier says 25/50/25, and it is wrong. If a question gives you a New Jersey minimum-limits policy, the numbers are 35 and 70.
A related trap sits next to it: candidates often learn UM as "at least your liability limits," which inverts the rule. Your liability limits are the most UM you may buy, not the least - the least is the statutory minimum.
Then learn the Basic Policy as a set of absences rather than a set of coverages, because that is how it is tested. It has no bodily injury liability unless you buy the optional $10,000. It has no UM or UIM at all - not reduced, not optional, none. Its property damage is a flat $5,000 with no election. A stem describing a Basic-policy insured hit by an uninsured driver is testing whether you know the answer is nothing, and the intuitive "UM pays" is the trap.
The 51% bar is worth getting exactly right, because "51%" is shorthand for a comparison, not a number. The statute asks whether the claimant's negligence is greater than the combined negligence of those sued. Fifty-fifty recovers. Fifty-one to forty-nine does not. And note the comparison is against the defendants combined, which changes the answer in multi-defendant scenarios in the claimant's favour.
Finally, the workers' compensation threshold. Most states set a floor - three employees, four, five - and national prep teaches the concept. New Jersey has none: coverage attaches at employee number one. A question about a two-person shop is testing precisely that reflex.
Live Scan Fingerprinting, Step by Step
New Jersey fingerprints resident producer applicants - and, importantly, does it on a schedule most states do not use. The prints come before the application, not alongside it. DOBI's instruction is that Live Scan must be complete "prior to applying online."
Step 1 - Pass the exam first. DOBI recommends scheduling Live Scan immediately after you pass. There is a reason for the urgency: your score report is good for one year, and appointments are typically available within seven to ten days but are not instant.
Step 2 - Schedule with IdentoGO using service code `2F16Y3`. That is the New Jersey resident producer code. Book at uenroll.identogo.com (available 24/7) or by phone on 1-877-503-5981; hearing-impaired candidates use 1-800-673-0353. Public adjuster applicants use a different code, `2F1F7N` - do not use the producer code for a public adjuster application or you will pay twice.
A point worth being precise about, because states differ: New Jersey's code is universal per licence category, published openly by DOBI. Some states issue a per-applicant code only after you file the application, which forces the opposite order of operations. New Jersey does not. The code above is the code, today, for every resident producer applicant.
Step 3 - Pay $66.05 to IDEMIA at scheduling. That is the whole fingerprint cost, and it goes to the vendor rather than to DOBI. (If you have seen a range like "$50 to $70" quoted, it is a reconstruction of the vendor and state components rather than a published figure - $66.05 is what DOBI's Live Scan page states.)
Step 4 - Bring exactly the right ID, because the rule here is stricter than the test centre's. IdentoGO requires one single document showing photo, name, address and date of birth, issued by a federal, state, county or municipal authority. DOBI's page is explicit: "Combinations of documents are NOT acceptable." A driver's licence with a current address is the straightforward answer; a passport plus a utility bill is not.
Step 5 - Then file at NIPR. The prints go to the New Jersey State Police and the FBI for a criminal-history check. Only after they are complete does the application go in - the Life guide walks through the NIPR filing.
Two exceptions to know. Nonresidents are not fingerprinted at all - a nonresident licence rests on your home-state licence being in good standing. And for a resident business entity, fingerprinting reaches the owners and officers holding 10% or more, not just the designated responsible producer.
One honest gap: DOBI does not publish how long a completed fingerprint result stays valid for licensing purposes. If a long delay opens up between your prints and your application, ask before assuming they still count.
What It Costs
About $275-$300 in unavoidable fees on a first-time pass: the exam, $66.05 for Live Scan, and roughly $170 to file through NIPR ($150 licence plus a $20 online processing fee; paper makes it $40). The 20-hour course is on top.
If you are building toward a full Property & Casualty licence, note what does not double. Two lines mean two courses and two exam fees - but one $150 licence fee and one $66.05 fingerprint appointment, because New Jersey issues a single producer licence listing whatever lines you qualify for.
The exam fee is contested between DOBI and PSI - $47 on DOBI's FAQ, $38 in PSI's served bulletin, the $38 sits in a bulletin stamped January 2023. Budget for $47. Registration fees are non-refundable and expire one year after registering.
Eligibility Requirements
At least 18, a completed 20-hour approved Casualty course (or a CPCU, AAI, ARM or CIC waiver), a passing exam result, Live Scan fingerprints as a resident, and a NIPR application within one year of passing. A resident licence needs a New Jersey residence or business address and no PO box.
The 20-hour figure is for the Casualty line alone. The 40-hour number you will see quoted is the combined Property and Casualty course covering both lines - the efficient purchase if you intend to carry both, which most casualty producers eventually do.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: Twenty-four credits per biennial term, tracked by PSI on the Department's behalf at ce.psiexams.com.
Two-year term expiring the last day of your birth month, first term stretched to at least 18 months. 24 credits per cycle, 3 of them professional ethics, with one of the three optionally an insurance-fraud course.
The requirement is per licensee rather than per line, so a producer carrying Casualty, Property and Life still owes 24. Up to 12 non-ethics credits carry over once; ethics credits never carry over. DOBI approves the courses and providers, and PSI banks the credits for the Department.
One line-specific requirement does apply to you, and it is easy to miss because it is one-time rather than recurring: a producer authorised to sell flood insurance must complete a three-credit approved course on flood insurance and the National Flood Insurance Program (N.J.A.C. 11:17-3.6), at the first renewal following initial issuance. It counts inside the 24. New Jersey's other product-specific trainings - annuity best interest, long-term care - sit on the life and health side. The Property & Casualty guide covers renewal, the late-renewal window and the lapse rules.
Quick Reference
Official Links
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