Tennessee Property Insurance Exam 2026

What the Tennessee Property License Is

Tennessee splits property and casualty into two separate lines with two separate examinations, and at a physical test center that split is absolute - the handbook's test-center table lists individual lines only. The Property line covers direct damage and loss to property: homeowners, dwelling fire, commercial property, inland marine, crime.

Holding both Property and Casualty gives you full personal and commercial authority. If your book will be personal-lines only, the narrower Personal Lines exam covers property and casualty sold to individuals for non-commercial purposes in a single 100-question sitting - a real alternative worth pricing before you commit to two exams.

No pre-licensing course applies to Property. Tennessee's only statutory course requirement is the 30 hours T.C.A. 56-6-106 imposes on title insurance.

One structural fact shapes property practice here more than any other: Tennessee operates no FAIR Plan. There is no activated state property insurer of last resort - though the statute books are not empty. Title 56 chapter 41 authorises a voluntary risk-sharing or market-assistance plan, and lets the Commissioner create a Tennessee Property and Casualty Insurance Association if that plan fails or is never established. Nothing indicates either has been stood up. Tennessee does run a live auto residual market, the Tennessee Automobile Insurance Plan, under T.C.A. 55-12-136. For property, in practice, the residual market is the surplus lines market - which is why this guide owns that module too.

Exam Options & Format

The Property examination is 68 scored questions in 1 hour 45 minutes at $55 - 50 General Knowledge items plus 18 Tennessee-Specific items in one appointment, with 9 unscored pretest questions folded in.

The pass mark is a scaled 70. Pearson VUE converts raw scores to a 0-to-100 scale and the Department has "selected 70 as the passing score for reporting purposes." The handbook is emphatic that the reported number "is neither the number of questions answered correctly (the raw score) nor the percentage of questions answered correctly."

Three routes to full P&C authority, and they price differently. Two single exams at a test center is $110. The combined Property and Casualty sitting is $80 - but it exists only through OnVUE, so it is remote proctoring or nothing. Adding Title to the combination is $125, though Title's 30-hour pre-licensing course makes that a much larger commitment than the price suggests.

Or sidestep the question with Personal Lines. One exam, $55, 100 scored questions in 2 hours, covering property and casualty for individuals. If you will never write a commercial account it is the cheapest complete answer Tennessee offers. The Personal Lines guide sets out what it does and does not reach.

Most Tested Topics on the Tennessee Property Exam

Tennessee's property-side distinctives are as much about what the state has not built as about what it regulates. Both directions are examinable:

The declination count is the classic trap, and Tennessee's answer is "there isn't one." A great many states - and a great deal of national prep material - fix the diligent search at three declinations from admitted carriers. Tennessee does not. The statute imposes a standard, not a count: the agent must be unable, after diligent effort, to procure the full amount required. If an answer choice offers you a specific number of Tennessee declinations, it is wrong, and it is wrong in a way that is easy to fall for because the number sounds so familiar.

The FAIR Plan question deserves care in the other direction, and the careful answer has two halves. Ask what a Tennessee homeowner does when no admitted carrier will write the risk and the practical answer is the non-admitted market: there is no operating FAIR Plan to send them to. But "Tennessee has no statutory mechanism at all" is too strong. Title 56 chapter 41 carries standby machinery - a voluntary risk-sharing or market-assistance plan under 56-41-102, and, if that fails, a Tennessee Property and Casualty Insurance Association the Commissioner may create after public hearing under 56-41-103. It sits unused rather than absent. Meanwhile the state does run a live residual mechanism for auto. Candidates who generalise from the auto plan to property, or from the quiet property machinery to auto, get both halves wrong.

The rating regime is the third thing worth unlearning. Tennessee is often described as file-and-use, and that description is wrong in both directions at once. Personal risk rates are filed thirty days before the proposed effective date and take effect only if the Commissioner does not disapprove within the waiting period - a deemer, closer to prior approval than to file-and-use. Commercial risk rates go the other way entirely: they may be used immediately and filed within fifteen days after the effective date. Personal risk waits; commercial risk does not.

And hold the perils geographically. Tennessee's catastrophe exposure is not coastal. It is tornado and hail across the middle of the state, and New Madrid earthquake in the west - which is why earthquake endorsements come up in Memphis conversations in a way they never do in Knoxville.

Where to Sit the Exam in Tennessee

Pearson VUE lists eleven Tennessee locations for insurance examinations, and the handbook publishes them with their weekly availability rather than their street addresses. That is a deliberate choice on Pearson VUE's part - sites move, and the scheduling system is treated as the authoritative record - so the addresses below are not reproduced here for the simple reason that the handbook does not print them. You get the exact address when you book.

The handbook adds the caveat that "locations and schedules are subject to change," so confirm availability in the scheduling system rather than from any list, including this one.

The geography is worth reading as a strategy. Memphis has two sites and both run five days a week - the densest testing capacity in the state. Brentwood, Knoxville and Nashville add Saturdays, which is the single most useful fact on this page if you are licensing while employed. Jackson runs three days, and Hartsville, Livingston and Martin are listed as varying, which in practice means thin capacity and long lead times. If you live near one of those three, plan several weeks ahead or drive to a bigger site.

Booking has a floor and cancelling has a cliff. Reservations must be made online "at least twenty-four (24) hours before the desired examination date" - so there is no same-day walk-in. Changes and cancellations must happen "at least forty-eight (48) hours before the examination"; inside that window, or if you simply do not turn up, the $55 is gone and you pay it again.

Bring two forms of identification, not one. This is where Tennessee is stricter than most states and where people get turned away at the door. The handbook requires that the "candidate must present two (2) forms of current signature identification," and that "the primary identification must be government-issued and photo-bearing with a signature." A driver's license alone is not enough - it is one. Pair it with a credit card, a bank card or another signed document that carries your signature. And report thirty minutes before the examination; the check-in is not instantaneous and lateness forfeits the fee.

If none of the eleven works for you, OnVUE does. Remote proctoring is available for every Tennessee producer line at the same $55, capped at two attempts per line. The Accident & Health guide covers the system test, the room scan and the rules that get sessions revoked.

The Surplus Lines Path from a Property License

With no FAIR Plan in Tennessee, the surplus-lines market is where property risk goes when the admitted market declines it - and for a property producer that makes surplus lines less of a specialism than a practical necessity. The good news is that Tennessee makes the credential easy to obtain and the compliance harder to keep.

There is no surplus lines examination. The authority is a filing, not a test. What Tennessee requires is that you already hold a current Tennessee producer license, and that you pay a $120 fee through NIPR. Nonresidents apply through the same route. Compare that to the states that impose a separate surplus-lines exam and it is a genuinely low barrier.

The diligent effort standard is where Tennessee differs most, and it differs by having no number. T.C.A. 56-14-106 requires an affidavit stating that the agent "is, after diligent effort, unable to procure from an admitted company or admitted companies the full amount of insurance required to protect the interest of the insured." That is a standard of conduct. It is not three declinations, and Tennessee never says three. If your compliance process was built in a three-declination state, it is over-engineered here - but do not read the absence of a count as an absence of a duty. "Diligent effort" is the thing you would have to prove.

Filing rhythm. The affidavit goes in within 30 days of placing a new or renewal contract. On top of that sit quarterly reports with a sworn statement that, to the best of your knowledge and belief, you "could not reasonably procure such coverages from an admitted insurer" - due 15 May, 15 August, 15 November and 15 February.

Premium tax is 5% of gross premiums - and it is not the only charge. Tennessee has no stamping office, but every policy is filed through the SLAS Clearinghouse's Surplus Lines Information Portal (SLIP), and TDCI's filing procedures set a transaction fee of 0.175% of gross premium alongside the 5% tax. So the answer to "is there anything on top of the premium tax?" is yes, a small one. Producers arriving from a stamping-fee state should expect a second line item, just a much smaller one than they are used to.

Exempt commercial purchasers are carved out. Where the insured qualifies as an exempt commercial purchaser, T.C.A. 56-14-106's diligent-search sworn statement does not apply. That is the mechanism sophisticated commercial buyers use to reach the non-admitted market directly, and it is worth knowing exists before a large account asks you about it.

One thing surplus lines does not change: your continuing education. Tennessee's 24 hours are owed by the producer, not stacked per authority, so adding surplus lines adds no CE.

What the Property License Costs

$55 for the Property exam and $50 for the resident NIPR application - about $105 published - plus the IdentoGO fingerprint charge, which TDCI does not publish and which appears in the IdentoGO booking flow.

Going the whole way to P&C changes the shape. Two single exams cost $110; the combined OnVUE sitting costs $80. The licence application is still one $50 filing whichever route you take, because you are applying for one license with two lines of authority, not two licenses.

Surplus lines is later and separate: $120 through NIPR, with no examination and no additional CE.

There is no course fee. Tennessee requires no pre-licensing education for Property, so the classroom line item that dominates this page in mandatory-education states is simply absent.

The costs that hurt are the avoidable ones. A no-show or a reschedule inside 48 hours forfeits the $55. Arriving with one form of identification instead of two does the same. And a second failure puts 30 days between you and the next attempt.

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.

Surplus lines has one prerequisite beyond the general list: you must already hold a current Tennessee producer license before the surplus-lines authority can be added. It is an endorsement on an existing credential, never a first license.

Keeping the License Active

Twenty-four hours every two years, three of them ethics, through providers TDCI has approved. The Department's rule that an approved course counts again only after two years matters if you are tempted to repeat a convenient class.

Tennessee does not scale the requirement to your authority. Property alone, Property plus Casualty, Property plus Casualty plus surplus lines - the same 24 hours. That makes breadth cheap to maintain and is worth factoring into a decision about whether to sit the second exam.

Your term is 24 months from the last day of your birth month. Miss it and the renewal fee doubles; miss it by more than a year and the statutory route back closes. The Property & Casualty guide covers the reinstatement window and the carryover rules in full.

Resident producers holding property authority owe one product training that the life and health lines do not: a one-time three-hour flood course under Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0780-01-56-.08(1)(c), meeting the minimum training requirements of section 207 of the Flood Insurance Federal Reform Act of 2004. It counts inside your 24 hours for one biennium rather than adding to them, and proof of an equivalent course completed after 1 January 2008 may exempt you.

That is the only product training a property producer owes in Tennessee. The state's other trainings - annuity best interest, and long-term care under T.C.A. 56-42-109 - attach to the life and health lines. The Property & Casualty guide sets out the flood rule in full, along with the carry-over cap and the reporting deadlines.

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