North Dakota Life Insurance Exam 2026

The North Dakota Life and Annuity Producer Licence

North Dakota licenses Life and Annuity as a single line with a single exam. The line covers life insurance and annuities together — the annuity authority is not separate — and the exam is titled Life and Annuity (Product and Laws).

There is no combined Life & Health exam in North Dakota. This is the structural fact that shapes every decision on this page. Most states let you sit one paper for both lines; North Dakota does not. If you want life and health authority, you sit two 110-item exams and pay two $64 fees. What you do not pay twice is the licence fee — NDCC 26.1-01-07 charges $100 per licence, and lines ride on it.

Variable life and variable annuities need this line plus securities registration; the insurance authority alone does not reach them.

The route in is short: be 18, pass the exam, get fingerprinted once, and file at NIPR within one year of passing. No pre-licensing coursework — North Dakota requires none. This guide owns the application walkthrough.

One thing changed recently and it affects how you book: remote online proctored testing ended on April 24, 2026. Every North Dakota exam is now taken in person. The Property guide lists all six test centres.

One Line, One Exam — and Why There Is No Shortcut

North Dakota runs five major producer exams and offers no combined paper for any pairing:

Every one of them is 110 scored items in 150 minutes — a shade under 82 seconds per item. The only variable is the fee, and the odd one out is Personal Lines at $58 while the four full lines are $64, despite an identical specification.

What the 110 is made of. PSI's content outlines break each major-line exam into 40 state-specific items and 70 general items. That 36% state weighting is high, and it is why generic national study material underperforms in North Dakota — better than a third of the paper is Century Code and Administrative Code.

PSI adds 5 to 10 unscored experimental questions on top of the 110, so you will see up to 120 items. They do not count. The 70% pass mark applies to the 110 scored items, which is why the bulletin prints "77" beside it — 77 correct out of 110.

Compare that with a combined-exam state. Somewhere with a Life & Health paper typically gives you 150 items for both lines. North Dakota gives you 220 across two sittings and two fees. There is no efficiency to find here — the only decision is the order you take them in.

Most Tested Topics on the North Dakota Life Exam

Forty of your 110 items are North Dakota law, and North Dakota's life chapter is unusually willing to differ from the national model by a year or two here and there. Those small differences are exactly what the state portion tests. From the TESTivity North Dakota regulations curriculum, statute-verified:

Three of these decide more points than the rest together, and all three are cases where the North Dakota number is close enough to the national one to look like a misprint.

The suicide clause is first. Every national text teaches two years. North Dakota says one — and puts the two-year figure in the very same sentence, attached to all other restrictions. A candidate skimming for "two years" will find it, and will find it in the wrong half of the provision. If the item says suicide, the answer is one year.

The reinstatement window is second, for the same reason in reverse: three years where most material says five. And the death claim is third, where the trap is not the two months but the interest — it accrues from the date of death, so an insurer that pays promptly after a late-filed proof still owes interest running back to the death itself.

One more worth banking because it is pure recall: 20 for life, 10 for health. North Dakota gives life buyers twice the free look it gives health buyers, and puts the two rules in different chapters so nothing on the page reminds you of the contrast.

Applying for Your North Dakota Licence, Step by Step

North Dakota runs applications through NIPR, and the order is fixed: exam first, then prints, then application — all inside one year. There is no state pre-approval to obtain before you may sit the exam.

Step 1 — Register with PSI and sit the exam. No course certificate, no application number, no state clearance. You book directly with PSI, pay $64, and test in person at one of six North Dakota sites. Remote proctoring ended on April 24, 2026.

Step 2 — Pass, and start the one-year clock. "A passing score is valid for one year." The Department puts the consequence plainly: the licence application "must be received by the North Dakota Insurance Department within that year." Everything below has to fit inside that window.

Step 3 — Get fingerprinted, once. Only initial resident applicants do this; adding a line later never repeats it. Two paths, both ending in a physical card in the mail — the Casualty guide walks them in detail. The cheap summary: at a PSI centre it is $29 to PSI plus $40 to the ND Attorney General, and PSI mails everything for you; anywhere else it is $40 and you mail it yourself.

Step 4 — File the Uniform Application at nipr.com. The fee is $100 under NDCC 26.1-01-07, plus NIPR's transaction fee. Because the fee attaches to the licence rather than to each line, an applicant requesting Life and Annuity together with Accident and Health, Property and Casualty pays four exam fees and still one $100 licence fee. Sircon also transacts North Dakota resident business.

Step 5 — Answer the background questions properly. A "yes" requires a written explanation and the underlying court or regulatory documents. This is the part of the vetting the fingerprints do not do, and the Health guide covers it.

Step 6 — Get appointed before you write business, but do not file it yourself. NDCC 26.1-26-13.1 puts the duty on the carrier: "To appoint an insurance producer as its agent, the appointing insurer shall file a notice of appointment within thirty days from the later of the date the agency contract is executed or the first insurance application is submitted." That is the insurer's filing and the insurer's fee — a detail worth knowing when a new employer forgets it.

How long does it take? North Dakota publishes no processing time. The variable is the fingerprint leg, because the card travels by post and then through BCI and the FBI. Build that in rather than discovering it in month eleven.

If you are already licensed in another state, most of this disappears — NDCC 26.1-26-25(1) takes both prelicensing education and the examination off a producer previously licensed for the same lines elsewhere. The Property & Casualty guide walks that route.

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.

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.

A note on what is genuinely absent: there is no pre-licensing course fee and no renewal fee beyond $25 every two years. What North Dakota adds that many states do not is the $40 fingerprint payment, which cannot be paid by card and must be a check or money order made out to the North Dakota Attorney General rather than to the Insurance Department.

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 Life and Annuity Licence

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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