North Dakota P&C Study Guide

A dual-line P&C candidate in North Dakota is examined on two chapters that use different numbers for the same events, plus a body of producer-conduct law the state has customised more than most. Three things here have no equivalent in national material: a monopolistic workers’ compensation fund, a licence with no expiry date, and a rebating rule with an actual dollar figure in it.

The six notice periods

Event	Personal auto	Property and fire
Cancellation — nonpayment	10 days	10 days
Cancellation — other reason	20 days	30 days
Nonrenewal	30 days	45 days

Ten days for nonpayment is the only shared figure. Property nonrenewal runs to 90 days for professional liability, and property adds a 5-day notice for specified hazardous conditions.

Workers’ compensation — a market that does not exist

North Dakota is a monopolistic state fund jurisdiction. Workers’ compensation is written exclusively by the state under NDCC Title 65, and private carriers may not compete for it.

For a P&C producer this is structural rather than trivial. Most syllabi treat workers’ compensation as a line you might place. Here you cannot — a North Dakota employer buys it from the state. An item asking which carrier writes an employer’s workers’ compensation coverage in this state has one answer, and it is not a private insurer.

The guaranty association — the cap people forget

The North Dakota Insurance Guaranty Association sits at NDCC ch. 26.1-42.1 — the predecessor chapter 26.1-42 is repealed.

$300,000 per covered claim is the figure everyone learns. The second one is easy to miss and therefore worth knowing: return of unearned premium is capped at $10,000 per policy (26.1-42.1-05(1)(a)). Other applicable coverage must be exhausted first (26.1-42.1-09(1)).

Handling money — and the regulation North Dakota never wrote

Here is a genuine gap. North Dakota has no express premium trust account regulation. No rule prescribes a separate account for client funds, no remittance deadline, no recordkeeping format. Most states have a fiduciary chapter; this one does not.

What does the work instead is a ground for revocation. NDCC 26.1-26-42(10) reaches “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.”

The practical consequence is that 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.

Two further conduct rules have 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).

Rebating — with a number attached

Most states prohibit rebating and leave “nominal gift” to judgment. North Dakota puts a figure on it.

NDCC 26.1-04-06 permits gifts to insureds and prospects — and to their spouses — “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.

Filing duties — all thirty days, from different events

• Appointment: 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).
• Administrative action in another jurisdiction: within 30 days of its final disposition.
• Criminal conviction: within 30 days after the conviction (both NDCC 26.1-26-45.1).
• Change of address: within 30 days (NDCC 26.1-26-33) — and NDAC 45-02-02-13 requires it to be submitted electronically or on a document separate from any application or appointment form. An address change buried in another filing does not count.

An elected commissioner

North Dakota’s Insurance Commissioner is an elected constitutional officer, 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.

The licence that never expires, and cannot be reinstated

NDCC 26.1-26-31 is headed “Term of license” and then declines to give one: a licence “continues in force in perpetuity unless” a listed condition fails. Among those conditions are failure to meet continuing education and failure to file the biennial continuation and pay its fee.

So the licence does not run out. It stops.

The continuation is 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” (NDAC 45-02-02-05.1) and costs $25. CE is 24 hours per cycle including 3 ethics, with up to 12 hours carrying forward or backward.

And then the part with no analogue elsewhere: there is no grace period and no reinstatement. Miss the continuation and the licence is cancelled, your appointments are cancelled with it, and you reapply as a new applicant for $100. The rule that once carried a lapse procedure, NDAC 45-02-02-07.1, was repealed effective December 1, 2001 — any summary describing a North Dakota reinstatement window is describing a rule that has not existed for over twenty years.