The Rhode Island Casualty Producer License
Casualty is the fourth line of authority at R.I. Gen. Laws section 27-2.4-9(a)(4), and Rhode Island examines it separately from Property. There is no combined Property & Casualty paper in the state, so the two lines are two credentials - and the handbook tells first-time candidates for property and casualty authority that they "MUST register for both the Property Producer and Casualty Producer exam."
The Rhode Island section of this paper is the heaviest of the five. Thirty-two of the eighty-two scored questions come from the Rhode Island Specific outline, against thirty on Life and Accident and Health, twenty-six on Property and twenty-five on Personal Lines. Casualty carries the most state-specific weight because it reaches the two bodies of Rhode Island law that diverge most from a national syllabus: motor vehicle insurance under chapter 27-7 and chapter 31-47, and workers' compensation under title 28.
Two structural facts about Rhode Island motor vehicle law are worth fixing before anything else. Rhode Island is a tort state with no personal injury protection - despite chapter 31-47 being titled the "Motor Vehicle Reparations Act," which reads no-fault and is not. And Rhode Island applies pure comparative negligence, so a claimant's recovery is reduced by their share of fault and never barred by it, even at ninety-nine percent.
The casualty licence is also the gateway to the surplus lines market, which this guide owns. Rhode Island's surplus lines law survives as a handful of sections after almost all of chapter 27-3 was repealed, and the diligent-search rule that governs every placement lives in two instruments at once - a fact the Surplus Lines section below works through, because citing only one of them misses half the rule.
The Rhode Island Casualty Exam: Format, Fees and Pacing
Exam code 04, two hours, $80. Two content outlines feed it: a Casualty General Knowledge outline of "50 scoreable questions plus 5 pretest questions" and a Casualty Rhode Island Specific outline of "32 scoreable questions plus 6 pretest questions." That is 82 scored and 11 pretest, 93 items, at roughly 77 seconds an item across everything on the screen.
Casualty is the busiest of the four two-hour papers. Property, Life and Accident and Health share the same 1 hour 15 minutes plus 45 minutes allotment and carry 87, 90 and 90 items; Casualty carries 93 in the same time. Only Personal Lines is tighter per item, at about 74 seconds - and it gets an extra fifteen minutes for the privilege. The counts are sums of printed outline sections rather than figures Pearson VUE publishes as totals, and every pace on this site is computed on all items, scored and pretest together.
| Paper | Code | Scored | Pretest | Items | Time | Pace |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Property | 03 | 76 | 11 | 87 | 2:00 | ~83 s |
| Life | 01 | 80 | 10 | 90 | 2:00 | ~80 s |
| Accident & Health | 02 | 80 | 10 | 90 | 2:00 | ~80 s |
| Casualty | 04 | 82 | 11 | 93 | 2:00 | ~77 s |
| Personal Lines | 55 | 100 | 10 | 110 | 2:15 | ~74 s |
Take Property in the same session. The Available Examinations table prints the discount in its fee column heading - "Test Center Exam Fees* (If scheduled back to back, buy one get one free)" - with the asterisk resolving to "* Candidates can register for two exams in one session (i.e. Property & Casualty)," and a separate note permitting "two major lines or two limited lines or one major and one limited line exam in one test session." Two papers, two lines, one $80 - and no separate fee to add the second line to the licence, because 230-RICR-20-50-5's schedule contains no add-a-line charge at all.
Passing is a scaled 70. "The scaled score that is reported to you is neither the number of questions you answered correctly nor the percentage of questions you answered correctly." Seventy percent of eighty-two is 57.4 questions, and that number has nothing to do with passing this paper.
Most Tested Topics on the Rhode Island Casualty Exam
Thirty-two of the eighty-two scored questions are Rhode Island-specific - more than any other producer paper the state publishes. Motor vehicle coverage and workers' compensation are where those questions live, and both bodies of law reward reading a sentence to its end.
| Concept | The Rhode Island rule | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Compulsory auto liability limits | 25/50/25, with a $75,000 combined single limit alternative. The pin cite is four levels deep - section 31-47-2 alone is not a citation to the limits | 31-47-2(13)(i)(A) |
| Fault system | Tort, with no personal injury protection and no mandatory medical payments coverage. The "Reparations Act" title is a trap | 31-47 |
| Negligence doctrine | PURE comparative negligence - recovery is reduced by the claimant's share of fault and is never barred, even at 99 percent | 9-20-4 |
| Underinsured motorist - one provision or two? | One. "For the purposes of this section 'uninsured motorist' shall include an underinsured motorist," and the trigger is damages-based: liability coverage "less than the limits or damages that persons insured pursuant to this section are legally entitled to recover" | 27-7-2.1(g) |
| Uninsured motorist bodily injury - can it be rejected? | No. It must be provided "in an amount equal to the insured's bodily injury liability limits," and the named insured may only "select a limit in writing less than" that, never below the compulsory minimums | 27-7-2.1(a) |
| The one route to zero | Only where the named insured "is purchasing only the minimum coverage required by compulsory insurance provisions," and then only "after signing an advisory notice approved by the director of business regulation" | 27-7-2.1(a) |
| Uninsured motorist PROPERTY damage - the opposite rule | Rejectable in writing; and "if the named insured has collision coverage ... then no coverage for uninsured motorist property damage shall be required" unless the insured chooses to buy it | 27-7-2.1(b) |
| UMPD deductible | $200 per claim unless otherwise agreed | 27-7-2.1(e) |
| Must you sue the tortfeasor first? | No - a claimant "shall not be required to make a claim against or bring an action against the uninsured or underinsured tortfeasor as a prerequisite" | 27-7-2.1(h) |
| Stacking | Expressly permitted. Where two or more separate premiums were paid, the insured may collect up to the aggregate for all vehicles insured, "regardless of any language in the policy to the contrary" | 27-7-2.1(i) |
| Auto cancellation - the grounds | Seven, at section 2.4(A): nonpayment; licence or registration suspension, revocation or cancellation; fraudulent misrepresentation in obtaining insurance; violation of policy terms; specified medical conditions without a physician's certificate; three or more traffic violations within 18 months; and specified criminal convictions | 230-RICR-20-05-2 s.2.4(A) |
| The 60-day new-business rule, and its exception | Grounds-based cancellation applies "Effective sixty (60) days after the inception date of a policy, or if the policy is a renewal, effective immediately." A renewal has no 60-day shelter | 230-RICR-20-05-2 s.2.4(A) |
| Rating lookback on accidents and violations | 3 years, and it is ROLLING - only events "that have occurred within three (3) years of the most recent accident or moving or other chargeable violation." The section reaches motor vehicle policies only and is not a not-at-fault surcharge ban | 27-9-53 |
| Workers' comp waiting period | 3 days, and "if the incapacity extends beyond the period of three (3) days, compensation shall begin on the fourth day from the date of injury" | 28-33-4 |
| Workers' comp wage replacement | 62 percent of average weekly BASE wages for injuries on or after 1 January 2022. The older 75 percent applied to average weekly SPENDABLE base wages, for injuries on or before 31 December 2021 - the base changed with the rate | 28-33-17(a) |
| Workers' comp maximum | 125 percent of the state average weekly wage, rounded up to the next whole dollar if not an exact multiple | 28-33-17(a) |
| Dependants' allowance | $25 a week for each person wholly dependent on the employee, raised from $15 effective 1 January 2025 - with the aggregate of those amounts capped at 80 percent of the average weekly wage | 28-33-17(c)(1) |
| Exclusive remedy, and its two exceptions | Compensation is "in lieu of all rights and remedies" against the employer "or its directors, officers, agents, or employees" - so co-employee suits are barred - "except as otherwise provided in sections 28-36-10 and 28-36-15" | 28-29-20 |
| Deadline to claim workers' compensation | 2 years from the occurrence or manifestation of the injury or incapacity, or from death, with a discovery rule for latent conditions - and no time limit at all where the employer or insurer failed to file the required notices after paying weekly compensation | 28-35-57 |
Spend real time on the uninsured motorist rules, because both of the sentences people remember about them are wrong. "Rhode Island uninsured motorist coverage is mandatory and cannot be rejected" is wrong, because subsection (a) lets the named insured select a lower limit in writing. "Rhode Island uninsured motorist coverage may be rejected in writing" is also wrong, because the floor is the compulsory 25/50/25 and the only way past it is the narrow minimum-limits-plus-advisory-notice route. The accurate statement has three parts: provided by default at the bodily-injury limits, reducible in writing to the statutory minimums, and reducible to zero only on the one condition.
Then invert everything for property damage. Subsection (b) is a genuinely different regime in the same section: uninsured motorist property damage is rejectable in writing outright, and is not required at all where the insured carries collision. A candidate who learns "Rhode Island UM" as a single rule will answer the property-damage question with the bodily-injury answer. Two limbs, two rules, one section.
On the compensation side the trap is the base rather than the number. Rhode Island moved from seventy-five percent of average weekly spendable base wages to sixty-two percent of average weekly base wages for injuries on or after 1 January 2022. Both halves changed. A course that teaches "Rhode Island pays seventy-five percent" is wrong twice over - wrong percentage and wrong basis - and the two-limb structure means the older figure is still the right answer for an old injury.
The Rhode Island Surplus Lines Path
Start with a warning about the chapter, because almost all of it is gone. Chapter 27-3 has been repealed section by section down to a handful. Sections 27-3-1 through 27-3-37 are all marked [Repealed], as are 27-3-39, 27-3-43 through 27-3-51 and, separately, the whole of chapter 27-75, the Surplus Lines Insurance Multi-State Compliance Compact. What survives is seven sections: 27-3-38, 27-3-38.1, 27-3-38.2, 27-3-38.3, 27-3-40, 27-3-41 and 27-3-42. Almost all of the operative law is packed into the first of them, whose catchline names five separate subjects at once - so a pin cite must go to a subsection.
The licence is a separate licence, and it is discretionary. Section 27-3-38(a): "The insurance commissioner may issue a surplus line broker's license to any person authorizing the licensee to procure, subject to the restrictions provided in this section, policies of insurance." Note both halves - may, and subject to the restrictions in the section. The fee is $100 initial and $100 on biennial renewal under 230-RICR-20-50-5, and NIPR's Rhode Island pages require a surplus lines applicant to hold or apply for Property and Casualty in Rhode Island. This licence sits on top of producer authority rather than replacing it.
The diligent search is three declinations, and the requirement lives in two instruments. The statute puts it in the affidavit: section 27-3-38(c) requires the affidavit to show inability to obtain "from no less than three (3) admitted insurers the full amount of insurance required." The regulation puts it in a defined term: 230-RICR-20-50-1 section 1.3 defines "Diligent effort" as "submission of the risk(s) by the Broker, or a licensed Producer working with the Broker, to no fewer than three (3) Licensed Insurers." Same number, different vocabulary - the statute says admitted, the rule says Licensed - and different jobs. Cite both. Citing only the statute misses the defined term, the documentation rule and the retention period; citing only the rule misses the affidavit mandate.
What the affidavit has to contain, and how long the file lives. Section 1.6(B) requires "A statement by the surplus line broker identifying the three insurers that declined the risk" - names, not a count. Retention runs "for a period of three (3) years following the expiration of the policy sold," and the duty to keep the file falls on the broker or the licensed producer working with the broker. Two different three-year figures are floating in this material and they are unrelated: three insurers, and three years of retention. Do not cross them.
The premium tax is four percent, and the base has a subtraction in it. Section 27-3-38(e) imposes "four percent (4%) on the gross premiums charged the insured by the insurers, less the amount of premiums returned to the insured." Quote the less clause or the number is wrong. Two more details about that tax catch people: it is payable to the tax administrator, not to the Insurance Commissioner, and it falls due at insurance producer licence renewal - which is why a surplus lines broker's renewal date is a tax date as well.
Independently procured insurance shifts the duty. Section 27-3-38.1 is titled "Insurance independently procured - Duty to report and pay tax," and the duty there falls on the insured who went and bought the coverage rather than on any broker. It is a separate section for a reason.
The purchaser notice is mandatory and goes on three documents, not one. Section 27-3-38(f) requires the notice on application forms, affidavits and policies, stating that the insurer is "NOT A MEMBER OF THE RHODE ISLAND INSURERS INSOLVENCY FUND" and that guaranty protection is unavailable on insolvency. That name is worth noticing: the Insolvency Fund is the same body the Property and Casualty guide calls the Rhode Island Property and Casualty Insurance Guaranty Association. Both names are live in Rhode Island law, and the surplus lines notice uses the older one.
Rhode Island's word for the eligible market is "approved," not "export." 230-RICR-20-50-1 section 1.3 defines Approved Surplus Line Insurers as insurers "placed by the Department on a list maintained by the Department of Surplus Line Insurers which may issue policies in Rhode Island," and the statutory twin at section 27-3-40 is captioned "Limitations on placing insurance with approved surplus lines insurers." There is no export list, white list or exportable list in Rhode Island - if a course uses those words, it is teaching another state's vocabulary.
One overlap worth knowing: the state's weather-claims rule reaches surplus lines too. 230-RICR-20-05-13 section 13.10 is titled "Surplus Lines Insurance," so a surplus lines placement on Rhode Island residential property is not automatically outside the hurricane-deductible framework the Property guide describes.
Rhode Island Casualty License Fees
$80 for exam code 04, $5 for the BCI background report, $120 to the state. No pre-licensing course, no fingerprint appointment, no fee to add the Property line once you have passed its paper.
Book Property into the same session and the second paper is free. That is the whole reason Rhode Island's two-paper structure does not cost more than a combined-exam state: $80 buys both examinations if they are scheduled back to back, and $120 buys the licence that both lines sit on.
The surplus lines licence is priced separately at $100, initial and biennial renewal, and reinstates for $150. It is a distinct licence class in 230-RICR-20-50-5's schedule rather than a line of authority on a producer licence - which is why the fee sits beside the adjuster and appraiser classes rather than inside the producer row.
The tax is the fee a surplus lines broker forgets to budget for. Four percent of gross premiums charged the insured, less premiums returned to the insured, paid to the tax administrator at producer licence renewal. It is not a state fee in the sense that appears on a schedule, and it is not optional.
Later: $120 to renew every two years, still $120 inside the thirty-day grace period after expiry, $170 to reinstate from day 31 to day 365. The Property and Casualty guide owns those tiers in detail.
Rhode Island Casualty License Eligibility
Eighteen, clean under section 27-2.4-14, fees paid, examination passed - the four findings at section 27-2.4-8(a). No education requirement, no experience requirement, no sponsorship.
Rhode Island's licensing exemptions are worth reading even if you are getting licensed anyway, because casualty work runs close to several of them. Section 27-2.4-5(b) lists twelve categories that need no producer licence, and most are conditioned on receiving no commission: officers, directors and employees whose activities are executive, administrative or clerical, or relate to underwriting, loss control or claims, provided they receive no commission; special agents giving technical advice; group-enrolment personnel "where no commission or fee is paid"; salaried employees advising their own employer; Rhode Island-licensed attorneys; actuaries and accountants acting as consultants; licensed public adjusters within their scope; and, at (12), rental car companies offering optional coverage on agreements of no more than sixty days.
The commission rule behind those exemptions is strict in both directions. Section 27-2.4-15(a) bars an insurer or producer from paying "any commission, service fee, brokerage, or other valuable consideration" for producer services to a person who did not hold a valid licence for that class at the time the service was performed - and bars the unlicensed person from accepting it, with a sentence that should stop anyone considering the arrangement: "Acceptance of the consideration shall constitute operating without a license." The saving clause is narrow and specific: deferred and renewal commissions remain payable to a person who was required to be licensed at the time of the sale and was licensed then.
Premiums you hold are held in a fiduciary capacity, and the trust-account answer is conditional. Section 27-2.4-19 makes premiums collected for an insurer and money collected from an insurer for a policyholder or claimant fiduciary funds, and conversion "guilty of theft and punishable for theft as provided by law." Then the proviso: nothing "shall be deemed to require any insurance producer to maintain separate bank accounts or deposits for these funds if and so long as these funds held are reasonably ascertainable from the books of account and records of the insurance producer." Neither "Rhode Island requires a trust account" nor "Rhode Island requires nothing" is right - the answer depends on your records.
Errors and omissions insurance is required of every resident producer licensee at $250,000 per claim and $500,000 annual aggregate, with records and copies of the policies to be kept, and failure to maintain it a ground for suspension or revocation. It is never filed with the Department.
Rhode Island Casualty Continuing Education
Important CE details: If the surplus lines broker licence comes with your casualty authority, your renewal date acquires a second job. Section 27-3-38(e) makes the four percent premium tax payable to the tax administrator at insurance producer licence renewal, and 230-RICR-20-50-1 section 1.7 requires an annual report on top of that. Those are two filings keyed to dates you already have in the diary for another reason, which is exactly why they get missed - and the tax runs to a different official from the one who issued the licence.
Twenty-four credits per biennial licence period, three of them ethics, under 230-RICR-20-50-2 section 2.6(A). One total for the licence, whatever lines it carries.
A casualty producer buys none of Rhode Island's producer training courses. DBR's Insurance Professionals page and its licensing FAQ are the state's education index - there is no separate page named for special or product-specific education - and between them they surface three gates the licensee completes: annuity best-interest training, long-term care training and the NFIP flood course. Annuity training attaches to annuity sales, long-term care training to long-term care sales, and Bulletin 2006-7's flood course is written for producers "with a Property Line of Authority." None of the three reaches a casualty-only licensee. A fourth gate arrived on 1 January 2026 and works the other way round. DBR's licensing FAQ carries the question "I heard Rhode Island requires Pet Insurance product training as of January 1, 2026, what do I do?" and answers: "The law requires insurance companies to train all insurance producers on their products. The Rhode Island licensing team has received many inquiries on how to find this training. Insurers are responsible for providing this training directly and are not required to file those courses with our department." You do not go and buy that one - the carrier delivers it before you write the product. A casualty producer writing pet insurance is inside that one.
A course counts only if the provider is approved, and that is a risk you carry as well as the provider does. Courses and providers must be approved by the Department under sections 2.7 and 2.8, and section 2.10 lets the Department remove a non-compliant provider from the approved list. Credits from a provider that is no longer approved are a problem you discover at renewal, when the transcript does not say what you expected it to.
Carryover, and its limit. Up to twelve excess credits carry forward through the end of the next renewal period under section 2.9(B) - but carried ethics credits arrive as general credits, "so that the required three (3) ethics credit must be obtained during the biennial license cycle." Every cycle needs three fresh ethics hours.
And the filing is the provider's. Rosters go in electronically "within ten (10) days of completion of the course," and NIPR takes up to seventy-two hours from the compliance date to reflect the status. Finish early enough that both clocks can run before your renewal date.
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