What This License Is
A Pennsylvania Casualty and Allied Lines authority covers liability insurance - the obligation to pay for injury or damage you cause someone else. Auto liability, general liability, commercial auto, professional liability, workers' compensation and umbrella all sit here.
Pennsylvania splits Property and Casualty into separate lines with separate exams and offers a combined exam, which is a structure most states do not provide. Property alone (16-04) and Casualty alone (16-05) are $45 each; the combined Property & Casualty exam (16-06) is $55 for both in one sitting. The combined route is $35 cheaper and one fewer morning.
This is the harder half of the pair, and it is where Pennsylvania's own law bites hardest. Property questions turn on policy forms that look much the same anywhere; casualty questions turn on the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law, the comparative-negligence bar and the Workers' Compensation Act - all Pennsylvania's own.
If your practice will be personal auto and homeowners for individuals rather than businesses, look at Personal Lines (16-16) first - one exam covering property and casualty for noncommercial risks. Casualty as a standalone line is for producers writing liability for businesses.
Exam Options & Format
Series 16-05: 100 scored questions in 2 hours at $45, plus five to ten unscored experimental items folded into the same clock. Passing is a flat 70%.
No attempt cap and no fixed waiting period - only the same-day rebooking restriction. PSI's example is a Wednesday failure calling Thursday and retesting Friday. A passing result is good for one year.
A CPCU or CIC waives this exam outright (40 P.S. 310.4(d)). With pre-licensing repealed in April 2025, that waiver now clears the entire remaining requirement - the Life & Health guide sets out the full table.
Test at a PSI centre - the Property guide lists all eleven Pennsylvania sites - or by Remote Proctored modality, covered in the Accident & Health guide.
Most Tested Topics on the Pennsylvania Casualty Exam
Pennsylvania's auto system is unlike anything in the national curriculum, and the state's workers' compensation rules attach from the first employee. These are checked against the statutes:
| Concept | The Pennsylvania rule |
|---|---|
| Auto liability system | Choice no-fault under the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law. Every driver elects full tort (unrestricted right to sue for pain and suffering) or limited tort (a lower premium, giving up that right except for serious injury and the statutory exceptions) - 75 Pa.C.S. 1705 |
| The default election | Full tort. If the insured fails to specially elect limited tort, the Department's guidance is that they "will be deemed to have elected full tort" - the more protective option is the fallback |
| Liability minimums | 15/30/5 - $15,000 bodily injury per person, $30,000 per accident, $5,000 property damage. A combined single limit of $35,000 satisfies both minimums where an insurer offers it |
| First-party medical benefit | Mandatory $5,000 minimum, paid regardless of fault. This is Pennsylvania's PIP analogue, and the minimum has not changed |
| Other first-party benefits | Income loss, accidental death benefit, funeral benefits, and extraordinary medical benefits of up to $1.1 million for expenses exceeding $100,000 |
| Stacking | UM and UIM limits stack across insured vehicles by default - three cars at $50,000 each combine to $150,000 - unless the named insured signs an anti-stacking waiver for a lower premium |
| Uninsured and underinsured motorist | Must be offered, and rejectable only in writing - a signed, dated waiver on a separate form (75 Pa.C.S. 1731) |
| Negligence rule | Modified comparative with a 51% bar - a claimant recovers only if their negligence is not greater than the defendant's, so a claimant at exactly 50% still recovers, and the award is reduced by their share (42 Pa.C.S. 7102) |
| Workers' comp, who must carry it | Nearly every employer, from the first employee - including seasonal and part-time workers, nonprofits, unincorporated businesses and single-employee firms. Pennsylvania sets no numeric threshold |
| Workers' comp, waiting period | 7 days. Benefits begin on the eighth day after injury - and the first seven become payable retroactively only once the worker has been off work 14 days |
| Workers' comp, wage loss | About two-thirds of the average weekly wage, subject to a statewide maximum that resets annually; lower earners receive a higher percentage |
| Workers' comp, how to comply | Buy from a private carrier, buy from the State Workers' Insurance Fund (SWIF) - Pennsylvania's competitive state fund - or qualify as an approved self-insurer. Pennsylvania is not a monopolistic state |
| Guaranty payouts on an insolvent casualty carrier | PPCIGA pays up to $300,000 per claimant, with unearned premium returns capped separately at $10,000 per policy |
The tort election is the single most-tested Pennsylvania topic on any line, and the part people miss is the default. Everyone learns that full tort costs more and limited tort costs less. Fewer learn that doing nothing gets you full tort - the statute deems a non-electing insured to have chosen the unrestricted right to sue. A question describing a driver who never returned the election form is testing exactly that, and the intuitive "they get the cheaper option" answer is wrong.
Stacking is the second Pennsylvania signature, and it runs the opposite way from what candidates expect. In most states you buy up coverage; in Pennsylvania you already have stacked UM/UIM across your vehicles and must sign it away to save money. The waiver is the affirmative act, not the coverage.
On the 51% bar, be precise, because "51%" is shorthand for a comparison. The statute asks whether the claimant's negligence is greater than the defendant's. Fifty-fifty recovers - half the damages. Fifty-one to forty-nine recovers nothing.
And the workers' compensation threshold: most states set a floor of three, four or five employees, and national prep teaches the concept of a threshold. Pennsylvania has none. A question about a two-person shop is testing that reflex, and coverage is required.
Fingerprinting, and Why the Order Matters
Pennsylvania fingerprints initial resident producer applicants - and it sequences the step in a way that punishes anyone who does it early. Pass the exam, file the application, and only then book the appointment.
The rule, in the Department's own words: "Do not register for a fingerprinting appointment and submit fingerprints until after you have passed any examination requirements and applied for licensure." PSI's bulletin repeats it and then explains the consequence: "Any fingerprint results received without a corresponding license application will be destroyed, and individuals will be required to repay the fingerprinting fee and resubmit their fingerprints at an IdentoGO center."
That is unusual and worth dwelling on. In most fingerprint states the prints are an independent errand you can run whenever convenient - some states even prefer them early so the background check clears while the application is processed. Pennsylvania matches results to an application on file, and anything unmatched is destroyed rather than held. Not delayed, not queued. Destroyed, with the fee gone.
Step 1 - Pass your exam. Series 16-05 for this line.
Step 2 - File the licence application through Sircon or NIPR, ideally at the test-centre kiosk before you leave. The Life guide walks the application through.
Step 3 - Now register with IdentoGO at uenroll.identogo.com or 844-321-2101, under Insurance Department service code 1KGBGJ. That code is the standard resident producer code and it is universal - Pennsylvania does not issue a per-applicant code the way some states do. (Note that temporary-licence applicants use a different code, 1KG8Q3, so do not reach for that one by mistake.)
Step 4 - Pay at the centre, after your prints are taken. PID and PSI both specify credit card, debit card, certified check or money order only - and neither publishes the amount. We are not going to invent one; ask when you register, and budget in the range other states charge for a combined state and FBI check.
Who is exempt. Fingerprinting reaches initial resident producer applicants and title agents. The bulletin states that "fingerprints are not required" for motor vehicle physical damage appraisers, nonresident public adjusters, viatical settlement brokers, surplus lines applicants, or anyone adding a qualification to an existing licence. So if you already hold a Pennsylvania producer licence and are adding Casualty to it, you are not printed again.
One honest gap: the Department does not publish how long a completed fingerprint result stays valid. If a long delay opens up between your prints and a licence issuing, ask rather than assume.
What It Costs
About $100 in published fees on a first-time pass: $45 to PSI for the exam and $55 to the Department with a resident application. Plus the IdentoGO fee, which is genuinely unpublished.
If you are building toward a full property and casualty licence, note what does not double. Two lines mean two exam fees - or $55 for the combined 16-06, which is cheaper than either pair - but one $55 licence fee and one fingerprint appointment, because Pennsylvania issues a single producer licence listing whatever lines you hold. Adding a line to an existing licence carries PID's $25 additional-line-of-authority fee rather than a fresh $55.
Retakes are $45 with no attempt cap, and fees are non-refundable and non-transferable. Since April 2025 there is no course to buy, which makes Pennsylvania one of the least expensive states in the country to enter.
Eligibility Requirements
Be 18 or older, commit no prohibited act, pass Series 16-05 or hold a CPCU or CIC that waives it, and satisfy the Department as to "general fitness, competence and reliability" under 40 P.S. 310.6(a). No pre-licensing course, and no statutory Pennsylvania-residence or English-literacy requirement.
If you have a criminal history, the Department runs an optional Pre-Licensing Program that pre-screens it and advises how your circumstances are likely to be treated - worth using before you spend $45. Despite the name it is a criminal-record review, not an education programme; the education requirement no longer exists.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: Twenty-four credits every two years, with a flood-insurance component that attaches to a property and casualty line of authority. Transcripts run through Sircon.
Two-year licence, expiring the last day of your birth month, and 24 credit hours per cycle with at least three in ethics.
Casualty authority pulls in the flood requirement. Act 142 of 2024 requires at least 2 of the 24 credits to be flood insurance for a licensee with a property and casualty line of authority. It sits inside the 24, not on top - so it displaces two general-topic hours rather than lengthening the cycle.
Both mandated topics arrived with the same act that repealed pre-licensing, effective 29 April 2025, which is the shape of the trade Pennsylvania made: no education before your first sale, more prescribed education for as long as you hold the licence.
Carryover is a full cycle's worth - up to 24 excess credits into the next period. The Property & Casualty guide covers renewal, the late-renewal tiers and the one-year point at which the path back closes.
Quick Reference
Official Links
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