Rhode Island Health Insurance Exam 2026

The Rhode Island Accident and Health Producer License

Rhode Island calls the line "accident and health or sickness" and lists it second among the eight lines of authority at R.I. Gen. Laws section 27-2.4-9(a)(2). It is examined on its own paper - code 02 - because Rhode Island publishes no combined Life & Health examination. Whatever a national course tells you about sitting one test for both, in Rhode Island it is two.

That structure is a cost decision, not just an inconvenience, and the candidate handbook resolves it in the Available Examinations table's fee column heading: "Test Center Exam Fees* (If scheduled back to back, buy one get one free)," with the asterisk resolving beneath the table to "* Candidates can register for two exams in one session (i.e. Property & Casualty)." Two major lines may be taken in one test session. The Exam Format section below runs the arithmetic; the short version is that Life and Accident and Health sat on the same morning cost $80 together and sat a week apart cost $160.

What separates Rhode Island's health material from the national baseline is instrument rather than substance. Chapter 27-18 gives you thirteen required provisions and a large block of mandated benefits, and it is silent on the two things a candidate looks for first. The individual free look is in the Department's form rules. The grace period is a blank line in the statute's model text. Learning to ask which document holds a rule is worth more on this paper than memorising any single number.

And two Rhode Island oddities in the regulatory map are worth carrying from the start. Health insurers are supervised not by the DBR Insurance Division but by a separate agency, the Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner - so a Rhode Island health question about the regulator does not have the same answer as a Rhode Island life question. And the state runs its own marketplace, HealthSource RI, rather than the federal exchange.

The Rhode Island Accident and Health Exam: Format and Fees

Exam code 02, two hours, $80 - structurally identical to the Life paper. Two printed content outlines feed it: a General Knowledge outline of "50 scoreable questions plus 5 pretest questions" and a Rhode Island Specific outline of "30 scoreable questions plus 5 pretest questions." That is 80 scored and 10 pretest, 90 items, at roughly 80 seconds an item across everything on the screen.

Those counts are a sum, not a quotation. Neither Pearson VUE document prints an exam-level total. The February 2026 candidate handbook carries codes, time allotments and fees, and reproduces the Rhode Island content outlines - counts and all - in its own Content Outlines section; the separate outlines publication #124001, stamped 05/2026 and effective 28 May 2026, carries the same counts and no time limits. Both print counts section by section and neither adds them up. Every figure on this site is derived the same way and stated on the same basis, all items together, so that pacing can be compared honestly between lines.

Rhode Island's five producer papers, side by side:

If you are heading for both life and health authority, book them together. Two $80 papers taken back to back in one session cost $80. The handbook permits "two major lines or two limited lines or one major and one limited line exam in one test session," and the buy-one-get-one-free line in the fee column heading does the rest. The trade is the one every combined-exam state makes for you and Rhode Island leaves to you: a bad morning costs you both papers at once, though each is scored separately, so failing one does not void the other.

Passing is a scaled 70. The handbook is explicit that the number is not a percentage: "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." A pass report says pass and gives no figure; a fail report breaks your performance out by major exam area, which is the diagnostic you get instead.

Most Tested Topics on the Rhode Island Accident and Health Exam

Thirty scored questions come from the Rhode Island Specific outline. The rules below are the ones where Rhode Island departs from what a national course teaches - and in three cases the departure is that the rule is not where the course says it is.

The single most valuable thing to understand about Rhode Island's continuation law is its scope, because almost everyone gets it backwards. The instinct built by other states is that a state continuation statute is a mini-COBRA - a gap-filler for employers too small for the federal law. Section 27-19.1-1 is not drafted that way. It contains no employer-size threshold and no carve-out for employers subject to COBRA, and the fifty-member line inside subsection (c) decides only whom the continuee writes the cheque to. An answer of the form "Rhode Island continuation applies to employers under twenty" is wrong, and so is "under fifty."

The second is that the eighteen months is a ceiling three separate things can pull down. Read the sentence to its end: up to eighteen months "but in any event not to exceed the shorter of" the period of continuous employment preceding termination, or the time until the person becomes eligible under another group plan. Four months of service buys four months of continuation. A new job with benefits ends it early. Quoting eighteen months alone is quoting a quarter of the rule.

And on prompt pay, Rhode Island runs a per-claim duty and a portfolio test at once, which are usually alternatives in other states. The forty and thirty day clocks at section 27-18-61(a) are owed on each claim and carry interest. Subsection (e)(4) then defines "substantial compliance" as "processing and paying ninety-five percent (95%) or more of all claims within the time frame provided for in subsections (a) and (b)" - an enforcement threshold measured across the carrier's book, scoped by its own words to those two subsections. Reporting only the ninety-five percent, or only the day counts, is half the rule.

Background Questions and What Rhode Island Actually Checks

Rhode Island's background regime is unusual in two ways that pull in opposite directions, and understanding both is what stops an applicant from either over-worrying or under-disclosing. It is unusually light on process: no fingerprints, no vendor appointment, no FBI file, a $5 counter transaction. And it is unusually dependent on what you tell the Department yourself, because the check DBR buys does not reach very far.

What the report actually contains. DBR requires a "B.C.I. (State Background Check)" from the Rhode Island Attorney General - the Bureau of Criminal Identification's name-based product. In BCI's own description it reports "fingerprint-supported arrests that resulted in a criminal conviction or equivalent or that are pending prosecution." Read that carefully: the underlying arrests were fingerprint-supported, but you are not fingerprinted to obtain the report, and its geography is Rhode Island only. BCI's separate National Background Check - the $45, fingerprint-based, FBI-processed one - is what adds "federal arrests and out of state arrests," and DBR does not ask producer applicants for it. The Life guide covers the mechanics of buying the report and the thirty-day freshness rule.

Which is why the application's own questions carry the weight. The Rhode Island record check will not surface a conviction from another state, a licensing action taken by another commissioner, or an administrative order from a federal regulator. Those reach the Department through your answers and through the NAIC databases the Department consults - not through the BCI report. An applicant who reasons "the background check will show it" about an out-of-state matter has reasoned from the wrong document.

What triggers disclosure is best read backwards from the fourteen grounds at section 27-2.4-14(a), because those are the things the Commissioner is entitled to act on. Four of them are squarely about history rather than conduct in office: (6) having been convicted of a felony; (8) using fraudulent, coercive or dishonest practices, or demonstrating incompetence, untrustworthiness or financial irresponsibility, and note the reach - "in this state or in another place"; (9) having had an insurance producer licence, or its equivalent, denied, suspended or revoked "in any other state, province, district or territory," or administrative action under the section; and (2) violating any insurance law, or any regulation, subpoena or order of the Rhode Island Commissioner or of another state's commissioner. Two of the four are expressly extraterritorial.

What the Department asks you to supply. DBR's reinstatement instructions set the pattern that also governs a first application: an affirmative answer needs a written explanation plus documentation, and specifically covers anything "not previously reported." In practice that means the charging document or complaint, the disposition or order, and evidence that any fine, restitution or condition has been satisfied. A dismissed charge, a sealed or expunged matter and a matter still pending are three different things with three different paper trails, and the Department is reading for candour as much as for outcome.

Two grounds are administrative rather than criminal and catch people who never think of themselves as having a background issue. Ground (13) is failing to comply with an administrative or court order imposing a child support obligation, and ground (14) is failing to pay state income tax or to comply with an administrative or court order directing payment. Neither is an insurance matter at all. Both are grounds for denial or non-renewal of a Rhode Island producer licence.

What happens if the Department says no. Section 27-2.4-14(b) gives you a route rather than a wall: on a denial or a non-renewal the Commissioner shall notify the applicant or producer and state the reasons in writing, and the applicant or producer may make written demand within 30 days for a hearing, held under the Administrative Procedures Act at chapter 35 of title 42. The remedies above that are discretionary and graduated - the Commissioner "may place on probation, suspend, revoke, or refuse to issue or renew" a licence, or levy an administrative penalty, "or any combination of actions." Probation is a real option in Rhode Island, which matters when the honest answer to a background question is a complicated one.

And the authority does not lapse when the licence does. Section 27-2.4-14(d) preserves the Commissioner's power to enquire into and act on conduct after a licence has been surrendered or has lapsed - so surrendering a licence to avoid an investigation does not end it, and a matter left unresolved will still be there at reinstatement.

Rhode Island Accident and Health License Fees

$80 for exam code 02, $5 for the BCI report, $120 to the state. No pre-licensing course, no fingerprint vendor, no separate charge for the background questions.

Where a health-only candidate should think hardest about money is the back-to-back rule, because the line combination people most often want is exactly the one Rhode Island does not sell as a single paper. Life and Accident and Health together: $160 if booked separately, $80 if booked into one session. The licence fee does not change either way - $120 covers the licence, not the lines, and the Department publishes no fee for adding a line of authority to a licence you already hold.

The health-specific cost the fee schedule never mentions is the long-term care course. Before you may sell, solicit or negotiate long-term care insurance in Rhode Island you need no less than eight hours of training once, and no less than four hours every twenty-four months after that. Both courses must be pre-approved by the Department or approved by a state with substantially similar requirements. The hours can be approved as continuing education, so the recurring four is not wholly extra - but the initial eight is a real prerequisite with a real price, and it sits outside the $120.

And the annuity gate reaches health producers who also hold Life. A one-time four-credit best-interest course under 230-RICR-20-25-1 section 1.7 - is required before soliciting an annuity, under 230-RICR-20-25-1 section 1.7. Bulletin 2021-1's one-credit bridge for producers who already held the older annuity training was a transition measure and expired on 30 September 2021. The Life guide covers it.

Later costs: $120 to renew every two years, still $120 inside the thirty-day grace period after expiry, and $170 to reinstate from day 31 to day 365. The Property and Casualty guide owns the renewal tiers.

Rhode Island Accident and Health License Eligibility

Eighteen years old, no disqualifying history, fees paid, examination passed. Those are the four findings section 27-2.4-8(a) requires the Commissioner to make, and there is nothing else in the section - no education element, no residency period beyond residency itself, no sponsorship, no experience requirement.

One eligibility rule is structural rather than personal: you cannot hold a Rhode Island resident licence while holding a Rhode Island non-resident licence. NIPR states it as an application rule - "Applicants must not have an active non-resident license in Rhode Island" - and DBR resolves it the easy way for people already licensed here from out of state: "We will convert a non-resident license to a resident license with an emailed request including your new Rhode Island resident address," and "The expiration date on your Rhode Island license will not change."

Citizenship is not required; work authorisation is. NIPR's Rhode Island resident page: "Non-citizens of the U.S. must e-mail proof of eligibility to work in the U.S to the Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation." That is a separate email to DBR rather than an upload inside the NIPR form, and it is easy to overlook.

A temporary licence exists but is not a route into the business. Section 27-2.4-13 allows the Commissioner to issue one for up to 180 days without examination, in four situations, and every one of them is about keeping an existing book serviced rather than starting a new career: the surviving spouse or court-appointed personal representative of a producer who dies or becomes disabled; a member or employee of a business entity operated by a licensed producer, on that producer's death or disability; the designee of a producer entering active service in the armed forces; and any other circumstance where the Commissioner deems the public interest best served. The Commissioner may require a sponsoring producer or insurer who "assumes responsibility for all acts" of the temporary licensee - and the 180 days is a ceiling with a hard stop above it: "A temporary license may not continue after the owner or the personal representative disposes of the business."

Business entities are elective in Rhode Island. Section 27-2.4-8(b) says an entity "may elect to obtain" a producer licence, and requires only two findings - fees paid, and a designated licensed producer responsible for the entity's compliance with Rhode Island insurance law. NIPR calls that person the Designated Responsible Licensed Producer, and requires them to hold an active Rhode Island resident or non-resident licence.

Rhode Island Accident and Health Continuing Education

Twenty-four credits per biennial licence period, three of them ethics, under 230-RICR-20-50-2 section 2.6(A). That is the whole obligation for the licence, whatever lines it carries.

What is specific to this line is the training that sits outside the twenty-four. Long-term care is gated by statute, not by bulletin: section 27-34.2-21 requires no less than eight hours of training once and no less than four hours every twenty-four months thereafter, and DBR's Bulletin 2021-1 states the condition plainly - "In order to sell, solicit or negotiate long term care insurance in Rhode Island a properly licensed insurance producer must take" the training. The bulletin is dated 15 February 2021, replaced Bulletin 2011-2 and does not appear on DBR's amended and revoked list.

Exemptions exist and two of them will reach health producers eventually. Section 2.5 of the CE rule lists five categories: holders of licences for insurance types requiring no examination; residents whose licences are limited to credit, crop, travel, surety, car rental or title insurance; non-residents who meet their home state's requirement where that state is reciprocal; residents licensed continuously for twenty-five or more years who are at least fifty-five at renewal; and any exemption the Department grants. The twenty-five-year-and-fifty-five rule needs both halves - long service alone does not qualify.

One health-adjacent alignment worth noting, because it changed recently and people conflate the two licence classes: DBR's FAQ records that "Effective with 2026 expirations" the continuing-education requirement for resident public adjuster, company and independent adjuster and DHS adjuster licensees is also 21 general credits and 3 ethics credits. Adjuster licences are a separate class with their own $250 fee; the numbers now match, the licences do not.

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