What This License Is
The Utah personal lines line of authority covers property and casualty insurance sold to individuals and families for personal, non-commercial purposes — homeowners, dwelling fire, renters, personal auto, personal umbrella, and the endorsements that hang off them. It is a distinct enumerated line under §31A-23a-106, issued by the Utah Insurance Department.
It is deliberately a subset. Holding the property and casualty lines — whether by two single-line exams or the combined 17-04 — already covers personal-lines risks and reaches commercial business besides. Personal Lines is narrower on purpose, and it exists for the agency role it matches: personal-lines service and sales, where nobody is quoting a commercial general liability policy.
The trade is real in both directions. You get a one-hour exam instead of a two-and-a-half-hour one, and you give up the commercial market. Producers who expect to stay on the personal side for the foreseeable future take 17-20; producers who suspect a small-commercial account will land on their desk within a year should price the combined exam instead — it is $12 more.
Exam Options & Format
Prometric Series 17-20: 50 questions, 1 hour, $32. That is the printed line in the current Utah bulletin's content outline, and it is worth stating flatly because so much secondary material reports 100 questions and 2 hours. Utah's Personal Lines exam is genuinely half the size of its Life, Accident and Health, Property and Casualty exams — and, being priced identically at $32, it is by some distance the worst value per question and the best value per hour in the state.
The content outline weights it as follows: Insurance Regulation 10%, General Insurance 10%, Property and Casualty Insurance Basics 26%, Dwelling Policy 10%, Homeowners Policy 19%, Auto Insurance 19%, Other Coverages and Options 6%. Note what that means in practice — on a 50-question exam, the 6% "Other Coverages" band is about three questions, and the 26% basics band is thirteen. Study time is best spent where the weights actually are.
Five unscored experimental questions are distributed through the exam without being identified. On a 100-question exam that is background noise; on a 50-question exam it is a larger share of your time, and the bulletin does not say whether those five sit inside the printed 50 or on top of it. Plan your pacing on the assumption that you may see 55 items in 60 minutes.
Most Tested Topics on the Utah Personal Lines Exam
Personal lines is where a regulator's consumer-protection instincts show, and Utah's state-specific content concentrates almost entirely in two areas: when an insurer may end a policy, and what it may do with a consumer's credit. From the TESTivity Utah regulations curriculum, statute-verified:
| Utah personal lines concept | The rule, and where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Initial underwriting window | Policies in effect less than 60 days may be canceled on shorter notice; past that, midterm cancellation is limited to the statutory grounds (§31A-21-303) |
| Cancellation notice, nonpayment of premium | 10 days after delivery or first-class mailing of a written notice, which must include a statement of the reason (§31A-21-303) |
| Cancellation notice, other permitted grounds | 30 days after delivery or first-class mailing of the written notice (§31A-21-303) |
| Nonrenewal notice | At least 30 days before the policy expiration or anniversary date (§31A-21-303) |
| Right to a precise reason | If the notice is not precise enough, the policyholder may request detailed factual information — and must do so within 10 working days (§31A-21-303) |
| Auto nonrenewal protections | An insurer may not base nonrenewal on a fault-free accident, a single speeding violation not exceeding 10 mph over, or a weather or comprehensive claim (wind, hail, lightning, earthquake) — each protected once in 36 months, for a driver 21 or older. License suspension or revocation is a permitted cancellation ground (§31A-21-303) |
| Credit information in initial underwriting | Permitted, but only if risk-related factors other than credit are also considered (§31A-22-320) |
| Credit information in rating | Permitted only to grant a premium discount or similar reduction — and a discount given at issuance may not later be removed on credit alone (R590-219-5) |
| Credit information to cancel or nonrenew | Prohibited on an auto policy in effect 60 days or more (R590-219-5) |
| Credit information and household additions | May not be used to cancel, nonrenew or deny coverage for an added household vehicle, or when adding a newly licensed household driver related by blood, marriage, adoption or guardianship (R590-219-5) |
| Scope of Utah's credit rules | Private passenger automobile only — §31A-22-320 sits in the motor vehicle part of the code, and R590-219-2 limits the rule to insurers "doing private passenger automobile business" |
The cancellation rows are the ones that get tested as a set, and the reliable error is collapsing them. Utah runs three different notice periods off one statute — 10 days for nonpayment, 30 days for any other midterm ground, 30 days for nonrenewal — and a question that names the reason is testing whether you attached the right number to it. The 10-working-day window for demanding a precise reason is a fourth number in the same section, and it belongs to the policyholder, not the insurer.
The credit-scoring rows reward reading the scope line. It is tempting to summarize Utah as "credit permitted with restrictions in personal lines," and that summary is too broad: everything in §31A-22-320 and R590-219 is written for private passenger automobile business. No parallel Utah restriction on homeowners credit use turned up in the statutes or the rules. The most precise version of the answer — permitted generally, tightly restricted in auto, and specifically limited to discounts in auto rating — is also the one that survives a carefully written question.
Results, Retakes and the 90-Day Clock
You find out immediately. Utah gives no waiting period and no email-in-three-days routine: your result appears on screen the moment you finish, and Prometric prints a score report before you leave.
The report is a study tool, so keep it. It shows your overall score and grade, the numerical percentage of questions answered correctly, whether you passed or failed, and — the useful part — the percentage correct in each major section. On a 50-question exam with seven weighted content areas, that breakdown is the fastest possible diagnosis of what to fix.
Utah reports a raw percentage, not a scaled score. This is worth pausing on, because it runs against the national grain. Most large exam vendors report a scaled score and print a disclaimer that the number is "neither the number nor the percentage of questions answered correctly." That language appears nowhere in the Utah bulletin. Utah's bulletin says the report shows the numerical percentage of questions answered correctly — so on a 50-question exam, 70% means 35 questions, and the arithmetic behaves the way you would naively expect it to. Candidates trained on scaled-score explanations tend to over-model Utah.
One honest caveat on the number itself. The 70% figure comes from Prometric's Utah exam FAQ, which carries no printed revision date and sits at a `/2019-12/` path. The current bulletin, effective September 2025, states no passing score at all, and the Department's exam page does not either. The method — raw percentage — is confirmed by the current bulletin; the threshold rests on an undated source. Build your practice-test target above it either way.
If you pass: the clock starts. Prometric notifies the Department electronically within 48 hours, but that is not the same as applying. Go to the kiosk in the test center and file through Sircon or NIPR before you leave, because the bulletin's rule is absolute: the application and fee are due within 90 days of passing, and after 90 days the exam must be retaken. There is no extension mechanism.
If you don't pass: re-register and pay the $32 again. Utah publishes no limit on attempts — not in the bulletin, not on the Department's site, not in §31A-23a-108 — which is unusual; Arizona caps candidates at four per twelve months, and plenty of states impose waiting tiers. Prometric asks only that you wait about 24 hours from the end of the exam before re-registering, because results take 24 to 48 hours to post through the system. (That 24-hour request also comes from the undated FAQ; the current bulletin sets no waiting period.) Use the section breakdown on your score report to aim the retry — on a 50-question exam, fixing one weak content band is often the whole gap.
What It Costs
$32 for Series 17-20 — the same fee Utah charges for its 100-question exams, which is worth knowing but not worth resenting — $38 in fingerprint fees ($32 to the Department, $6 to Prometric), and $70 to the Department for the license. Around $140 on a first pass, with no pre-licensing tuition anywhere in it.
The $70 is from the Department's FY2027 Fee Schedule; Prometric's bulletin still prints $75. Adding personal lines to an existing Utah producer license is $25 and requires no new prints.
Because there is no attempt cap, the only cost discipline on retakes is the $32 itself. That argues for using the section-by-section score breakdown seriously rather than simply rebooking.
Eligibility Requirements
18 or older — the application makes you attest to it (§31A-23a-104(2)(b)(iv)) — with a Social Security number, and no pre-licensing coursework required for any Utah line. Someone relocating to Utah with an existing out-of-state license must apply for the resident license within 90 days of establishing legal residence to keep the exam waiver (§31A-23a-108(2)).
Answer the background questions completely. §31A-23a-111(5)(b) sets the denial grounds around fraud, dishonesty and breach of trust, and application fees are non-refundable if the application is denied or incomplete (§31A-23a-104(2)).
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: The same 24 hours a full property-and-casualty producer carries: 3 ethics, 12 classroom or classroom-equivalent, maximum 12 from insurer-provided courses. A narrower license does not mean a lighter CE load in Utah.
A narrower license does not buy a lighter CE load in Utah. Personal Lines producers carry the same 24 hours every two years — 3 ethics, at least 12 classroom or classroom-equivalent, no more than 12 from insurer-provided courses — that a full property-and-casualty producer does. Past the ethics hours, "the remaining 21 hours can be in any line."
Renewal falls on the last day of your birth month, biennially, and every credit must be posted by the provider before the Department will process the renewal. The Property & Casualty guide covers the full renewal and reinstatement mechanics.
Quick Reference
Official Links
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