What This License Is
Personal Lines is its own line of authority in Ohio, listed at ORC 3905.06(B)(5) alongside Life, Accident & Health, Property and Casualty. It authorises property and casualty insurance sold to individuals and families for non-commercial purposes: homeowners and renters, dwelling fire, personal auto, personal umbrella, boat and recreational vehicle.
It is a genuine shortcut for the right producer. Series 11-43 is 100 questions in 2 hours and needs one 20-hour certificate; the combined Series 11-36 Property and Casualty paper is 150 questions in 2.5 hours and needs two certificates, 40 hours in total. If your book is households — the agency writing home and auto for families — the personal-lines route saves you a course, a test-center document and a chunk of study time, at the price of not being able to write commercial risks.
One thing to check before you choose it. Ohio publishes no exemption in any statute, rule or candidate bulletin that lets a producer who already holds Property and Casualty pick up Personal Lines without the coursework and the exam — even though Personal Lines is a subset of those two authorities. We say "none is published" rather than "none exists" deliberately: ODI's own initial-application checklist is distributed through a forms-request system we could not read, and departmental practice is not visible from the outside. If you already hold P&C and want Personal Lines added, call ODI Licensing on 614-644-2665 and ask before you buy a course.
Note also which way the substitution runs. Holding Personal Lines does not give you commercial authority, and it does not satisfy the ORC 3905.30(B) requirement that a resident surplus lines broker hold both a property and a casualty license.
Exam Options & Format
Series 11-43, "Ohio Personal Line Insurance Agent" — 100 scored questions in 2 hours through PSI, plus 1 to 10 unscored experimental items that count against the clock but not the score. Pass at 70%, reported as a real percentage.
In person only. The bulletin's cover records that remote proctored examinations ended 3/13/2026.
Book at test-takers.psiexams.com/ohins at least 24 hours ahead, or on (855) 807-3995. Credit card, company check, money order or cashier's check — not a personal check. Bring the paper pre-licensing certificate, signed and dated by both your provider and you; electronic copies are refused at the door and the fee is forfeited if you arrive without it.
Because Personal Lines draws on both the property and the casualty bodies of Ohio law, treat the state-specific study as a merged set: the cancellation rules below, the valued policy law in the Property guide, and the auto financial-responsibility and comparative-fault rules in the Casualty guide all fall inside this exam's scope.
Most Tested Topics on the Ohio Personal Lines Exam
Ohio's personal-lines statutes are unusually lopsided: automobile insurance is regulated in detail across ORC 3937.30 to 3937.39, while personal-lines property insurance gets a single section. That asymmetry is the exam's favourite territory. Every row is verified against the section cited:
| Concept | The Ohio rule |
|---|---|
| Minimum term, private passenger auto policy | Issued for not less than one year, or guaranteed renewable for successive periods totalling not less than one year (ORC 3937.31(A)) |
| The 90-day underwriting window | ORC 3937.30 to 3937.39 do not apply at all to a policy or coverage in effect less than ninety days when the cancellation notice is mailed — unless it is a renewal policy. Inside that window the enumerated grounds, the notice periods, the reason statement and the review right all fall away (ORC 3937.31(C)) |
| Mid-term cancellation grounds, seasoned auto policy | Exactly four: fraud or material misrepresentation; suspension, revocation or expiration of a driver's license; nonpayment; and a change of residence or vehicle registration to a state or country where the insurer is not authorised (ORC 3937.31(A)(1)–(4)) |
| Auto cancellation notice, general grounds | Effective date not earlier than 30 days after the date of the notice (ORC 3937.32(A)(3)) |
| Auto cancellation notice, nonpayment | 10 days (ORC 3937.32(A)(5)) |
| The insured's right to a reason | The notice must state the reason, or offer to supply it within five days of a written request (ORC 3937.32(A)(4)) |
| Superintendent review | The notice must tell the insured of the right (ORC 3937.32(A)(6)); the right itself requires a written application before the cancellation's effective date (ORC 3937.35) |
| If the insurer botches the procedure | The cancellation is ineffective and the policy continues in force (ORC 3937.33) |
| Auto nonrenewal | 30 days before expiration, with the reason furnished within five days of a written request. Ohio's auto section carries no agent-copy requirement and no late-mailing extension — those belong to the commercial section (ORC 3937.34; compare ORC 3937.26) |
| Personal-lines property cancellation, nonpayment | Not less than 10 days from the date the notice was mailed, and the notice may ride along with a billing statement (ORC 3937.47(B), (C)) |
| Personal-lines property, every other situation | No statutory notice period exists — Ohio sets no nonrenewal notice for homeowners and no mid-term notice for grounds other than nonpayment. Both are contract terms in the policy form |
| Surcharge after a single-vehicle accident | Prohibited where the insured's action was not a proximate cause of any loss and the insured was not convicted of, and did not plead guilty or no contest to, a violation arising from it (ORC 3937.22) |
| Surcharge after an accident with an uninsured or underinsured motorist | The same two-part test applies (ORC 3937.23) |
| Accidents that may not be considered at all | Those incurred on official duty by a law enforcement officer, firefighter, investigator or emergency-vehicle or ambulance operator — and the section reaches further, to public employees operating mowing or snow-and-ice-removal vehicles and to State Highway Patrol motor carrier enforcement personnel (ORC 3937.41). Convictions under Chapter 5577 for vehicle weight violations may not be considered either (ORC 3937.45) |
The row that reorganises everything else is the 90-day window. Candidates learn the four grounds and the 30-day notice, then answer a question about a policy cancelled in week six as though those rules applied. They do not: ORC 3937.31(C) switches off the entire statutory scheme for a new, non-renewal policy inside its first ninety days. Read every cancellation stem for two facts first — how old is the policy and is it a renewal — because they decide whether any of the rest is relevant.
The second trap is the asymmetry between auto and homeowners. It is natural to assume the 30-day and 10-day notices apply to a homeowners policy too. They do not. ORC 3937.47 is the only personal-lines property cancellation statute in Ohio and it governs nonpayment only, at ten days. There is no statutory nonrenewal notice for homeowners at all, which is a sharp departure from the 30- or 45-day rules national material teaches — and the sort of absence that is only worth trusting because the surrounding sections were read to confirm it.
The anti-surcharge sections deserve a careful read as well, because the test in ORC 3937.22 and 3937.23 is proximate cause, not a percentage of fault, and it is conjunctive: the insured must both have not proximately caused a loss and not have been convicted of or pleaded to a violation arising from the accident. Ohio has no national analogue for these, so they are pure state content.
Your Score, Your Retakes, and the Clocks That Start When You Pass
How the score arrives. Ohio gives it to you immediately: your score is displayed on screen at the end of the examination, and a score report is emailed to you. You can print further copies from your PSI online account later. The standard is 70% and it is a genuine percentage — none of the language scaled-score states use appears anywhere in Ohio's bulletin, so nobody has to decode what a "70" means here.
If you fail, read the report before you rebook. A failing score report carries a diagnostic breakdown by content area, showing where you were strong and where you were weak. That document is the most useful thing you will get out of a failed attempt: it converts "study more" into a list. Candidates who retake without opening it tend to re-fail in the same section.
Retakes are unlimited. The bulletin states affirmatively that there is no limit to the number of times a candidate may retake an examination, which is a real difference from states that cap attempts or impose escalating waiting periods. ORC 3905.04(D) backs it: an individual who fails may reapply on paying the fee and submitting any necessary forms.
But not the same day. You cannot make a new appointment on the day you tested, because scores have to process and report overnight. The bulletin's own example: a candidate who tests unsuccessfully on a Wednesday can call Thursday and retest as early as Friday, subject to seats. Each attempt costs another $49.
Three clocks, and only one of them is the exam fee. The $49 fee is valid one year from the date of payment. Your pre-licensing certificate or education waiver is valid 180 calendar days — and if you have not passed inside that window you must retake the course, not merely rebook. Then, once you pass, OAC 3901-5-09 gives you 180 calendar days to file the application, and it cannot be filed before you pass. That last deadline appears in the rule only; the candidate bulletin never mentions it, so a candidate who reads only PSI's document will not know it exists.
Put in order, the practical consequence is this: the certificate clock is the one that can force you to repeat work, and the post-exam clock is the one that can waste a pass. Paying the exam fee early buys nothing, because the year it is good for is longer than either.
One way to lose the right to retake. OAC 3901-5-05(D) lets the superintendent refuse additional examination attempts or deny licensure outright for cheating, unauthorised materials, or an unauthorised telecommunication device during an exam. PSI's line-of-sight rule means a phone in your pocket is a violation whether or not it rings — the Life & Health guide covers exam-day security in detail.
When you pass. The bulletin describes applying immediately from the kiosk at the examination center, or later through NIPR. If your background check is already running, the kiosk is the fastest path from passing score to issued license. The Life guide owns the application walkthrough.
What It Costs
$49 for Series 11-43, up to $72.25 for the National WebCheck background check, and $10 for the Personal Lines line of authority through NIPR — about $131 on a first-time pass.
The 20-hour course is the separate private cost, and it is where the personal-lines route pays for itself: the combined Property & Casualty path requires two of them. AAI, ARM, CIC, CPCU or an insurance degree waives the coursework on ODI form INS3276 — the Health guide owns the waiver rules, including the lapse history that voids them.
Renewal two years out is $25 by statute, waived for resident individual agents who have met their CE requirement.
Eligibility Requirements
At least 18 (ORC 3905.06(A)(1)(a)); 20 hours of ODI-approved Personal Lines pre-licensing or an approved waiver; a pass on Series 11-43; the ORC 3905.051 National WebCheck criminal records check; and the NIPR application filed inside 180 calendar days of passing.
The background check is valid twelve months and reusable, so if Personal Lines is a first step toward full property and casualty authority, sequence the second application inside the year and skip the second $72.25. The Casualty guide walks the process.
Moving into Ohio holding a personal lines license elsewhere? ORC 3905.041(A) can waive the coursework and the exam together if you apply within 90 days of establishing residence or a principal place of business here and are in good standing for the lines requested. The Property & Casualty guide covers it.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: 24 hours per two-year renewal period including 3 hours of ethics, all of it complete before the renewal can be filed. Personal lines producers who write flood business also owe a one-time 3-hour NFIP course by the end of their first renewal period, counted inside the 24.
24 hours every two years including 3 ethics hours (ORC 3905.481), finished before the renewal is filed by the last day of your birth month. One requirement covers every major line you hold — Personal Lines does not add hours.
If you write flood business, the one-time 3-hour NFIP course is due by the end of your first renewal period and counts inside the 24.
Carryover is limited to 50% of the next period's requirement, general credit only, so it can never satisfy your ethics hours. Repeating a course inside a single period earns credit once.
The Property & Casualty guide owns renewal detail — the $50 late window, automatic suspension on the first day of the second month after your renewal date, the twelve-month $100 reinstatement window and what follows it.
Quick Reference
Official Links
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