North Dakota Personal Lines Insurance Exam 2026

The North Dakota Personal Lines Producer Licence

Personal Lines is a limited property and casualty authority: property and casualty coverage sold to individuals and families for noncommercial purposes — homeowners, dwelling fire, renters, personal auto, personal umbrella. It is its own line in North Dakota with its own exam.

It is also the cheapest major producer exam the state offers. Personal Lines costs $58 where Life and Annuity, Accident and Health, Property and Casualty each cost $64, despite an identical 110-item, 150-minute specification. There is no published explanation for the difference; it is simply what the fee table says.

The trade-off is scope. Personal Lines gives you noncommercial property and casualty in one sitting — which in a state with no combined P&C exam is a genuine efficiency. What it will not reach is the commercial account: the contractor's liability, the shop's package policy, the small commercial fleet. For those you need the full Property and Casualty lines, at $64 each.

Because the $100 licence fee attaches to the licence rather than the line, and a second line never triggers a second fingerprint check, upgrading later costs only the extra exams. The decision is reversible.

This guide owns what happens after you submit: your results, and what to do with a fail.

Personal Lines, or the Full Property and Casualty Pair

The honest comparison is not about the exam — all five have the same shape — it is about what you can write afterwards, and about the fact that North Dakota makes you buy the full pair separately.

Personal Lines: $58, one sitting, noncommercial only. Property plus Casualty: $128, two sittings, everything. In a combined-exam state that gap would be smaller; here Personal Lines saves you $70 and an entire second appointment, which makes it a stronger option in North Dakota than the equivalent licence is in most states.

All of them are 110 scored items in 150 minutes, with 5 to 10 unscored experimental questions added, and 70% — 77 correct — to pass. The major-line papers split 40 state / 70 general.

Most Tested Topics on the North Dakota Personal Lines Exam

Personal Lines sits across two statutory chapters that were written separately and never harmonised: NDCC ch. 26.1-40 governs automobile, NDCC ch. 26.1-39 governs fire and property. They use different notice periods for the same events, and telling them apart is most of what the state portion of this exam wants. From the TESTivity North Dakota regulations curriculum, statute-verified:

The notice periods decide more points on this paper than anything else, and the reason is structural. Six numbers, two chapters, and the only figure the two chapters share is 10 days for nonpayment. Everything else diverges: other-cause cancellation is 20 for auto and 30 for property; nonrenewal is 30 for auto and 45 for property. Learn them in pairs rather than as a list, and anchor on the one that matches.

The prohibited grounds at 26.1-40-11 are the second-highest-yield item and the one candidates under-read. Most of the list is what you would expect from an unfair-discrimination provision. The entry that gets tested is the last one — an insurer may not decline or terminate merely because another insurer declined, cancelled or refused to renew the risk. An item describing an applicant turned down by two previous carriers is usually testing that.

Third, the valued policy rule is worth carrying into the office as much as into the exam. In most states a total loss opens an argument about depreciation. In North Dakota, on a total fire loss, the policy limit is the settlement. That makes the limit your client selects the entire conversation, because nothing downstream corrects an under-insured amount.

Passing, Failing and Retaking the North Dakota Exam

What you get when you finish. Your score appears at the end of the session and a score report follows. The number that matters is 77 — 70% of the 110 scored items. PSI publishes the percentage and the raw count side by side, which is a small mercy: unlike states that report a scaled score, North Dakota's 70 is a true percentage of questions answered correctly. There is no conversion to reason about.

The unscored questions do not count against you. PSI adds 5 to 10 experimental items to every paper, so you may answer 120 questions while being scored on 110. You cannot tell which are which, and it does not matter — the 77 threshold applies to the scored set.

Retaking is about as permissive as it gets. "You may retest an unlimited number of times." There is no cap on attempts and no mandatory waiting period. The only restriction is same-day: "It is not possible to make a new examination appointment on the same day you have taken an examination" — but PSI's own illustration is that a candidate who tests unsuccessfully on a Wednesday "can call the next day, Thursday, and retest as soon as Friday, depending upon space availability."

What it costs is the whole constraint. Every attempt is a fresh $58 for this paper, or $64 for a major line. Fees are "not refundable or transferable", there is no retake discount, and a no-show is treated the same as a failure — you forfeit the fee and register again. With seats concentrated in six locations, availability rather than money is often the binding limit.

Two different one-year clocks, and candidates conflate them. The examination fee is "valid for one year from the date of payment" — that governs an unused registration. The passing score is separately valid for one year, and that is the one with teeth: the Department requires that the licence application "be received by the North Dakota Insurance Department within that year." Passing in March means the application, the fingerprint card, and the BCI and FBI processing all have to land before the following March.

A nuance worth knowing once you are licensed. The bulletin notes that a passed exam remains valid "for as long as a valid insurance producer's license... is continuously held and for 12 months following cancellation." So the one-year rule is really about the gap before licensure. Once you hold the licence continuously, the exam result rides with it — and if the licence is cancelled, you have twelve months before that credit is gone too.

After you pass, the remaining steps are the fingerprint card and the NIPR filing, both inside that same year. The Casualty guide walks the prints; the Life guide walks the application.

If you need to move the appointment rather than retake it, the window is 2 days before the scheduled date, through PSI's website or by speaking to a representative. "A voicemail or email message is not an acceptable form of cancellation." Miss it and you have effectively failed at full price.

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.

Personal Lines is the cheapest way into North Dakota homeowners and personal auto work — $58 against $128 for the full Property and Casualty pair. If you later add those lines, the cost is the exam fees alone: no second $100 licence fee, and no second $40 fingerprint check, because the Department does not re-fingerprint a producer adding a line.

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 Personal Lines 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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