The North Dakota Property and Casualty Producer Licence
Full property and casualty authority in North Dakota means two lines and two exams. The state publishes no combined Property & Casualty paper: Property is one 110-item exam, Casualty is another, and each costs $64.
What is charged once is the licence itself. NDCC 26.1-01-07 sets $100 per licence, and lines ride on it — so requesting Property and Casualty together costs two exam fees and one licence fee. The fingerprint check is also once, and the Department confirms it is not repeated when a producer adds a line later.
The narrower alternative is Personal Lines — a single $58 exam covering noncommercial property and casualty together. It writes homeowners and personal auto but not commercial risks. For an agency handling small commercial accounts, the full pair is the only route.
Eligibility is short: 18, pass both exams, one fingerprint check, file at NIPR within a year of passing. No pre-licensing course, and no remote testing since April 24, 2026.
This guide owns the two things that matter for the rest of your career rather than the first month: bringing an existing licence into North Dakota, and keeping the licence alive in a state that never expires it but will cancel it without warning.
Two Exams, or the Narrower Personal Lines
| 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 |
No combined paper appears in that table, and none exists. Property plus Casualty is $128 across two appointments and 220 scored items. In a state with a combined P&C exam the same authority costs one sitting of roughly 150 items. North Dakota simply does not offer that trade.
Personal Lines at $58 is the genuine alternative rather than a consolation prize: one exam, one fee, and it covers noncommercial property and casualty. It saves $70 and a second appointment. What it cannot do is write the commercial account, and because the $100 licence fee never multiplies, upgrading later costs only the two exam fees.
Each paper is 110 scored items in 150 minutes — 40 state, 70 general — plus 5 to 10 unscored experimental questions. 70%, or 77 correct, passes each independently.
Most Tested Topics Across the North Dakota Property and Casualty Exams
A dual-line P&C candidate is examined on two chapters that use different numbers for the same events, plus a body of producer-conduct law that North Dakota has customised more than most states. From the TESTivity North Dakota regulations curriculum, statute-verified:
| Concept | The North Dakota rule |
|---|---|
| P&C guaranty, both caps | $300,000 per covered claim — and the cap people forget: return of unearned premium at $10,000 per policy. Other applicable coverage must be exhausted first. The live chapter is 26.1-42.1; the predecessor NDCC 26.1-42 is repealed (NDCC 26.1-42.1-05(1)(a); -09(1)) |
| The six notice periods | Two chapters, and only one figure shared. Auto: 10 days nonpayment, 20 days other cause, 30 days nonrenewal. Property and fire: 10 days nonpayment, 30 days other cause, 45 days nonrenewal (90 for professional liability), plus a 5-day hazardous-condition notice (NDCC 26.1-40-03, -05; 26.1-39-13, -14, -16) |
| Prohibited grounds for declining coverage | Six grounds: race, religion, nationality or ethnic group; lawful occupation; location without a legitimate business purpose; age, sex or marital status alone; prior coverage through a residual market mechanism or a substandard-risk insurer; and the mere fact that another insurer declined, cancelled or refused to renew (NDCC 26.1-40-11) |
| Grounds to refuse or revoke a licence | Roughly eighteen enumerated grounds at NDCC 26.1-26-42, including (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" (NDCC 26.1-26-42) |
| Premium trust accounts | North Dakota has no express premium trust account regulation. No rule prescribes a separate account, a remittance deadline, or a recordkeeping format. The misappropriation ground above does the work a fiduciary rule does elsewhere — which makes the standard conduct-based rather than mechanical (NDCC 26.1-26-42(10)) |
| Rebating, and the gift allowance | Rebates and inducements not specified in the contract are prohibited — but gifts to insureds, prospects and their spouses are permitted "if the cost does not exceed an aggregate retail value of one hundred dollars per person per year." Cash, cash cards and premium discounts are excluded from the allowance. That explicit dollar cap is a strong North Dakota item (NDCC 26.1-04-06) |
| Appointment, and whose job it is | The appointing insurer files — not the producer — "within thirty days from the later of the date the agency contract is executed or the first insurance application is submitted" (NDCC 26.1-26-13.1) |
| Reporting duties, all at 30 days | An administrative action in another jurisdiction within 30 days of its final disposition; a criminal conviction within 30 days after the conviction; a change of address within 30 days — and the address change must be filed separately from any application or appointment form (NDCC 26.1-26-45.1; 26.1-26-33; NDAC 45-02-02-13) |
| Two conduct rules with no national counterpart | 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) (NDAC 45-02-02-14, -14.1) |
| The regulator | The Insurance Commissioner is an elected constitutional officer in North Dakota, not a gubernatorial appointee — one of a minority of states where the office is filled at the ballot box. Insurance law is codified at NDCC Title 26.1, with rules at NDAC Title 45 (N.D. Const. art. V) |
| Workers' compensation, the missing market | A monopolistic state fund — North Dakota is one of a handful of states where workers' compensation is written exclusively by the state and private carriers may not compete. A P&C producer here never quotes it (NDCC title 65) |
| Licence term | Perpetual. NDCC 26.1-26-31 is titled "Term of license" and gives none: the licence "continues in force in perpetuity unless" a listed condition fails (NDCC 26.1-26-31) |
The six notice periods are the highest-yield cluster, and the structure is what makes them hard: two chapters written separately, agreeing on exactly one number. Ten days for nonpayment is the same in both. Everything else diverges — 20 versus 30 for other-cause cancellation, 30 versus 45 for nonrenewal. Learn them as two triples rather than a list of six.
The monopolistic fund is second and it is the kind of fact that decides a question in one word. Most P&C syllabi treat workers' compensation as a line you might place. In North Dakota you cannot: the state fund writes it exclusively. An item asking which carrier a North Dakota employer buys workers' compensation from has one answer, and it is not a private insurer.
Third, the $100 rebating allowance. Most states prohibit rebating and leave "nominal gift" undefined, which makes it a judgment call. North Dakota puts a number on it — $100 per person per year, aggregate retail value, spouses included, cash and premium discounts excluded. A defined threshold is exactly what an examiner likes.
Bringing an Existing Licence Into North Dakota
North Dakota is generous to producers who already hold a licence somewhere else, and gives nothing at all for professional designations.
The core waiver — NDCC 26.1-26-25(1). "An individual who applies for an insurance producer license in this state who was previously licensed for the same lines of authority in another state may not be required to complete any prelicensing education or examination." Read the qualifier: the same lines of authority. A producer who held Property and Casualty in Minnesota gets both North Dakota lines without sitting either paper. One who held only Property sits the Casualty exam.
Relocating producers — NDCC 26.1-26-25(2) extends the same treatment to someone moving into the state and applying as a resident.
In a two-exam state this waiver is worth more than usual. Everywhere else it saves one paper. Here it saves two exams and $128, plus two trips to a test centre in a state where the nearest one may be a hundred miles away. It is the single most valuable thing an incoming producer can establish about their own history.
Non-resident licensing runs on reciprocity. NDCC 26.1-26-47.1(1) directs that the commissioner "shall waive any requirements for a nonresident license applicant with a valid license from the... home state, except the requirements imposed by section 26.1-26-20" — which preserves the home-state good-standing condition. It is a mandate rather than a discretion, conditioned on your home state reciprocating.
CE reciprocity follows. A non-resident who satisfies continuing education in the home state is treated as compliant here; you do not run two CE cycles.
What North Dakota does NOT waive, and it is worth saying plainly: designations buy you nothing. There is no CLU, ChFC, CPCU or CEBS waiver of the examination or of continuing education. Two independent passes read NDCC 26.1-26-13.2, 26.1-26-25 and 26.1-26-26 along with NDAC 45-02-02-03 and -04, and no designation appears anywhere in any of them. The only examination exemption North Dakota recognises is prior licensure in another state.
And there is no deadline pressure on the incoming side, which is unusual — several states impose a 90-day window from establishing residency, after which the waiver evaporates. North Dakota's exemption is written as a condition of the applicant's history rather than a window from a triggering event. What still applies is the ordinary one-year rule between passing an exam and applying, for anyone who does have to sit one.
One thing the waiver does not reach: fingerprints. The exemption at 26.1-26-25 covers prelicensing education and examination. Every applicant for an initial resident licence still submits a fingerprint card, whatever they hold elsewhere. The Casualty guide walks that process.
Keeping a North Dakota Licence Alive — a Perpetual Licence That Can Vanish
North Dakota's renewal system has a shape almost no other state uses, and it is genuinely dangerous to a producer who assumes the ordinary pattern. The licence has no term and never expires. It gets cancelled. And there is no way back.
NDCC 26.1-26-31 is headed "Term of license" and then declines to supply one: "A license issued under this chapter continues in force in perpetuity unless" — and there follows a list of eight conditions. Suspension or revocation. The licensee's consent. Death, or dissolution of an entity. Loss of residency. Failure to meet continuing education. Failure to file the biennial continuation and pay the fee. Plus the surplus lines and consultant annual fees.
So the licence is not a thing that runs out. It is a thing that stops.
The biennial continuation. NDCC 26.1-26-13.4 requires a licensed individual producer to "file a biennial license continuation... and pay a fee as prescribed in section 26.1-01-07," and obliges the commissioner to give "not less than sixty days' notice" of the deadline. The fee is $25. The timing, from NDAC 45-02-02-05.1, is "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."
Read that carefully, because it is not simply "your birth month every two years." It is the birth month following the two-year anniversary of issuance — so your first cycle is longer or shorter than 24 months depending on where your birthday falls relative to the day you were licensed.
The CE requirement — NDCC 26.1-26-31.1. 24 hours of approved coursework per cycle, 3 of them ethics, undifferentiated by line. Holding four lines does not multiply it.
The carryover rule is a genuine advantage and almost nobody uses it. 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 enough that most producers have never encountered it. If you over-studied last year, those hours can still be applied.
The fifteen-day filing tail. CE providers have 15 days to report your credits to the Department, and the Department judges you on what is filed. A course finished a week before your deadline may not post until after it. Treat the real deadline as roughly three weeks before the stated one.
And now the part that costs money, which is all of it. There is no grace period and no reinstatement. The Department's own wording: "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."
Three consequences follow, and each is worse than the last. First, you pay $100 rather than $25 — annoying but survivable. Second, your appointments are cancelled with the licence, so every carrier relationship has to be re-established, and each of those is a filing the carrier has to make. Third, you are unlicensed in the interval, which means you must stop transacting business immediately — and business written while unlicensed is its own problem, reaching the commission provisions and the grounds at 26.1-26-42.
A warning about stale summaries. The administrative rule that once carried a lapse-and-reinstatement procedure, NDAC 45-02-02-07.1, was repealed effective December 1, 2001. Any guide, checklist or forum post describing a North Dakota reinstatement window is describing a rule that has not existed for over twenty years.
Exemptions from CE are narrow. Limited-line producers — title, travel and baggage, surety, bail bonds, legal expense, credit — are exempt under 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 to a single date: no CE for a producer who, "as of January 1, 2010, is at least sixty-two years of age" with years of continuous licensure plus age totalling 85. It is a snapshot of 1 January 2010 and does not roll forward — a producer who reaches those numbers today gets nothing from it.
Annuity training sits outside CE: a one-time four-hour course under NDCC 26.1-34.2-03.1, not tracked by the Department. Long-term care training does not exist here at all — North Dakota never adopted the NAIC model's hour requirement.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Two exams, at $64 each | $128 | 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 $268 |
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.
Over a career the renewal side is cheap and the failure mode is not. Budget $25 every two years plus CE course costs. The number to avoid is $100 — the cost of a fresh initial application after a missed continuation, on top of re-establishing every carrier appointment.
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 Property and Casualty 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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