The Oregon Casualty Producer License
Casualty is a class of authority at ORS 744.062(1)(d) and PSI examines it separately at series 12-13. It covers liability in all its forms - auto, general liability, professional, workers' compensation, umbrella - and it is the half of P&C that carries the heaviest statutory load in Oregon, because auto and workers' comp are both governed by long, numeric, frequently-amended chapters.
Oregon offers Casualty alone, the combined Property & Casualty paper at 12-04, and the narrower Personal Lines authority at 12-14 for coverage "sold to individuals and families for primarily noncommercial purposes" (ORS 744.062(1)(f)). Casualty alone reaches commercial liability; Personal Lines does not.
To be licensed you must be at least 18, complete 20 hours of pre-licensing for the Casualty line, pass at 70%, be fingerprinted, and file through NIPR before the pre-licensing certificate's one-year anniversary.
Casualty Alone, or the Combined P&C Paper
| Casualty (12-13) | P&C combined (12-04) | |
|---|---|---|
| Scored questions | 100 | 150 |
| Time | 2 hours | 2 hours 40 minutes |
| Exam fee | $45 | $55 |
| Pre-licensing | 20 hours | 40 hours - 20 per line |
| Seconds per scored question | 72 | 64 |
The standalone Casualty paper is the more forgiving clock at 72 seconds a question, and casualty items need the time - a PIP question that names a benefit, a duration and a monthly cap is doing three separate lookups. The combined paper compresses that to 64 seconds while adding property content on top.
Where the combined licence wins is on surplus lines. ORS 735.450 opens that door only to a producer licensed "to transact property and casualty insurance" - not Casualty alone. If the surplus market is anywhere in your plan, the combined paper is the route, and the $10 is irrelevant next to the second 20-hour course you would otherwise pay for later anyway.
Both papers carry 5 to 10 unscored experimental items on top of the scored count.
Most Tested Topics on the Oregon Casualty Exam
Oregon's casualty content is unusually number-dense, and the numbers are scattered across paragraphs rather than gathered in one place - which is exactly how candidates end up attributing the right figure to the wrong benefit. From the TESTivity Oregon regulations curriculum, statute-verified:
| Concept | The Oregon rule |
|---|---|
| Auto minimum liability limits | $25,000 for bodily injury to or death of one person, $50,000 for two or more persons in one accident, $20,000 for property damage - the memorisable shorthand is 25/50/20 (ORS 806.070(2)(a), (b), (c)) |
| PIP, medical | $15,000 in the aggregate, for expenses "incurred within two years after the date of the person's injury." Both the cap and the two-year window are testable, and the window is the half candidates drop (ORS 742.524(1)(a)) |
| PIP, wage loss | 70% of loss of income from work during disability, capped at $3,000 per month and 52 weeks in the aggregate - and it applies only where the disability "continues for at least 14 days" (ORS 742.524(1)(b)) |
| PIP, essential services | $30 per day for up to 52 weeks, for a person not engaged in a remunerative occupation, with the same 14-day qualifying period (ORS 742.524(1)(c)) |
| PIP, funeral | $5,000, for expenses "incurred within one year after the date of the person's injury" - a shorter window than the two-year medical one sitting three paragraphs above it (ORS 742.524(1)(d)) |
| PIP, child care | $25 per day, beginning only after the initial 24 hours of hospitalisation, capped at $750. The most-forgotten benefit in the schedule (ORS 742.524(1)(e)) |
| Uninsured motorist status | Mandatory, not merely offered and rejectable - "Every motor vehicle liability policy... shall provide in the policy or by indorsement... uninsured motorist coverage" (ORS 742.502(1)) |
| UM limits, and how they move | The default is that UM equals the bodily injury liability limits; lower limits require a named insured's written election, and the floor is the ORS 806.070 minimums (ORS 742.502(2)(a)) |
| Underinsured motorist status | Inside uninsured motorist coverage, not beside it - "Uninsured motorist coverage must include underinsurance coverage." There is no separate UIM to accept or reject (ORS 742.502(2)(a)) |
| Workers comp, is it compulsory | Yes, and the duty is framed as maintaining assurance with the Director of DCBS by qualifying either as a carrier-insured employer or as a self-insured employer under ORS 656.407 (ORS 656.017(1)) |
| Workers comp, is Oregon monopolistic | No - Oregon is a competitive state fund jurisdiction. SAIF Corporation is "an independent public corporation" that may insure an Oregon employer "as fully as any private insurance carrier," and it is separately the mandatory carrier for state employees (ORS 656.751(1); 656.752(1); 656.017(2)) |
| Temporary total disability rate | 66 2/3% of wages, bounded in the same subsection by a maximum of 133% of the state average weekly wage and a minimum of the LESSER of 90% of wages a week or $50 a week. The "whichever amount is less" on the floor is the part candidates drop (ORS 656.210(1)) |
| Workers comp waiting period | Three calendar days - no disability payment for temporary disability "suffered during the first three calendar days after the worker leaves work or loses wages," unless total disability then continues for 14 consecutive days or the worker is admitted as a hospital inpatient within 14 days of the first onset (ORS 656.210(3)) |
| Exclusive remedy, and who it shelters | Wider than the employer. The complying employer's liability is "exclusive and in place of all other liability," and the same immunity extends to the employer's insurer, the self-insured employer's claims administrator, DCBS itself, and contracted agents, employees, partners, LLC members, officers and directors. It falls away for willful and unprovoked aggression (ORS 656.018(1)(a), (3)) |
| Negligence rule | Modified comparative with a 51% bar - a claimant recovers only if their fault is not greater than the combined fault of those they sue, so a claimant exactly 50% at fault still recovers (ORS 31.600(1)) |
| Alternative to buying auto liability | Qualified self-insurance for owners of more than 25 registered vehicles - a fleet certificate rather than a policy (ORS 806.130) |
The PIP schedule is where this exam is won and lost, and the reason is structural: five benefits, five different caps, and four different time expressions, all inside one subsection. Two years for medical. Fifty-two weeks for wage loss and for essential services. One year for funeral. Twenty-four hours before child care starts. A candidate who has compressed this to "$15,000 PIP" will miss any item that names a different component.
The 14-day qualifying period is the second trap and it is quieter. It attaches to wage loss and to essential services and to nothing else. An item describing a claimant disabled for ten days is testing whether you know those two benefits never begin - the medical benefit, meanwhile, pays from the first dollar.
On the workers' comp side, the single most valuable correction to national material is that Oregon is not monopolistic. Candidates who have learned the four monopolistic states, or who have heard "state fund" and inferred exclusivity, mark SAIF as the only route. It is one of three, and the statute describing it uses the words "as fully as any private insurance carrier." The related trap is the three-day waiting period, which is expressly in calendar days and has a 14-day escape hatch that pays it back.
Getting Fingerprinted in Oregon, Step by Step
Every applicant for a resident Oregon licence is fingerprinted. DFR puts it plainly: it "conducts fingerprint-based background checks and fitness determinations on all applicants for a resident license." There is no exemption for a clean record, and there is no reusing prints from another state or a former employer.
The fee is $61.25, and Oregon publishes the split. The bulletin breaks it into "the State processing fee of $46.25, and the PSI processing fee of $15.00." It is paid at the site, on the day, by money order, cashier's check, company check, VISA or MasterCard - it is not part of your NIPR checkout and it is not billed later.
Two vendors, and they work differently.
PSI takes prints at Oregon test centres "during regular testing hours, on the day of your examination," and walk-ins are welcome. This is the path most candidates take because it collapses the exam trip and the fingerprint trip into one. DFR publishes a fingerprint-location PDF, and the fingerprint-capable list is not necessarily identical to the full testing list - check it if you are relying on a specific site.
Fieldprint takes them at FieldprintOregon.com, by appointment, using the program code FPORDeptConsumerBusServDAS. That is a single shared code for every Oregon insurance applicant - Oregon does not issue per-applicant codes, so there is nothing to wait for and nothing personal to look up. If you have licensed in a state that issues individual service codes after the application, unlearn that here.
Electronic only. The bulletin is blunt: "Ink cards will not be accepted by the Division." A card taken at a local police department is money spent for nothing.
The order of operations. The bulletin fixes it in one sentence - "Upon passing the examination, the candidate must complete electronic fingerprints, and submit a complete electronic application at https://nipr.com/." So: course, exam, prints, application. Prints come after the exam and before the application, and PSI collapses the middle two into one visit.
Two clocks to know. Processing "may take up to 4 weeks," and that is the leg that gates issuance rather than anything on the NIPR side. And prints expire six months from the date you are printed - which matters if a disclosure question sends your application into review.
You do not need new prints to add a line. The bulletin: "If you have an existing, valid Oregon Insurance License and are testing for another Class of Insurance, you do NOT need to be fingerprinted." Since Oregon puts every line on one licence, adding Casualty to an existing Property licence is a course, an exam and nothing else.
What the Oregon Casualty License Costs
| Item | Amount | Paid to |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-licensing, 20 hours | Varies by school | One of DFR's registered schools |
| Casualty exam (12-13) | $45 per attempt | PSI |
| Fingerprints | $61.25 - $46.25 state, $15.00 PSI | At the site, on the day |
| Initial application | $75 flat, all lines | DFR, through NIPR |
| Renewal, on time | $45 | DFR |
| Renewal, late | $90 | DFR |
The fingerprint fee is the largest single line in an Oregon application after the licence fee itself, and it is the one most often paid twice - once by candidates whose prints expire during a long exam campaign, and once by candidates who take an ink card to a police department first. Neither is recoverable.
Payment at the site takes money order, cashier's check, company check, VISA or MasterCard. Bring one of them; a debit card that will not run as credit is a wasted trip.
Eligibility Requirements
Be at least 18. Complete 20 hours of pre-licensing for the Casualty line. Pass series 12-13 at 70%. Submit electronic fingerprints for a state and national criminal background check. File through NIPR before the pre-licensing certificate expires.
The background check is a fitness determination. A record does not automatically bar a licence; the application's disclosure questions and the documentation you attach are where it is evaluated, and DFR decides.
The property-and-casualty designations in OAR 836-071-0180(7) - AAI, ARM and CIC at three years' experience, ACSR, CPSR and CPIW at two - waive the coursework for this line. The PSI bulletin's parallel list names CPCU instead and includes none of those six. Every one of them waives coursework only; the exam stands.
Keeping the Oregon Casualty License
Important CE details: 24 credit hours of DFR-approved CE per two-year renewal cycle - OAR 836-071-0215(1) states it two ways, "12 hours of continuing education annually or 24 hours in each two-year renewal period." Subsection (2) requires the cycle to INCLUDE at least 3 hours of Oregon statutes and administrative rules and at least 3 hours of professional ethics; they come out of the 24, not on top of it. No more than 4 hours of agency management counts - OAR 836-071-0230(2) caps the office-management subject at four hours a renewal period - and no more than 8 credit hours may be earned in one day. Carryover is barred - OAR 836-071-0225(1)(e) credits an hour only if it was completed during the licence period immediately preceding the renewal date. The 24 is flat and covers every line you hold; it does not stack per line.
Biennial renewal on the last day of your birth month; 24 hours per cycle including at least 3 in professional ethics and at least 3 in Oregon statutes and administrative rules, both drawn from inside the 24.
Casualty is the one main line with no product-specific training gate of its own - annuity suitability attaches to selling annuities and long-term care to selling LTC, and flood attaches to selling flood rather than to any line, so a casualty producer who never writes flood has no product gate at all. That leaves the whole 24 free for line content, which is worth using on the two chapters this exam actually draws from: ORS chapter 742 for auto and ORS chapter 656 for workers' compensation.
The Property & Casualty guide covers renewal timing, the late tiers and the 12-month reinstatement window.
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