The North Dakota Accident and Health Producer Licence
Accident and Health is its own line in North Dakota with its own exam, titled Accident and Health (Product and Laws). It covers individual and group health, disability income, long-term care and Medicare supplement business.
There is no combined Life & Health exam here. North Dakota is single-line-native: if you want both lines you sit two separate 110-item papers and pay $64 twice. The $100 licence fee, though, is charged once per licence under NDCC 26.1-01-07 — lines ride on it.
Getting licensed is short: 18 years old, pass the exam, submit fingerprints once, file at NIPR within one year of passing. No pre-licensing coursework. All testing is in person — remote proctoring ended April 24, 2026.
This guide owns the part of the vetting the fingerprints do not cover: the background questions on the application, what a "yes" obliges you to produce, and the reporting duties that follow you for the rest of your career.
A note for anyone planning to sell long-term care: North Dakota mandates no producer training hours for it. That runs against most states and against the NAIC model — the Keeping the Licence section below explains where the familiar 8-hour figure actually comes from.
One Line, One Exam
North Dakota's five major producer exams, none of them combinable:
| Exam | Scored items | Time | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Life and Annuity (Product and Laws) | 110 | 150 min | $64 |
| Accident and Health (Product and Laws) | 110 | 150 min | $64 |
| Property (Product and Laws) | 110 | 150 min | $64 |
| Casualty (Product and Laws) | 110 | 150 min | $64 |
| Personal Lines | 110 | 150 min | $58 |
All five are 110 scored items in 150 minutes, built from 40 state-specific items and 70 general items per PSI's content outlines. Better than a third of the paper is North Dakota law, which is why national-only study material underperforms here.
PSI adds 5 to 10 unscored experimental questions, so the delivered paper runs to about 120 items. The 70% pass mark applies to the 110 scored items — the bulletin prints 77 correct beside the percentage, and 77 of 110 is exactly 70%.
Retakes are unusually forgiving. "You may retest an unlimited number of times." There is no attempt cap and no waiting period beyond same-day: you cannot rebook on the day you tested, but you can call the next day and sit again as soon as a seat exists. What you cannot avoid is paying again — the fee is "not refundable or transferable" and there is no retake discount.
Most Tested Topics on the North Dakota Accident & Health Exam
North Dakota's health law deviates from the national model in ways that are individually small and collectively decisive. Two of them — the grace period and the continuation period — are places where the state deliberately did not follow the NAIC drafting that every national text teaches. From the TESTivity North Dakota regulations curriculum, statute-verified:
| Concept | The North Dakota rule |
|---|---|
| Free look, individual accident & health | 10 days — "the applicant may return the policy or certificate within ten days of its delivery and have the premium refunded." Half of life insurance's 20 days, and in a different chapter, so nothing on the page cues the contrast (NDCC 26.1-36-02.1) |
| Grace period, accident & health | A FLAT 31 DAYS, individual and group alike. North Dakota did not adopt the NAIC tiered model of 7 days weekly premium / 10 days monthly / 31 days otherwise. An answer choice that varies the grace period by premium mode is offering you the national rule, not this state's (NDCC 26.1-36-04(1)(e); 26.1-36-05(1)) |
| State continuation, duration | 39 WEEKS after the date coverage would otherwise have terminated — roughly nine months. Nearly every other state counts continuation in months; North Dakota counts in weeks, and 39 weeks is neither 6 months nor 9 months exactly (NDCC 26.1-36-23(6)(a)) |
| State continuation, who qualifies | The test is about the individual, not the employer's headcount: the employee or member must have been "continuously insured under the group policy... during the entire three-month period ending with the termination." It functions as the gap-filler below federal COBRA's 20-employee line, but the three-month continuous-coverage test is what the statute actually states (NDCC 26.1-36-23(1)) |
| State continuation, election | TWO deadlines, and both bite. Election must be made within 10 days of the later of the termination date or the date notice is given — and continuation may not be elected more than 31 days after termination in any event. The 10-day window is the one candidates miss, because 31 is the number that looks like an election period (NDCC 26.1-36-23(4)) |
| State continuation, premium | Not more than the group rate, paid monthly in advance. North Dakota adds no administrative loading — there is no 102 percent here, which is itself a departure from the federal pattern (NDCC 26.1-36-23) |
| External review timing | Four months after receiving notice of an adverse benefit determination to request it; the independent review organization decides within 45 days standard, or no more than 72 hours expedited, with written confirmation inside 48 hours where the notice was not written. Note the request window is expressed in months, not days (NDCC 26.1-36-46) |
| Claim payment time limits | NDCC 26.1-36-37.1 — "Standard health insurance proof of loss form – Claim payment time limits" — gives the insurer 15 business days from receipt of a proof-of-loss form to pay, deny, or make an initial request for more information, and a further 15 business days after receiving that information to pay or deny. Note what it does not do: there is no electronic-versus-paper split, no "clean claim" terminology, and no interest provision (NDCC 26.1-36-37.1) |
| Insulin out-of-pocket cap | $25 per 30-day supply — the health benefit plan "must limit out-of-pocket costs for a thirty-day supply of... covered insulin drugs, which may not exceed twenty-five dollars", and the same $25 cap applies to covered insulin dosing and administration supplies. A strong North Dakota-specific item (NDCC 26.1-36-09.16) |
| Other mandated benefits | Substance abuse treatment (26.1-36-08), mental disorder coverage (26.1-36-09) and telehealth parity (26.1-36-09.15) each have their own section rather than sitting inside a general mandate list (NDCC 26.1-36-08, -09, -09.15) |
| Free look, Medicare supplement | 30 days, with the notice "prominently printed on the first page of the policy or certificate or attached thereto." So North Dakota runs three different free-look periods across health products: 10 days ordinary A&H, 30 days Medicare supplement, 30 days long-term care (NDAC 45-06-01.1-14(1)(e)) |
| Medicare supplement open enrollment | Six months, beginning with the first day of the first month in which the individual is both 65 or older and enrolled in Medicare Part B — both conditions, not either (NDAC 45-06-01.1-09) |
| Long-term care replacement | A replacing insurer must notify the existing insurer within five working days, and the prescribed replacement notice gives the applicant 30 days to decide. Preexisting-condition and probationary periods are waived on replacement (NDAC 45-06-05.1-12; -23) |
The grace period is the highest-yield item here precisely because it is boring. Every national text drills 7/10/31 by premium mode, and a candidate who has learned that pattern will recognise it in an answer choice and pick it. North Dakota's answer is 31 days for everything. There is no weekly-premium special case to find.
Continuation is second, and it is a three-part item disguised as one. The duration is 39 weeks. The eligibility test is three months of continuous prior coverage. And the election window is 10 days from the later of termination or notice, with 31 days as an outer bound. Candidates who remember one number remember 31 — which is the cap, not the window.
Third, and cheapest of all: the free-look spread. Ten days for ordinary accident and health, thirty for Medicare supplement, thirty for long-term care — and twenty, over in the life chapter, for life insurance. Four products, three numbers, and the shortest one belongs to the line you are being examined on.
The Application's Background Questions, and What They Actually Ask
North Dakota vets producers twice over. The fingerprint check is the mechanical half and the Casualty guide covers it. This is the other half — the disclosure questions on the Uniform Application — and it is the half that keeps working after you are licensed.
Why it matters more than the prints. A fingerprint check surfaces what is in a criminal history database. The background questions reach further: administrative actions by any regulator in any state, business bankruptcies, unpaid judgments, licence denials elsewhere. Much of that never appears in a criminal record, so the application's questions are the only place the Department learns it — and a gap between what you disclosed and what the check returns is worse than either fact alone.
What a "yes" obliges you to produce. A written explanation in your own words, plus the underlying documents: the charging instrument and disposition for a criminal matter, the consent order or final decision for a regulatory one, the discharge papers for a bankruptcy. Summaries do not substitute for documents, and a matter you believe was expunged or sealed is still generally reportable to a licensing authority — check before deciding it is not.
How the Department reads it. The grounds live at NDCC 26.1-26-42, an enumerated list of roughly eighteen. They are not automatic disqualifiers; they are grounds on which the commissioner may refuse, suspend or revoke. What moves the analysis is the nature of the conduct, how long ago it happened, and — heavily — whether you disclosed it. Non-disclosure converts an old, forgivable matter into a current, live one about candour.
The ground worth reading in full is 26.1-26-42(10): "An improper withholding of, misappropriating of, or converting to one's own use any moneys belonging to policyholders, insurers, beneficiaries, or others received in the course of one's insurance business." North Dakota has no express premium trust account regulation — no rule telling you to keep client funds in a separate account. This misappropriation ground is doing the work a fiduciary rule does elsewhere, which means the standard is conduct-based rather than mechanical: there is no safe-harbour account structure to point at, only what you actually did with the money.
The duty does not end at licensure — and two clocks run at 30 days from different events. NDCC 26.1-26-45.1 requires you to report an administrative action taken by another jurisdiction within 30 days of its final disposition, and a criminal conviction within 30 days after the conviction. Separately, NDCC 26.1-26-33 gives you 30 days to report a change of address — and NDAC 45-02-02-13 adds a wrinkle worth knowing: it must be submitted electronically or on a document separate from any application or appointment form. An address change buried inside another filing does not count.
Two North Dakota conduct rules with no national counterpart round out the picture, and both are the kind of thing an examiner likes because they are unusual. NDAC 45-02-02-14.1 prohibits a producer from borrowing money from a client. NDAC 45-02-02-14 prohibits knowingly writing excessive or unnecessary coverage. Neither has an obvious analogue in the NAIC models, and both are enforceable conduct standards from your first day.
One relief the fingerprint requirement does give you: it is genuinely once. The Department states that resident producers "adding a line of authority to an existing license are not required to be fingerprinted after passing the exams," and renewal never repeats it. The disclosure obligations, by contrast, are permanent.
What the North Dakota Licence Costs
North Dakota's entry cost is middling, and the shape of it is unusual: there is no course to buy, but there is a fingerprint fee, and the licence fee is charged per licence rather than per line — so the more lines you take, the better the arithmetic gets.
| Item | Cost | Paid to |
|---|---|---|
| Exam, this line | $64 per attempt | PSI |
| Pre-licensing education | $0 — not required | — |
| Fingerprint check | $40 | ND Attorney General (check or money order) |
| PSI fingerprint rolling, if used | $29 | PSI |
| Initial licence fee | $100 | ND Insurance Department, via NIPR |
| Running total | about $204 |
The $100 comes from NDCC 26.1-01-07: "For issuing an insurance producer's license, one hundred dollars." Lines of authority ride on that single licence, so a producer who sits Life and Annuity, Accident and Health, Property and Casualty pays four exam fees but still one $100 licence fee.
The $40 is not optional and not payable by card. It goes to the North Dakota Attorney General by check, cashier's check or money order — "STARTER CHECKS... CASH AND CREDIT/DEBIT CARDS ARE NOT VALID PAYMENT METHODS." The $29 is separate and only applies if you have PSI roll your prints at a test centre; go elsewhere and you skip it.
Exam fees are not refundable and not transferable, and each fee stays valid for one year from the date of payment. There is no retake discount — a failed attempt costs full price again.
The recurring cost is small. The biennial continuation is $25 under NDCC 26.1-01-07, plus whatever your CE courses cost. What is expensive is missing it: there is no late fee to pay, because there is no late renewal. A cancelled licence is replaced by a new application at $100.
If you intend to hold both Life and Annuity and Accident and Health, budget $128 in exam fees rather than $64 — North Dakota has no combined paper. The $100 licence fee still applies only once, and so does the $40 fingerprint check.
Eligibility Requirements
North Dakota's bar is low and its paperwork is specific. You must be at least 18, pass the examination for each line you want, clear a fingerprint-based criminal history check, and file through NIPR within a year of passing.
No pre-licensing education. NDCC 26.1-26-13.2(1) requires only that a resident applicant "must pass a written examination unless exempt under section 26.1-26-25." There is no coursework condition anywhere in the chapter, and the Department confirms applicants "will not have to provide verification of study." North Dakota is one of the states where the exam is the whole gate.
Fingerprints, but only once. Every applicant for an initial resident producer licence submits fingerprints for a state and national check through the ND Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the FBI. The Department is explicit that this does not repeat: "Resident producers adding a line of authority to an existing license are not required to be fingerprinted after passing the exams." Nor is it repeated at renewal. The Casualty guide walks the process step by step.
The background review beyond the prints runs through the Uniform Application's disclosure questions. A "yes" answer obliges you to attach a written explanation and the underlying court or regulatory documents. The Health guide covers what triggers disclosure and how the Department reads it.
Grounds to refuse or revoke are enumerated at NDCC 26.1-26-42, and the one worth naming here is 26.1-26-42(10): "An improper withholding of, misappropriating of, or converting to one's own use any moneys belonging to policyholders, insurers, beneficiaries, or others received in the course of one's insurance business." North Dakota has no express premium-trust-account rule, so that misappropriation ground is doing the work a fiduciary regulation does in most states.
Two conduct rules in the administrative code have no national counterpart and apply from your first day licensed: a producer may not borrow money from a client (NDAC 45-02-02-14.1), and may not knowingly write excessive or unnecessary coverage (NDAC 45-02-02-14).
Keeping the North Dakota Accident and Health Licence
Important CE details: 24 hours per two-year cycle, 3 of them ethics. Up to 12 excess hours carry over in either direction — forward to the next year or back to the preceding one. Providers have 15 days to file your credits, so a course taken in the final fortnight may not post in time. Miss the continuation and there is no grace period and no reinstatement: the licence is cancelled and you reapply as a new applicant for $100.
North Dakota does something almost no other state does: it issues a licence with no term at all. NDCC 26.1-26-31 is titled "Term of license" and then declines to give one — "A license issued under this chapter continues in force in perpetuity unless" one of eight conditions fails. The licence does not expire. It gets cancelled.
The conditions that end it include suspension or revocation, the licensee's death or an entity's dissolution, loss of residency, failure to meet continuing education, and failure to file the biennial continuation and pay its fee. Those last two are the ones a working producer actually has to manage.
The biennial continuation — NDCC 26.1-26-13.4 and NDAC 45-02-02-05.1. You file a continuation and pay $25, due "on or before the last day of the month of the licensee's birthday following the two-year anniversary of the issuance of a license." The commissioner must give at least 60 days' notice of the deadline, and the renewal window opens about 90 days before.
The CE requirement — NDCC 26.1-26-31.1. "Continuing education of not less than twenty-four hours of approved coursework, of which three hours must be in ethics", per two-year cycle. There is no line-specific allocation: 24 hours covers you whether you hold one line or five.
The carryover rule is genuinely unusual and worth exploiting. Excess hours — up to 12 — "may be credited to the year next preceding the year in which they were earned or to the year next following." Carryover that runs backwards as well as forwards is rare. A producer who over-studies in one year can apply the surplus to the year just gone as well as the year ahead.
Reporting has a fifteen-day tail that catches people. CE providers have 15 days to file your credits with the Department. A course completed inside the last fortnight before your deadline may not post in time, and the Department judges you on what is on file. Finish early enough that the provider's filing window closes before yours does.
Exemptions are narrow. Producers licensed exclusively for title, travel and baggage, surety, bail bonds, legal expense or credit insurance are exempt (NDAC 45-02-04-09.3), though they still file the continuation. The commissioner may grant an extension of up to one year (NDAC 45-02-04-08). And there is a grandfathered senior exemption frozen in time: no CE is required of a producer who, "as of January 1, 2010, is at least sixty-two years of age" and whose combined years of continuous licensure and years of age equal 85. It is a snapshot of that single date — it does not roll forward to anyone who reaches those numbers later.
And then the part that costs real money: there is no grace period and no reinstatement. The Department's own wording is blunt: "There is no grace period after the due date. If not renewed before the expiration date, your license and appointments will be canceled and you will have to reapply with an initial application and $100 fee." Your appointments go with it. The administrative rule that once carried a lapse procedure, NDAC 45-02-02-07.1, was repealed effective December 1, 2001 — do not rely on any summary that still cites it.
Annuity training is separate from CE. Selling annuities requires a one-time four-hour training course under NDCC 26.1-34.2-03.1. It is a training requirement, not a CE requirement, the Department does not track completions — carriers verify — and it reciprocates with substantially similar training completed in another state.
Long-term care is different, and this is where national material misleads. North Dakota's statutes and rules set no producer training hour count for LTC: NDCC ch. 26.1-45 contains no producer training section, and NDAC 45-06-05.1 puts the obligation on the insurer to establish agent training requirements. So the familiar 8-hour initial plus 4-hour recurring figure — the NAIC model regulation — is not codified here. Do not read that as "no training at all", though: North Dakota participates in the federal Long-Term Care Partnership programme, and the Department has issued bulletins on producer training for Partnership-qualified policies. The Department's own guidance is to "contact their company for long-term care partnership training requirements." Ask your carrier.
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