What This License Is
The General Lines — Property & Casualty license, issued by the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI), covers the full P&C field: homeowners and commercial property, personal and commercial auto, general liability, workers' compensation, and umbrella lines. Unlike some states, Texas's full P&C license already includes personal lines authority — the separate Personal Lines license is the narrower credential, not a required add-on.
GL-P&C is also the gateway license: surplus lines authority requires holding either this license or a Managing General Agent license first, plus a documented diligent-effort search of the admitted market for each placement.
Texas has no property-only or casualty-only splits — the combined exam is the only path to full P&C authority.
Exam Options & Format
The GL-P&C exam is administered by Pearson VUE at test centers only (Texas discontinued online proctoring for insurance exams in 2024): 130 scored questions — 100 general knowledge, 30 Texas law — plus 15 unscored pretest items, 2 hours 30 minutes, $49 paid at booking. Passing is a scaled 70 on a 0–100 scale, which is a statistical standard rather than a percentage of correct answers.
The narrower alternative, the Personal Lines exam (100 scored questions, 2 hours, $39), trades $10 and 30 minutes for a permanent ceiling at personal risks — its guide covers when that trade makes sense.
Book at the Pearson VUE Texas portal or 888-754-7667 up to one day ahead; reschedule with at least 48 hours' notice or forfeit the fee. Spanish forms and ESL time extensions are available. Refreshed outlines take effect September 1, 2026 with unchanged question counts.
Exam-day logistics — Texas's two-ID requirement, the exact-name-match rule, and the check-in procedure — are covered in depth in the Life & Health guide and apply identically to this exam.
Most Tested Topics on the Texas P&C Exam
The 30 Texas questions lean on the structures that make Texas P&C unlike anywhere else. From the TESTivity Texas regulations curriculum, statute-verified:
| Concept | The Texas rule |
|---|---|
| Workers' compensation | OPTIONAL — Texas is the only state where private employers may decline coverage entirely. An employer that opts out is a "nonsubscriber" and forfeits the common-law defenses |
| WC regulator | TDI's Division of Workers' Compensation |
| Rate regulation | File-and-use |
| FAIR Plan | Yes — the Texas FAIR Plan Association, the residential insurer of last resort |
| Windstorm pool | TWIA — the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, covering wind and hail in the designated Gulf Coast catastrophe area |
| Dominant perils | Gulf hurricane, hail, tornado, wildfire |
| Credit scoring | Permitted in personal lines, subject to FCRA and Texas adverse-action rules |
| Surplus lines prerequisite | A GL-P&C or Managing General Agent license, plus diligent effort |
| P&C guaranty association | TPCIGA — pays $300,000 per claim or the policy limits, whichever is less |
| Regulator | TDI, headed by a Commissioner of Insurance appointed by the Governor with Senate consent; law codified in the Texas Insurance Code and 28 TAC |
The workers' comp answer is the most purely Texan fact on any insurance exam in the country — every other state mandates coverage, so candidates trained on national material confidently answer "mandatory" and lose the point. Pair it with the nonsubscriber consequence: opting out surrenders the contributory-negligence defenses at trial.
The two-pool structure is the other reliable cluster: the FAIR Plan backstops residential property generally, while TWIA exists specifically for coastal wind and hail — questions that blur them are testing whether you know Texas runs both.
Moving to Texas With an Existing License
Texas is one of the friendliest big states for arriving license holders — if you follow its clocks.
Nonresident licensing (staying put, selling into Texas): if your home-state license is in good standing and your state reciprocates with Texas residents, you're exempt from the exam, continuing education, AND fingerprinting — the cleanest reciprocity package in the region. Apply through Sircon or NIPR on your home-state credentials.
Actually relocating: a nonresident licensee who moves to Texas must submit a resident application within 30 days of relocating (28 TAC §19.809). File promptly and your existing qualifications carry over — TDI's guidance is that license holders arriving from other states generally won't retake the exam if they act within roughly 90 days of the move; let the 30-day application window be your real deadline and the question never arises.
Designation waivers (TIC §4002.003): a CPCU designation waives the GL-P&C exam outright, and a CLU waives the life-side exams — Texas honors the classroom hours behind the letters. Renewing licensees and licenses expired less than a year are also exam-exempt.
What does NOT carry over: appointments. Your carriers re-appoint you under the Texas license ($10 per appointment), and your CE clock restarts on the Texas cycle described below.
Renewing: How the Texas Two-Year Cycle Actually Works
Texas licenses run two years, expiring with your birth month, with a $50 renewal fee and a window that opens 90 days before expiration. Here's the machinery most agents learn the expensive way:
The CE math: 24 hours per period, at least 3 in ethics — and Texas's signature rule: at least half the hours must be classroom or classroom-equivalent (live webinars typically qualify; pure self-study can't cover more than 12 hours). Limited-license holders (county mutual, life-under-$25K, limited lines) owe 10 hours instead. Agents licensed 20 continuous years may qualify for an exemption.
Miss your CE and Texas fines you by the hour: $50 per deficient hour, capped at $500 per license, with 90 days to cure the deficiency. It's the most granular CE penalty in the country — a 6-hour shortfall is a $300 invoice.
The late tiers: expired up to 89 days — renew late for $75 (the fee plus a half-fee penalty). Expired 90 days to one year — the license can be reinstated without retaking the exam via a new application. Expired more than one year — you're a new applicant: exam, fingerprints, everything.
Practical calendar: put your birth-month expiration and the 90-day-early window in your phone the day the license issues. TDI sends courtesy notices, but the statute puts renewal on you — and the 89-day late window is the only cushion between a $25 penalty and a re-exam.
What It Costs
Roughly $140 on a first-attempt pass: $49 to Pearson VUE per attempt, about $40 to IdentoGO (exact fee shown at booking; the Personal Lines guide walks the apply-first fingerprint process), and $50 to TDI via Sircon or NIPR. Renewals run $50 every two years plus whatever your 24 CE hours cost. No pre-licensing course is required in Texas.
Eligibility Requirements
At least 18, with fingerprint-based DPS/FBI background checks for resident applicants (waived for nonresidents). TDI weighs criminal history under the Insurance Code's fraud and breach-of-trust standards; complete disclosure with court documentation attached is the strategy that survives the FBI check — omission is a denial ground all by itself.
CE at a Glance
Important CE details: At least 3 of the 24 hours must be ethics; at least half must be classroom or classroom-equivalent. Deficient hours draw a $50-per-hour fine capped at $500 per license.
24 hours per two-year period · 3 ethics · at least half classroom or classroom-equivalent · $50/hour fines for shortfalls, capped at $500. The full renewal timetable, the late tiers, and the 20-year exemption are in the renewal section above — this license and every other Texas producer license run on the same cycle.
Quick Reference
Official Links
Don't study generic. Study Texas.
You've got the roadmap. Now get the Texas-specific P&C question bank, mock exams, and video course built by instructors with 20+ years teaching this material.