What the Tennessee Personal Lines License Is
Personal Lines is a single line of authority covering property and casualty insurance sold to individuals for personal, non-commercial purposes - personal auto, homeowners, dwelling fire, renters, personal umbrella, watercraft. It is issued by TDCI under T.C.A. 56-6-103 alongside the broader Property and Casualty lines.
The boundary is the word commercial. A Personal Lines producer cannot write a business auto policy, a commercial package, a BOP or workers' compensation. If any part of your intended book touches business risk, this is the wrong line and you want Property plus Casualty instead. Holding both of those already includes personal-lines risks, so the licences do not stack - Personal Lines is the narrower option, not an add-on.
No pre-licensing course applies. Tennessee's only statutory education requirement attaches to title insurance, at 30 hours under 56-6-106.
What Personal Lines buys you is simplicity of process at the cost of a longer paper. One exam instead of two, one $55 fee instead of $110 - but 100 scored questions in two hours, the largest Tennessee producer examination there is. Tennessee charges the same $55 for it as for the 68-question single lines, which makes it excellent value per question and a genuinely harder afternoon.
Exam Options & Format
The Personal Lines examination is 100 scored questions in 2 hours at $55, built from 75 General Knowledge items and 25 Tennessee-Specific items sat in one appointment. Pearson VUE adds 11 unscored pretest questions, so 111 appear on screen and 100 count.
That 25-item Tennessee section is the biggest state-law block in the Tennessee producer suite - a quarter of the scored exam, against 18 of 68 on the single lines. Proportionally similar; absolutely larger. It is where the cancellation and nonrenewal statutes in the table below live.
The pass mark is a scaled 70, not 70 correct out of 100 - which is a particularly easy mistake to make on this exam precisely because it has 100 scored questions. The arithmetic looks like it should work. It does not: the handbook states the reported score "is neither the number of questions answered correctly (the raw score) nor the percentage of questions answered correctly," and Pearson VUE converts onto a 0-to-100 scale on which 70 is the Department's chosen reporting point.
One practical constraint before you book: this exam is test-center only. The handbook's fee table lists Personal Lines at $55 in the test-center column and nowhere in the OnVUE column, which carries Life, Accident & Health, Property and Casualty plus the four combined sittings. The remote option that exists for every other major line does not exist for this one - if you were counting on testing from home, Personal Lines is the wrong line to count on.
Compare before you book. Personal Lines at $55 is the cheapest route to writing personal property and casualty in Tennessee. Full authority costs $110 as two test-center exams or $80 as the combined Property and Casualty sitting through OnVUE. The question is not price, though - it is whether you will ever write a commercial account, because the upgrade means sitting both other exams in full.
Most Tested Topics on the Tennessee Personal Lines Exam
Tennessee's cancellation and nonrenewal statutes are the heart of the Tennessee-Specific section for this line, and they are unusually well suited to examination because the numbers move depending on three different variables: whether the policy is personal or commercial, whether it is inside or outside its first 60 days, and whether the insurer is cancelling or declining to renew.
| Concept | The Tennessee rule |
|---|---|
| Auto policy, the first 60 days | A new auto policy less than 60 days old and not a renewal may be cancelled relatively freely; after 60 days, cancellation is limited to the grounds enumerated at T.C.A. 56-7-1302 |
| Auto cancellation notice, ordinary grounds | Not less than 20 days written notice, mailed or delivered, "stating when not less than twenty (20) days thereafter the cancellation shall be effective" (T.C.A. 56-7-1303) |
| Auto cancellation notice, nonpayment | Not less than 10 days - and the same 10 days applies where the policy has been in effect less than 60 days and is not a renewal (T.C.A. 56-7-1303) |
| Commercial risk cancellation notice | A uniform 10 days after the date of mailing, with no separate nonpayment split (T.C.A. 56-7-1804(b)) |
| Personal risk nonrenewal notice | At least 30 days before expiration (Title 56, ch. 7, pt. 19; T.C.A. 56-7-1901) |
| Commercial risk nonrenewal notice | At least 60 days - double the personal figure, and the direction of the difference is the opposite of the cancellation rule (T.C.A. 56-7-1805) |
| Auto nonrenewal notice | Not less than 30 days' notice of the intention not to renew (T.C.A. 56-7-1304) - the same figure Part 19 sets for personal risk generally |
| Auto nonrenewal, statement of reason | Two deadlines, belonging to different people: the insured must request the reason not later than 15 days after the effective date of the nonrenewal, and the insurer then has 20 days to mail a written statement specifying it (T.C.A. 56-7-1304) |
| Grounds for cancelling a seasoned auto policy | Limited to those listed at 56-7-1302 - nonpayment, licence or registration suspension, fraud - not simply the fact of having claimed |
| Alternative to buying auto liability cover | Proof of financial responsibility may also be given by a cash deposit or bond of $65,000 rather than a policy |
Learn these as a two-by-two, not as a list, because the personal-commercial relationship inverts between cancellation and nonrenewal. On cancellation, a personal auto insured gets the longer warning: 20 days against a commercial risk's flat 10. On nonrenewal, the commercial insured gets the longer one: 60 days against a personal risk's 30. Candidates who memorise "personal gets more notice" or "commercial gets more notice" will be right exactly half the time, and a well-drafted stem will pick the half they are wrong on.
The 10-day figure does double duty and that is the second trap. T.C.A. 56-7-1303 uses ten days for two quite different situations - cancellation for nonpayment of premium, and cancellation of a policy that has simply been in effect less than 60 days and is not a renewal. The second has nothing to do with payment. A question describing a five-week-old policy cancelled for an undisclosed accident history is testing the new-policy branch, not the nonpayment branch, and both take ten days.
Finally, note what the reason-on-request rule actually says, because it contains two clocks and neither is the one usually quoted. Tennessee does not require the insurer to volunteer its reason for nonrenewing an auto policy. It gives the insured 15 days from the effective date of the nonrenewal to make a written request - and then gives the insurer 20 days to mail a written statement specifying the reason. Fifteen is the insured's window; twenty is the insurer's. "The reason must be stated in the notice" is the obvious trap answer, and "the insurer must answer within 15 days" is the subtler one.
Your Results, Retakes and What the Score Report Tells You
Tennessee's score reporting is genuinely unusual, and it catches people out in the moment - which is a bad moment to be caught out.
If you pass, you will not be told your score. The handbook says it plainly: "Candidates who pass the examination will receive a score report that reads 'pass,' and no numeric score will be reported." No number, no percentage, no breakdown. Just the word. Candidates who were quietly hoping to know how close it was do not find out, and there is no route to obtaining it afterwards.
If you fail, you get considerably more information. Failing candidates "will receive a numeric score" together with "diagnostic information relevant to each major area of the examination," which the handbook explains is "intended to help failing candidates identify areas of strength and weakness in order to prepare for future examinations." The diagnostic maps onto the content outlines printed in the handbook, so you can take the weak areas straight back to the syllabus.
That asymmetry is deliberate and it has a practical implication: the only detailed feedback Tennessee gives you is feedback you would rather not have earned. Treat the diagnostic as the study plan for the retake, because it is the only individualised guidance in the process.
What the number means when you get one. The reported figure is a scaled score on a 0-to-100 range. The handbook is careful about this: it "is neither the number of questions answered correctly (the raw score) nor the percentage of questions answered correctly." Raw performance is converted so that results are comparable across different forms of the exam, and the Department "has selected 70 as the passing score for reporting purposes." A reported 65 does not mean 65 of 100 right, and no published table converts between the two.
The retake ladder is tiered, and it steepens. Fail once and you wait 10 days. Fail again - and every time after - you wait 30 days. Separately, all candidates must wait 24 hours before making a reservation to retake, so even the ten-day wait is really ten days plus a booking. There is no overall cap on attempts for producer lines, but there is a cap on the channel: OnVUE allows two attempts per exam line, after which you must test in person.
Put those rules together and a bad run has a shape. Two online failures put your third attempt in a test center, thirty days out. That is why it is worth taking the first attempt seriously rather than treating it as a diagnostic - Tennessee's real currency here is time, not the $55.
Results go to two places and no further. The handbook states that "examination results are confidential and are released only to the candidate and to the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance." The transmission to TDCI is electronic and automatic; you do not carry a certificate anywhere.
Then the clocks start. TDCI requires a 48-hour wait after the examination before you may file at NIPR - the result has to reach the Department's system before the application can be matched to it. And the money has a life of its own: application and filing fees are good for one year from the date the Department receives them. That one-year window, not the exam date, is the deadline that actually governs a stalled Tennessee application.
What the Personal Lines License Costs
$55 for the exam and $50 for the NIPR application: about $105 published, plus IdentoGO's fingerprint fee, which TDCI does not publish.
Per question, this is the best value Tennessee sells. Personal Lines is 100 scored questions for the same $55 the state charges for a 68-question single line. Whether that is a good deal depends entirely on whether one exam covering personal property and casualty is what you actually need - and if you will ever write commercial business, it is not.
The comparison worth doing: $55 for Personal Lines, $80 for combined Property and Casualty through OnVUE, $110 for the two exams separately at a test center. The application fee is $50 in all three cases.
No pre-licensing course, so no course fee. Retakes are $55, with the waiting periods doing the real rationing. Rescheduling inside 48 hours or missing the appointment forfeits the fee. Renewal in two years is $60.
Eligibility Requirements
Be at least 18 years old, pass the examination for every line you want, and satisfy the Commissioner as to your character and trustworthiness. T.C.A. 56-6-106 lists what the application must show; 56-6-107 says that an applicant who has met 56-6-105 and 56-6-106 "shall be issued an insurance producer license" unless licensure is denied under 56-6-112.
Tennessee grants no designation waivers. CLU, ChFC, CPCU, CIC and the rest buy you nothing here. T.C.A. 56-6-109 is the state's exemption-from-examination section, and the only exemption in it is for an individual previously licensed for the same lines of authority in another state - no credential is named. The other no-exam routes are the temporary license at 56-6-111 and limited-lines authority.
Fingerprints are part of the initial application for every resident producer, and they must be on file before you file at NIPR - not after. The Casualty guide walks the IdentoGO process, the universal ORI codes and the two-business-day lead time step by step.
Personal Lines carries no additional prerequisite. It is a first license in its own right, not an endorsement on an existing one, and a producer who later wants full authority sits the Property and Casualty exams and adds the lines at NIPR without re-applying from scratch.
Keeping the License Active
Important CE details: Roughly a dozen credits a year keeps you level. Broadening into commercial business later changes what you may write, not what you owe the Department each cycle.
Twenty-four hours per two-year term with three hours of ethics. The term runs 24 months from the last day of your birth month, and Tennessee counts the licensee rather than the lines - so upgrading from Personal Lines to full Property and Casualty authority later costs you two examinations and no additional continuing education at all.
Providers and courses need TDCI approval, and an approved course may be repeated for credit only after two years have elapsed.
One product training may reach this line, and it is worth asking TDCI about. Rule 0780-01-56-.08(1)(c) imposes a one-time three-hour flood course on any resident producer "authorized to sell 'property insurance' as defined by T.C.A. 56-2-201(5)" or authorised to sell both property and casualty insurance. The rule is written around the Property and Casualty lines and does not name Personal Lines, but Personal Lines authority does reach personal property risks - so whether it attaches here turns on how TDCI reads that definition. The course counts inside your 24 hours for one biennium, so satisfying it is cheap; assuming it does not apply is the expensive option. The Property & Casualty guide sets out the rule in full.
The single CE exemption belongs to producers continuously licensed since 1 January 1994. It is a grandfather clause and nothing else; a new licensee owes the full 24 hours in the first term. Late renewal, the doubled fee and the 12-month reinstatement route are covered in the Property & Casualty guide.
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