The Oregon Property and Casualty Producer License
Property and Casualty are separate classes of authority in Oregon - ORS 744.062(1)(c) and (1)(d) - and PSI sells a combined examination at series 12-04 that qualifies you for both. It is the widest producer authority Oregon sells, and the only route to something a narrower licence cannot reach: surplus lines, which ORS 735.450 opens only to a producer licensed "to transact property and casualty insurance."
The narrower alternatives are real and worth knowing: Property alone (12-12) and Casualty alone (12-13) each cost $45 and 20 hours, and Personal Lines (12-14) is a separate class at ORS 744.062(1)(f) limited to coverage "sold to individuals and families for primarily noncommercial purposes." None of the three opens surplus lines.
This guide owns reciprocity - what happens when you arrive in Oregon already licensed - and renewal, which is the part of an Oregon licence most likely to cost you money through pure timing.
The Combined Paper, or the Pieces
| P&C combined (12-04) | Property (12-12) | Casualty (12-13) | Personal Lines (12-14) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scored questions | 150 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| Time | 2h 40m | 2 hours | 2 hours | 2 hours |
| Fee | $55 | $45 | $45 | $45 |
| Pre-licensing | 40 hours | 20 hours | 20 hours | 20 hours |
| Commercial risks | Yes | Property half | Casualty half | No |
| Opens surplus lines | Yes | No | No | No |
Taken as two separate papers, Property plus Casualty costs $90 against $55 for the combined exam, and the coursework is 40 hours either way - Oregon counts pre-licensing per line of authority, so the combined paper consolidates the exam and not the classroom. On that arithmetic the combined route wins on price and loses only on pace: 64 seconds per scored question against 72.
The case for splitting is risk management rather than money. Two papers let you fail one line without retaking the other, and each attempt costs $45 rather than $55. On a 150-question paper with a 70% cut score you can afford 45 wrong answers; the question is whether your weaker half would drag the stronger one under.
All four papers carry 5 to 10 unscored experimental items on top of the scored count.
Most Tested Topics on the Oregon Property and Casualty Exam
The combined paper draws on both chapters, but the material that is distinctively Oregon's - and that this guide owns - clusters around the guaranty association, the regulator's powers, and the claim-handling rules that bind producers as well as carriers. From the TESTivity Oregon regulations curriculum, statute-verified:
| Concept | The Oregon rule |
|---|---|
| P&C guaranty association | The Oregon Insurance Guaranty Association, ORS 734.510 to 734.710. It pays covered claims existing at the time of, or arising within 30 days after, a determination of insolvency (ORS 734.570(1)) |
| P&C per-claim cap, and the 2025 change | Two caps, split by the date the INSOLVENCY is determined. An insolvency between 9 September 1971 and 31 December 2024: the obligation is "only the amount of the covered claim that is less than $300,000" - strictly less, so a $300,000 claim falls outside the band. An insolvency on or after 1 January 2025: the obligation "may not exceed $600,000" - inclusive, so $600,000 exactly is payable. Note the trigger is the insolvency, not the date of loss (ORS 734.570(1)(a), (b), as amended by 2025 c.20 s.5) |
| Workers compensation, uncapped | Both caps are switched off for it: "the association shall pay the full amount of any covered claim that arises out of a workers' compensation policy, less any amount the Workers' Benefit Fund pays" (ORS 734.570(1)(c)) |
| Where Oregon puts the money, P&C | Split across two sections, which is what catches people. The dollar cap is in the obligations section, ORS 734.570(1). The $25 million net-worth exclusion for first-party claims is in the definition of covered claim, ORS 734.510(4)(b). Compare the life and health side, where every limit sits in the obligations section (ORS 734.570(1); 734.510(4)(b); contrast ORS 734.810(11)(b)) |
| Assessment ceiling | Assessments on member insurers are proportional to net direct written premiums and "shall in no event exceed in any one year two percent of the member insurer's net direct written premiums" (ORS 734.570(3)) |
| Guaranty as a sales pitch | Prohibited - using the existence of the association, or its website, to advertise or induce the purchase of insurance (ORS 734.890) |
| The regulator | The Division of Financial Regulation, a division of the Department of Consumer and Business Services. There is no Oregon "Department of Insurance," and the Insurance Commissioner - who is also the DFR Administrator - is appointed, never elected (ORS chapters 731-750; OAR chapter 836) |
| Maximum civil penalty, producer | $1,000 for each offense, and each violation is a separate offense. The general ceiling in the same subsection is $10,000, but the sentence that follows carves out individuals: "The civil penalty for individual insurance producers, adjusters or insurance consultants may not exceed $1,000 for each offense" (ORS 731.988(1)) |
| Unfair claim settlement, single act or pattern | Both tests exist, in adjoining subsections. ORS 746.230(1) opens "An insurer or other person may not commit or perform any of the following" and lists fourteen practices with no frequency qualifier - one act is enough, and it reaches producers and adjusters. The "general business practice" standard lives only in 746.230(2), a separate and narrower offense scoped to "No insurer" (ORS 746.230(1), (2)) |
| Who the claim rules bind | Wider than the carrier: "'Insurer' includes any person authorized to represent the insurer with respect to a claim who is acting within the scope of the person's authority." Every clock below reaches an adjuster or producer doing claim work (OAR 836-080-0210(4)) |
| Are the claim clocks business days? | No - calendar days. OAR 836-080-0210 is a definitions rule with eight defined terms and "day" is not among them. The drafting confirms it: elsewhere in the same body of rules Oregon writes "five business days" (OAR 836-080-0034) and "30 business days" (OAR 836-052-0770) when it means them (OAR 836-080-0210) |
| Acknowledge a claim | 30 days - "Not later than the 30th day after receipt of notification of claim, acknowledge the notification or pay" (OAR 836-080-0225(1)) |
| Respond to the Director | 21 days after receipt of an inquiry from the Director - a shorter clock than any of the consumer-facing ones (OAR 836-080-0225(2)) |
| Complete the investigation | 45 days after receipt of notification of claim, "unless the investigation cannot reasonably be completed within that time" (OAR 836-080-0230) |
| Accept or deny | 30 days after receipt of properly executed proofs of loss from a first party claimant. Note what the rule requires: advising of acceptance or denial, not payment (OAR 836-080-0235(1)) |
| Keep the claimant informed | 45 days from the initial delay notice, "and every 45 days thereafter while the investigation remains incomplete" (OAR 836-080-0235(4)) |
| Filing a producer appointment | There is no deadline - Oregon uses a maintain-a-list model. "Each insurer shall maintain a current list of insurance producers contractually authorized to accept applications on behalf of the insurer. Each insurer shall make the list available to the director upon request." One licence carries unlimited appointments, and ORS 744.078(4) makes the agent-of-the-insurer rule statutory and non-waivable (ORS 744.078(2), (3), (4)) |
| Reporting a terminated producer | A 30-15-30 ladder, and only for cause. The insurer notifies the Director not later than the 30th day after the effective date, but only where the reason is an ORS 744.074 ground; within 15 days after that it mails a copy to the producer; the producer then has 30 days from receipt to file written comments that join the Director's file. A no-fault termination is not reportable at all (ORS 744.079(1), (3), (4)) |
| Ending an appointment | 90 days' written notice with reasons - excused where the licence is revoked or restricted, the agency is sold or merged, the producer is insolvent or fails to remit balances, the producer commits fraud or intentional misconduct, the insurer drops the class or leaves Oregon, or by mutual agreement (ORS 744.081(1), (2)) |
The guaranty cap is the highest-value item on this page and the one most likely to be wrong in whatever else you are studying. Oregon doubled it, effective for insolvencies from 1 January 2025, and the change is not yet reflected in several widely-used legal databases. Two things make it examinable beyond the number: the trigger is when the insurer was declared insolvent, not when the loss happened, and the two caps use different operators - the old one is "less than $300,000" and the new one is "may not exceed $600,000," so exactly $600,000 is payable where exactly $300,000 was not.
The $1,000 producer penalty is the second. ORS 731.988(1) leads with $10,000, and a candidate who stops reading at the first dollar figure answers a producer question with an insurer's number. The carve-out sentence is one line further down.
Third, who the unfair-claim rules reach. Oregon is a single-act state under ORS 746.230(1), and that subsection says "an insurer or other person." Pair it with OAR 836-080-0210(4), which folds anyone representing the insurer on a claim into the word "insurer," and the conclusion an exam is testing is that a producer handling a claim is personally inside every clock and every prohibited practice.
Bringing an Existing License Into Oregon
Oregon grants very few true examination waivers, and the difference between a coursework waiver and an exam waiver decides most of what follows. Every designation and experience route in the state - the fifteen designations in OAR 836-071-0180(7), the CLU and CPCU in the PSI bulletin, the three-years-experience and insurance-degree routes on Form 2493 - waives coursework only. The Life & Health guide sets those out in full.
These are the four situations where Oregon actually takes the exam off the table:
1. The 90-day relocation waiver. The bulletin: "If you were previously licensed in another state, you need not complete any education or examination requirements if you are applying for the same lines authority and your application is received no more than 90 days after the cancellation of your license in the other state and the establishment of your Oregon residency." DFR states the same window as "within 90 days after surrendering your previous resident license."
Read the three conditions as a set, because all of them bind. Same lines - a Property & Casualty licence elsewhere does not waive an Oregon Life exam. Ninety days from the cancellation of the prior resident licence. And Oregon residency actually established, not merely intended. NIPR adds the part candidates most often miss - it states as a general applicant requirement that "the applicant must also submit fingerprints completed through an Oregon authorized vendor," and nothing in the waiver displaces it. The relocation waiver does not waive the prints.
2. Non-resident licensure. "If you are already a licensed agent or broker in your home state, you are exempt from the prelicensing education and examination requirements." A non-resident licence rests on your home-state credentials, applies through NIPR, and carries no Oregon fingerprint requirement.
3. Reinstatement within 12 months. ORS 744.072(6) lets a lapsed Oregon licensee "apply to the director to reinstate the same license within 12 months from the due date for renewal" - without re-examination, on payment of the doubled fee and completion of the CE. Past 12 months the statute does not spell out the consequence; the clear implication is that the exam waiver is gone, but ORS 744.072 does not say so in terms, so do not treat the answer past a year as published.
4. Lines that carry no examination at all. Per NIPR, Oregon requires no exam for Variable Lines, Credit, Crop, Travel, Surety, Title, Managing General Agent, or Reinsurance Intermediary Broker and Manager. The exam-required lines are Life, Health, Property, Casualty, Personal Lines and Surplus Lines.
Continuing education travels differently from licensure. A non-resident satisfies Oregon's CE by meeting their home state's requirement - Oregon does not run a parallel 24 hours at people already doing it elsewhere.
Consultants are a separate class, not a producer variant: no pre-licensing, no CE, and a $500,000 per occurrence errors-and-omissions requirement at renewal that producers do not carry.
Renewing an Oregon License, and the Timing That Costs People Money
The term. A resident individual licence is biennial, expiring on the last day of your birth month. ORS 744.072(1) sets it structurally rather than by calendar: the renewal fee "is due on the last day of the month in which the second anniversary of the initial issuance date of the license occurs and on the second anniversary following each renewal," and the licence "remains in effect unless revoked or suspended as long as all applicable fees are paid by the due date." Business entities are different - agency licences expire two years from the month the licence was first issued, on the last day of that month.
The fees. $45 on time, $90 late. The $90 is not an arbitrary penalty: ORS 744.072 requires "an amount for the reinstatement that is equal to double the unpaid renewal fee for any renewal fee paid after the due date," and double $45 is exactly what DFR's fee table prints. Address, affiliation and name changes carry no fee.
Reinstatement. ORS 744.072(6) allows a lapsed licence to be reinstated within 12 months of the renewal due date without retaking the examination, on payment of the doubled fee. Beyond 12 months the statute is silent, so treat the consequence as unpublished rather than assuming a rule.
The CE. 24 hours per two-year 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 including recent changes, at least 3 hours of professional ethics, and for a producer who sells flood, at least 2 hours of flood coursework. All three come out of the 24 rather than sitting on top. No more than 4 hours of agency management counts - OAR 836-071-0230(2) caps the "office management, client relations or improving the operations of the insurance producer's business" subject at four hours a renewal period - and no more than 8 credit hours may be earned in any one day.
Carryover is barred, and there is a rule that says so. OAR 836-071-0225(1)(e) credits an hour "only if the hour for which credit is taken was completed during the license period immediately preceding the renewal date." Overshooting one cycle buys nothing for the next.
The timing trap, which is the real subject of this section. CE must already appear on your transcript before a renewal will process. But providers have 15 days to post credits - "not later than the 15th day after the date on which an insurance producer completes a course" - and DFR warns that transcript updates take at least another 24 hours to register with NIPR. So finishing your last course a week before your birth month ends is not finishing on time. DFR says it plainly: "If you wait until the last minute, your renewal will be late." That is how a producer who did all 24 hours pays the $90.
Renewal notices go out roughly 90 days before expiration; DFR advises calling if nothing has arrived 30 days out. Renewal is filed through NIPR, which is where DFR points licensees; Sircon also handles Oregon renewals.
Where CE actually lives. DFR approves courses and providers directly - the approval authority is the Division itself, not a vendor. Delivery runs on NAIC State Based Systems (SBS), where providers submit rosters at $1 per credit hour per student and producers look up transcripts and courses. Course registration requests must reach DFR 60 days before the course date. PSI has no CE role in Oregon - its scope is examinations and fingerprint capture - and neither does Prometric, which runs CE in other states and is a common source of cross-state error. Independent-study CE requires a proctored exam, and proctors register with DFR on Form 3127.
What the Oregon Property and Casualty License Costs
| Item | Amount | Paid to |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-licensing, 40 hours (20 per line) | Varies by school | DFR-registered schools |
| P&C exam (12-04) | $55 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 |
| Address / affiliation / name change | No fee | DFR |
Against two single-line exams at $45 each, the combined paper saves $35 and one trip. It saves nothing on coursework - 40 hours either way - so the pre-licensing spend, which DFR prices only as "varies by school," is the number that actually decides your total.
The $90 late renewal is the most avoidable expense in an Oregon licensing career, and it is usually a scheduling failure rather than a CE failure. See the renewal section above for why the 15-day provider posting window means "finished my hours" and "renewed on time" are not the same date.
Eligibility Requirements
Be at least 18. Complete 20 hours of pre-licensing for each of the Property and Casualty lines - 40 in total - unless a designation or experience exemption reaches you. Pass series 12-04 at 70%. Submit electronic fingerprints; ink cards are not accepted. File through NIPR before the pre-licensing certificate's one-year anniversary.
If you are arriving from another state, read the reciprocity section above before you enrol in anything - the 90-day relocation waiver takes both the coursework and the exam off the table, and it is the only route in Oregon that does both.
ORS 744.074 lists seventeen grounds for refusal, suspension or revocation, including (1)(L) improper use of notes or reference material in an examination, (1)(o) failing to pay a final civil penalty, and (1)(q) failing to comply with continuing education. Subsection (3) reaches business entities where a violation was known to partners or officers and neither reported nor corrected, and ORS 744.994 means an expired or surrendered licence does not end a disciplinary proceeding already running.
CE at a Glance
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. A producer who sells, solicits or negotiates flood needs a one-time 3-hour NFIP course and 2 hours per renewal cycle, counted inside the 24. The gate binds by conduct, not by line of authority.
The full mechanics - the term, the fees, the reinstatement window, the 15-day posting lag and where Oregon actually administers CE - are in the renewal section above, which this guide owns.
The short version: 24 hours per two-year cycle ending the last day of your birth month, including at least 3 in professional ethics and at least 3 in Oregon statutes and administrative rules, with no carryover and no more than 8 hours in a day.
The product gate most likely to reach this licence is flood: a producer selling, soliciting or negotiating flood insurance needs a one-time NFIP course of at least 3 credit hours and 2 hours per renewal cycle. Note that Oregon attaches it to the conduct rather than to a line of authority - DFR writes it as "each producer" and OAR 836-071-0215(2)(c) as "a producer that negotiates, sells, or solicits flood insurance" - so a narrower P&C licensee is caught by it too.
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