What This License Is
The Ohio Casualty line of authority is ORC 3905.06(B)(4) — insurance against legal liability for injury to people or damage to their property. In practice that means auto liability, general and products liability, professional liability, umbrella and excess, commercial crime and surety-adjacent lines. It does not include damage to the insured's own property, which is the Property line at (B)(3).
PSI offers Series 11-47, "Ohio Casualty Insurance Agent" — 100 questions in 2 hours — and the combined Series 11-36 Property and Casualty paper at 150 questions in 2.5 hours, both at $49. The combined exam requires two pre-licensing certificates, 40 hours in all, presented together at the test center.
One Ohio structural fact reshapes what this license is worth. Workers' compensation is not a private insurance product here. Ohio is a monopolistic state fund: employers buy from the Bureau of Workers' Compensation or qualify as self-insurers, and no admitted carrier writes the coverage. A casualty producer in Ohio still needs to understand the system — clients ask, and the exam tests it — but the commission opportunity that exists in most states does not exist here.
Also worth weighing before you commit: surplus lines requires both property and casualty licenses under ORC 3905.30(B), so casualty alone will not get you there. The Property guide covers that path.
Exam Options & Format
Series 11-47 is 100 scored questions in 2 hours, delivered by PSI at a test center, with 1 to 10 unscored experimental items added on top. The passing standard is 70%, a true percentage — Ohio does not scale scores, and the bulletin says so in terms.
In person only. Remote proctored examinations ended 3/13/2026 per the notice on the bulletin's cover.
Book online at test-takers.psiexams.com/ohins at least 24 hours ahead or by phone on (855) 807-3995. Payment is by credit card, company check, money order or cashier's check; personal checks are refused. Your $49 stays valid a year from payment; your pre-licensing certificate expires at 180 days, so that is the deadline that matters.
Retakes are unlimited at $49 apiece, with no same-day rebooking. The Personal Lines guide covers score reporting, the diagnostic breakdown on a failing report, and how to plan a retake around it.
Most Tested Topics on the Ohio Casualty Exam
Ohio's casualty content sits in ORC Chapter 3937 (auto and casualty coverage rules), Chapter 4509 (financial responsibility), Chapter 4123 (workers' compensation) and the comparative-fault sections of Chapter 2315. Every row is verified against the section cited:
| Concept | The Ohio rule |
|---|---|
| Uninsured motorist coverage | Not mandatory, and not even a mandatory offer. An automobile liability policy "may, but is not required to, include uninsured motorist coverage" — Ohio imposes no offer duty, no signed-rejection requirement and no deemed-inclusion default (ORC 3937.18(A)) |
| Underinsured motorist coverage | Where written, it is difference-in-limits and expressly not excess over other applicable liability coverage (ORC 3937.18(C)) |
| Personal injury protection | No PIP mandate. Ohio is a traditional tort state; medical payments coverage is optional |
| Financial responsibility limits | $25,000 for bodily injury or death of one person, $50,000 for two or more persons in one accident, $25,000 property damage — 25/50/25 (ORC 4509.51(B)(1)–(3)) |
| Proof of financial responsibility other than insurance | A bond, a certificate of deposit of money or securities, or a certificate of self-insurance (ORC 4509.45(B)(3)–(5)) |
| Self-insurance threshold | Available to a person in whose name more than twenty-five motor vehicles are registered in Ohio — i.e. 26 or more (ORC 4509.72) |
| Comparative fault bar | A plaintiff recovers only if their fault was not greater than the combined fault of all others — including persons from whom the plaintiff does not seek recovery (ORC 2315.33); damages are then diminished proportionally (ORC 2315.34) |
| All claims from one person's injury | A liability policy may provide that all claims arising out of one person's bodily injury, including death, are collectively subject to the per-person limit — so a wrongful-death claim by several survivors does not multiply it (ORC 3937.44) |
| Intrafamily exclusion | May not be applied or enforced against the owner or operator of a motor vehicle in a wrongful-death claim under Chapter 2125 — unless the policy carries uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage under ORC 3937.18 and the intrafamily claim is not excluded from it (ORC 3937.46) |
| Who writes workers' compensation | Nobody private. Employers pay premiums into the State Insurance Fund; the only alternative is BWC-approved self-insurance, which requires a two-year Ohio operating history, certified financials, a surety bond and demonstrated administrative capability (ORC 4123.35(A), (B)) |
| Who is an employer | An entity that "has in service one or more employees or shared employees regularly in the same business" (ORC 4123.01(B)(1)) |
| Temporary total compensation | 72% of the full weekly wage for the first 12 weeks — capped there at the lesser of the statewide average weekly wage or 100% of the employee's net take-home pay — then 66⅔% of the average weekly wage, capped at the statewide average weekly wage with a floor of one-third of it (ORC 4123.56(A)) |
| Deadline to file a workers' compensation claim | One year after the injury or death, or the claim is "forever barred" (ORC 4123.84(A)) |
| Deadline for an occupational disease claim | One year after the disability began, or up to six months after diagnosis by a licensed physician, CNM, CNS or CNP, or within one year after death (ORC 4123.85) |
| Who decides disputes | BWC administers the fund; the Industrial Commission adjudicates contested claims (ORC Chapter 4121) |
The single highest-value row is uninsured motorist. Nearly every national course teaches UM as either mandatory or subject to a mandatory offer with a written rejection, because that is how most states run it. Ohio's statute says the opposite in one clause — the policy "may, but is not required to, include" it — and there is no offer duty and no rejection form anywhere in the section. This is a verified absence, checked against the whole of ORC 3937.18, not an inference from silence. Expect a stem describing a producer who failed to obtain a signed UM rejection and asking what follows; in Ohio, nothing does.
The second is workers' compensation, where the departure is structural rather than numerical. Ohio is one of a handful of monopolistic states. There is no private policy to quote, no residual market to place, and no third path: it is the State Insurance Fund or qualified self-insurance. Candidates who studied a competitive-market state answer questions about carriers, endorsements and rating plans that have no Ohio analogue.
Two rows reward careful reading rather than memorisation. ORC 2315.33 puts the fault of persons not sued into the denominator — the plaintiff's share is measured against everyone's, not just the defendants' — which changes the arithmetic of the classic 50%-fault question. And ORC 3937.44 with 3937.46 together explain why Ohio's 25/50/25 limits behave differently than the national curriculum expects: all claims from one person's injury collapse into the per-person limit, and the intrafamily exclusion generally cannot be used to defeat a wrongful-death claim.
Ohio's Background Check — Every Step, and the Two Codes That Matter
Ohio requires a criminal records check for every initial resident producer license under ORC 3905.051, run through National WebCheck — the Ohio Attorney General's web-based fingerprinting network — and returning results from both BCI (the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation) and the FBI. Get one detail wrong here and you pay twice and wait weeks, so take the steps in order.
1. Choose a WebCheck vendor. It must be a vendor participating in National WebCheck, not a local-only service. ODI publishes the vendor list, and the PSI test centers themselves provide the service — convenient if you want fingerprints done the day you test, though they take VISA or MasterCard only.
2. Pay the vendor directly. The statute is explicit that the applicant pays, and the money goes to the WebCheck vendor rather than to ODI. The components are $22.00 to BCI and $25.25 to the FBI, with the vendor's service charge on top inside a published $72.25 maximum. At a PSI center the figure is $72.25.
3. Give the right reason code. Tell the vendor the reason for fingerprinting is "Required for Licensure/Permit, Insurance Lic. or ORC 3905.051." If the vendor asks for an agency code, it is BQE445. This is the step candidates skip. A session run under a generic "employment" reason produces a perfectly valid background check that is useless for licensing.
4. Route the results to ODI. Elect either the electronic option — "Direct Copy to Ohio Department of Insurance" — or mailed delivery. ODI's rule is unambiguous: results must be sent directly to ODI from BCI or FBI, and results not received directly from BCI or FBI will not be accepted. You cannot receive a copy yourself and forward it.
Timing. Results are usually processed within two business days, but ODI warns they can take four to six weeks. Set that against the 180-day post-exam application deadline and the arithmetic gets uncomfortable if you wait: a six-week turnaround eats a quarter of your window. ODI's published sequence puts the check after the exam and before the NIPR application, but nothing in ORC 3905.051 or OAC 3901-5-09 forbids getting printed earlier, and a check is good for a year — so getting fingerprinted while you are still studying is permitted and, on the evidence, prudent.
Twelve months, and it is a reuse right rather than just a shelf life. ORC 3905.051(A)(1)(a)(ii) requires a check for an additional line of authority on an existing resident license only "if a criminal records check has not been obtained within the last twelve months for insurance license purposes." Add Property inside that window and there is no second $72.25 and no second wait. If you are planning both halves of property and casualty, sequence them inside the year.
Renewals are exempt outright. ORC 3905.051 "does not apply to agents renewing existing licenses," and ODI states the same on its background-check page. You will never repeat this at a birth-month renewal.
Non-Ohio residents who need fingerprint cards contact BCI directly on 877-224-0043. And a point worth knowing about the results themselves: under ORC 3905.051 they are confidential by law and privileged, not subject to discovery and not admissible in a private civil action, with a carve-out for criminal investigations.
One last scoping note, because Ohio's requirement is not universal across license types. The check is required for resident major lines (Life, Accident & Health, Property, Casualty, Personal Lines and Variable), for limited lines such as crop, credit, funeral expense, rental car and travel, and for surplus lines, title, title marketing representatives and viatical settlement brokers. The bulletin's table marks several other types "Fingerprint/Background Check: No" — reciprocal, portable electronics, MGA, reinsurance intermediary, TPA, public insurance adjuster and PIA agent.
What It Costs
$49 for Series 11-47, up to $72.25 for the National WebCheck check, and $10 for the Casualty line of authority through NIPR — about $131 on a first-time pass. The fingerprint figure breaks down as $22.00 BCI plus $25.25 FBI plus the vendor's service charge.
The 20-hour pre-licensing course is separate and is the largest number for most candidates. AAI, ARM, CIC, CPCU or an insurance degree removes it through ODI's INS3276 waiver — see the Health guide, which owns the waiver rules.
If you intend to hold both property and casualty eventually, the cheapest sequencing is deliberate: one background check covers both applications inside 12 months, so the second line costs you a course, a $49 exam and $10 — no fingerprint money at all.
Eligibility Requirements
At least 18 (ORC 3905.06(A)(1)(a)); 20 hours of ODI-approved Casualty pre-licensing or an approved waiver; a pass on Series 11-47; the ORC 3905.051 criminal records check; and the NIPR application inside 180 calendar days of passing.
A criminal record is not an automatic bar in Ohio, and the check is not a trap — it is a disclosure test. The application carries a sworn declaration of truthfulness and your consent to the records check, so the risk lies in a discrepancy between the two, not in the history itself.
Relocating with a casualty license from another state? ORC 3905.041(A) can waive both the coursework and the exam if you apply within 90 days of establishing residence or a principal place of business in Ohio. The Property & Casualty guide covers that route; the background check is still required either way.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: 24 hours per two-year renewal period including 3 hours of ethics, finished before the renewal is filed. No background check is required at renewal — ORC 3905.051 does not reach agents renewing an existing license.
24 hours every two years including 3 ethics hours (ORC 3905.481), completed before you can file the renewal due by the last day of your birth month. The statutory $25 renewal fee is waived for resident individual agents who have met CE (ORC 3905.40(E)(1)).
No fingerprints at renewal, ever — ORC 3905.051 does not reach renewing agents.
Carryover is capped at 50% of the next period's requirement and counts only as general credit. Credits are earned on the completion date rather than the posting date, and providers have 15 days to report, so finishing on the last day of your birth month is a gamble with no upside.
The Property & Casualty guide owns the renewal detail — late renewal at $50, suspension on the first day of the second month, the twelve-month reinstatement window at $100, and inactive status.
Quick Reference
Official Links
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