What This License Is
The Utah life line of authority covers life insurance and annuities sold to individuals and businesses in Utah. It is issued by the Utah Insurance Department, and Utah lists it in §31A-23a-106 as one of eight producer lines — life, variable contracts, accident and health, property, casualty, title (in three flavors), and personal lines.
Read that list carefully, because Utah splits something most states bundle. Variable contracts are their own enumerated line of authority, not an endorsement bolted onto the life license. Selling variable life or variable annuities in Utah means holding (or simultaneously applying for) the life line, carrying current FINRA qualification, and registering with the Utah Division of Securities. A Utah life license by itself does not reach variable products.
The Life-only path suits producers who write term, permanent life and fixed annuities and know they will not touch health products. If there is any chance you will, read the fee comparison below before you register — Utah prices the combined exam so that a second line of authority costs $12.
Exam Options & Format
The Life exam is Prometric Series 17-01: 100 questions, 2 hours, $32 per attempt. Prometric administers every Utah insurance exam — the Department's own page says so plainly — and you register at prometric.com/utah/insurance or by calling (888) 226-8740. Since December 2023 the Utah exams are also offered in Spanish, under a parallel series numbered 17-31 through 17-59, at the same fees.
The alternative is Series 17-03, the Combined Life, Accident and Health exam: 150 questions, 2 hours 30 minutes, $44. That is $20 less than sitting 17-01 and 17-02 separately at $32 apiece, and it earns both lines from one score. The catch is written into the bulletin: "The combined exam results in one final score. You must pass the complete exam to qualify for a license." There is no partial credit and no banking half of it — fail 17-03 and you have failed both lines.
Prometric seeds five experimental questions into the exam that are not scored and are not identified. The bulletin does not say whether those five sit inside the printed 100 or on top of it, so treat the count as 100 listed items and don't build a pacing plan on the difference.
Most Tested Topics on the Utah Life Exam
Utah's life-policy provisions live in Title 31A, Chapter 22, Part 4. Several of them break the national pattern by enough that a candidate coached on generic material will answer confidently and wrongly. From the TESTivity Utah regulations curriculum, statute-verified:
| Utah life concept | The rule, and where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Free look, new individual life or annuity | 10 days after delivery — return it and the policy is void from issuance, with every premium refunded (§31A-22-423(1)) |
| Grace period, individual life | 31 days for any premium after the first, or not less than 4 weeks if premiums are payable more frequently than monthly. The policy continues in full force throughout (§31A-22-402) |
| Incontestability, life | 2 years from the date of issue, during the insured's lifetime — or, on a survivorship policy, during the surviving insured's lifetime (§31A-22-403(2)) |
| Suicide exclusion, life | 2 years from issuance. Inside it the insurer pays not less than premiums paid, less dividends, indebtedness and partial withdrawals (§31A-22-404) |
| Reinstatement window, lapsed life policy | 3 years from premium default — but only 2 years if the face amount is under $5,000 (§31A-22-407(1)) |
| Interest penalty on death proceeds | Base interest, plus an additional 10% per year accruing from 31 days after the latest of proof of death, sufficient liability information, or resolution of legal impediments (§31A-22-428) |
| Producer's replacement duties | Present the approved replacement notice no later than at the time of taking the application, identifying each existing policy by insurer, insured or annuitant, and policy number (§31A-22-429) |
| One-time annuity training | Four credits, once, before selling annuities — required of producers selling on or after July 1, 2024 (R590-230-5) |
Two of these are worth extra rehearsal. The sub-$5,000 reinstatement carve-out is exactly the sort of Utah-only detail a state-law item is built around: the answer choice reading "three years" is correct for an ordinary policy and wrong for a small one, and both appear in the same question set. And the survivorship clause in the incontestability rule matters because the natural reading — two years from issue, full stop — misses that a second-to-die policy measures the window against the survivor's lifetime, not the first death.
The 10% death-proceeds interest penalty is also more distinctive than it looks. Most states impose ordinary interest on late death claims; Utah stacks an additional ten percent annual rate on top of the base rate once the 31-day clock runs, and the clock starts from the latest of three triggers rather than from proof of death alone. Candidates who memorize "interest from the date of death" get the trigger wrong even when they get the concept right.
Applying for Your Utah License, Step by Step
Utah's application process is the most tightly choreographed in the country, and the reason is a single rule on the Department's exam page: "Candidates may not submit a license application prior to taking any required examination." Not "you may wait" — you may not. That inverts the habit in apply-first states like North Carolina, and it means everything happens in one visit, in one order, at the test center.
Step 1 — Register and pay Prometric. Go to prometric.com/utah/insurance or call (888) 226-8740, choose Series 17-01, and pay the $32 exam fee. The fee is good for 90 days from the day Prometric receives it, so don't prepay months ahead of a study plan.
Step 2 — Pass the exam. Results come up on screen the moment you finish, and Prometric prints a score report. Prometric notifies the Department electronically within 48 hours of a passing result.
Step 3 — Apply at the kiosk, before you leave. The test center has a kiosk for exactly this. Open sircon.com/utah or nipr.com and file the resident producer application. Electronic filing is mandatory in Utah — R590-244-4 requires it — so there is no paper alternative to fall back on.
Step 4 — Pay the background-check fees inside that application. By credit card, during the online session: $12 to the FBI and $20 to BCI, $32 in total, paid to the Department rather than to Prometric.
Step 5 — Print the confirmation page. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that stops the process. Utah issues no fingerprint service code and no per-applicant ORI number — nothing like Arizona's INS-055.A or the IdentoGO service codes other states hand out. Your printed Sircon or NIPR confirmation page is the authorization. Without it the test-center supervisor has nothing to attach your prints to.
Step 6 — Pay Prometric's $6 fingerprint processing fee online at prometric.com/utah/insurance or by phone, then show the supervisor your passing score report and your payment confirmation. Prints are captured on the spot by live scan.
Step 7 — Wait. BCI and the FBI take roughly 30 days. The Department reviews the results against your application and issues the license.
If you tested remotely through ProProctor instead, note that only the exam moves — fingerprinting is still in-person live scan at a Prometric center, and no primary source describes an alternative application path for remote testers. Plan on a trip to a test center regardless.
What It Costs
Utah is one of the cheaper states to license in, largely because there is no pre-licensing tuition to pay. Bring a credit card to the test center — the license fee, the FBI/BCI fee and Prometric's processing fee all come due in the same visit.
One conflict to know about before you budget. The Department's FY2027 Fee Schedule lists an individual full-line producer license at $70 (initial or biennial renewal), a limited-line license at $45, and $25 to add a line of authority to a license you already hold. Prometric's bulletin, though current as of September 2025, still prints $75 and $50. The Department's own schedule is the better authority, but carry the higher figure in your budget rather than arriving short.
Each retake is another $32 in full — Utah publishes no attempt limit, but it also offers no discount for trying again.
Eligibility Requirements
You must be at least 18 — the application makes you attest to it (§31A-23a-104(2)(b)(iv)) — and hold a Social Security number, or an FEIN if you are applying as an entity. There is no residency-tenure requirement, but a producer already licensed in another state who moves to Utah must apply for the resident license within 90 days of establishing legal residence — do it inside that window and Utah waives the exam for lines you already hold.
The application's background questions carry more weight than the fingerprints do. A record involving fraud, dishonesty or breach of trust can support denial under §31A-23a-111(5)(b), but the Department's practical experience — like every regulator's — is that nondisclosure sinks more applications than disclosure does. Answer completely and attach documentation up front.
Active-duty military members and military spouses holding a valid out-of-state license may be exempt from the license fee under §31A-23a-104(6).
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: Three of the 24 hours must be ethics and at least 12 must be classroom or classroom-equivalent. Annuity sellers carry a separate one-time four-credit best-interest course under R590-230-5, which also counts toward CE.
Utah requires 24 CE credit hours every two years, of which 3 must be ethics and at least 12 must be classroom or classroom-equivalent — the statute words it as "at least half of the required hours through classroom hours" (§31A-23a-202(3)(b)(i)). The remaining 21 may be in any line; Utah allocates nothing by line of authority, so a Life-only producer and a full P&C producer face the same 24.
Life producers carry one extra obligation that is not CE in the ordinary sense. Under R590-230-5, a producer selling annuities on or after July 1, 2024 must complete a one-time four-credit approved annuity training course. It qualifies for at least four CE credits, and training that another state's substantially similar rule accepts satisfies Utah's. Producers who held a life license before July 1, 2024 were required to complete it by July 1, 2025.
Renewal is keyed to the last day of your birth month, every two years. The Property & Casualty guide covers the renewal machinery in full — the carryover prohibition, the insurer-provided cap, the one-year reinstatement window and what it does (and does not) reset.
Quick Reference
Official Links
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