What This License Is
Virginia's Personal Lines license authorizes property and casualty insurance sold to individuals and families — homeowners, dwelling fire, private passenger auto, personal umbrella and the related personal coverages. It is a distinct license, not an endorsement carved out of something larger.
Read this before you pay for anything. Virginia's Property and Casualty license already includes Personal Lines authority. The two are not alternatives to weigh on price — one contains the other. A candidate who sits 11-07 and later decides to write commercial business sits 11-03 as well and pays twice; a candidate who sits 11-03 first never needs 11-07 at all. Personal Lines is the right choice when you know your book will be personal-only, and the wrong choice the moment a commercial account walks in.
The other structural fact about Virginia's P&C side: there is no standalone Property-only or Casualty-only license or exam. Property and Casualty is one indivisible line. States that split them are common enough that candidates arrive expecting the option; Virginia does not offer it, and Personal Lines is the only narrower P&C-side credential there is.
The regulator is the Bureau of Insurance inside the State Corporation Commission — a constitutional body that is also a court of record, whose three members are elected by joint vote of both houses of the General Assembly. Virginia's statutes call you an agent; § 38.2-1800 makes "producer" a synonym. No pre-licensing education is required for this line.
Exam Options & Format
The Personal Lines exam is Prometric Series 11-07 — 100 scored questions plus 5 unscored pretest items, 105 in all, 2 hours, $35. Note the pretest count: five, where the life and health exams seed fifteen. Series 11-07 is the closest thing Virginia gives to a form with no padding.
| Exam route | Scored / total questions | Time | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series 11-07, Virginia Personal Lines — this license | 100 scored / 105 total | 2 hr | $35 |
| Series 11-03, Virginia Property and Casualty — includes personal lines authority | 135 scored / 145 total | 2 hr 30 min | $35 |
Series 11-07 carries the heaviest Virginia-regulation weighting of any exam the Commonwealth offers: 18% — 18 questions out of 100, against 15% on the P&C exam and 10% on the combined life and health exam. Add General Insurance at 12% and nearly a third of this form is regulation and general principles before you reach a single coverage form.
The substantive weightings put the emphasis where you would hope: P&C Basics 20%, Auto 20%, Homeowners 17%, Dwelling 8%, Other Coverages 5%. Auto and homeowners together are 37 questions, and the most-tested section below is built around exactly that.
Virginia embeds its law rather than testing it separately. One form, one timer, one score — there is no state section and no split result. The Health guide covers remote testing through ProProctor, which is available for this exam at the same $35.
Most Tested Topics on the Virginia Personal Lines Exam
Two areas of Virginia personal-lines law moved recently, and study material has not caught up with either. Auto minimums rose in 2025; the uninsured motor vehicle fee was abolished in 2024. Both are the sort of change an item writer reaches for precisely because it separates current candidates from stale ones. From the TESTivity Virginia regulations curriculum, statute-verified:
| Virginia personal lines concept | The rule, and where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Auto liability minimums, current | 50/100/25 for policies effective on or after January 1, 2025 — $50,000 per person, $100,000 per accident, $25,000 property damage (§ 46.2-472) |
| Auto liability minimums, prior schedule | 30/60/20 for policies effective January 1, 2022 through December 31, 2024. Material still teaching it is out of date (§ 46.2-472) |
| Alternative to buying liability coverage | None. The uninsured motor vehicle fee that once let an owner register without insurance was eliminated effective July 1, 2024. Operating an uninsured vehicle is now a Class 3 misdemeanour, with licence, registration and plates suspended until a $600 noncompliance fee is paid and proof of future financial responsibility is filed (§ 46.2-707); the same $600 and filing requirement apply under § 46.2-706(B) where an owner fails to verify insurance. A penalty, not a purchasable option |
| Uninsured motorist coverage | Compulsory — it cannot be eliminated. Every Virginia auto liability policy carries a UM/UIM endorsement, and the limits default to the policy's liability limits. But read the rejection right precisely: what a named insured may decline is the additional UM above the statutory minimum. § 38.2-2202(B)'s required notice says a named insured may "reduce the limits of the uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage to less than the liability limits on the policy but no lower than the financial responsibility limits required by § 46.2-472." So UM can be cut to 50/100/25, never removed, and one named insured's election binds the policy (§§ 38.2-2206(A), 38.2-2202(B)) |
| Underinsured motorist coverage | Inside the same compulsory endorsement. Since the 2024 amendment (2024 Acts ch. 781), effective July 1, 2024, Virginia treats UIM as an add-on rather than an offset — it applies with no credit for the at-fault driver's liability coverage unless a named insured signs an election to reduce it (§ 38.2-2206) |
| Negligence doctrine | Pure contributory negligence — a claimant even 1% at fault recovers nothing. Virginia common law, not a Title 38.2 statute, and one of only a handful of surviving jurisdictions |
| Fault system | Fault-based (tort). Personal injury protection is not required |
| Auto cancellation, initial window | 60 days — the restrictions do not apply while a private passenger auto policy has been in effect less than 60 days, unless it is a renewal policy (§ 38.2-2212(F)(3)) |
| Property cancellation, initial window | 90 days for owner-occupied dwelling and fire policies — a different number for a different line, which national material collapses into one (§ 38.2-2114(E)(1)) |
| Auto cancellation, permitted grounds | Past 60 days, only for suspension or revocation of a driver's license or registration, nonpayment of premium, or the named insured moving out of Virginia (§ 38.2-2212) |
| Auto cancellation notice | At least 45 days; for nonpayment, less than 45 but at least 15 days (§ 38.2-2212) |
| Property cancellation notice | At least 10 days for nonpayment, 30 days on any other permitted ground (§ 38.2-2114) |
| Nonrenewal notice | Auto 45 days; property 30 days (§§ 38.2-2212, 38.2-2114) |
| Auto nonrenewal, prohibited bases | Age, sex, residence, race, colour, creed, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, occupation, driving experience, accidents or violations more than 48 months old, certain uninsured-motorist claims, not-at-fault medical expense claims, and comprehensive or towing claims (§ 38.2-2212) |
| Commissioner review of an auto cancellation | The insured may request review in writing within 15 days, and the policy remains in full force and effect during the review — except where the ground is nonpayment (§ 38.2-2212) |
| Residual market facility, personal property risks | Virginia has one, and the claim that it does not is wrong. Title 38.2 ch. 27 is captioned "Basic Property Insurance Residual Market Facility and Joint Underwriting Association," and § 38.2-2702 requires that "a residual market facility shall be established and maintained by all insurers licensed to write basic property insurance" — Virginia's FAIR-Plan equivalent for qualified property the voluntary market declines (§§ 38.2-2700, 38.2-2702) |
The 50/100/25 change is the first thing to fix in your memory, and the second is that the old 30/60/20 is not simply wrong — it is the correct answer for a policy written before January 1, 2025. A well-built question will give you an effective date, and the candidate who knows only one schedule cannot use it.
The uninsured motor vehicle fee is the more dangerous stale fact, because it is not a number that changed but a concept that was abolished. For decades Virginia genuinely let an owner pay a fee and register a vehicle without liability coverage, and a great deal of material still presents that as one of two ways to comply. Since July 1, 2024 there is one way to comply: a policy meeting the state minimums, or a certificate of self-insurance. What remains of the old fee is a $600 noncompliance fee — the same money, pointing the other way — and § 46.2-707 makes operating an uninsured vehicle a Class 3 misdemeanour, with licence, registration and plates staying suspended until the $600 is paid and proof of future financial responsibility is filed.
Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is where Virginia departs from the national script twice over. First, the endorsement is compulsory and its limits default to the liability limits — the coverage itself cannot be rejected. What it can be is reduced: § 38.2-2202(B)'s statutory notice lets any one named insured cut UM/UIM below the liability limits, but no lower than the § 46.2-472 financial responsibility minimums. So an insured carrying 250/500 of liability may take UM down to 50/100/25 — and no further. Get that boundary right, because "UM must always equal the liability limits" is a plausible-sounding answer that is wrong. Second, since the 2024 amendment effective July 1, 2024, Virginia treats UIM as an add-on rather than an offset, which inverts the classic teaching that underinsured coverage merely "fills the gap" up to your own limit. Absent a signed election to reduce, the at-fault driver's liability coverage buys the insurer no credit at all.
Then there is pure contributory negligence, which is less a rule to memorize than a lens to read every Virginia liability fact pattern through. A claimant one percent at fault recovers nothing. There is no 50% or 51% bar to compare against because Virginia does not apportion. And unlike almost everything else on this exam, it is common-law doctrine rather than statute — you will not find it in Title 38.2.
Finally, the cancellation numbers do not travel between lines, and that is the whole trap. Auto gets a 60-day window and 45 days' notice; property gets a 90-day window and 30 days' notice. Nonpayment shortens both, but differently — 15 to 44 days on auto, 10 days on property. The Commissioner review right is auto-only, and it is genuinely distinctive: fifteen days to ask in writing, and the policy stays in force while the Commission looks at it, unless the insurer cancelled for nonpayment. Most states offer nothing like it.
Where You Can Sit the Virginia Exam
Virginia's answer to "where do I test?" is broader than most candidates expect, and the current bulletin states it in one sentence: Prometric provides computerized testing through its multistate testing network, and "you may take the exam at any Prometric test center in the United States" or through the remote proctored network.
Read that literally, because it is unusual. Virginia does not restrict you to in-state test centers. A candidate who lives in Bristol can sit the Virginia exam in Tennessee; one working in Washington, D.C. can sit it in Maryland; one travelling for work can sit it wherever they happen to be that week. The exam is the same Virginia form, scored the same way, valid the same 183 days.
The current bulletin prints no Virginia test center list and no addresses — deliberately, given the multistate policy — so this page prints none either. Sites open, close and relocate, and a list published here would be wrong before it was useful. Find current availability through Prometric's scheduler at proscheduler.prometric.com, which shows seats by date as well as by location.
Booking and moving an appointment. Reserve through Prometric, paying the $35 at registration. Reschedule or cancel at least 24 hours ahead and there is no charge to move within the same testing window. Do it late, or simply not turn up, and you forfeit the examination fee — $35, and the date you had planned around.
Test center or home? The same Virginia form is delivered both ways at the same $35, and the choice is about your room rather than your budget. The Health guide covers what remote proctoring through ProProctor actually demands — a walled room with a closed door, a single monitor, a movable webcam — and why its published technical specifications read as though they were written in 2020, which they were.
What happens once you arrive is a separate discipline with its own rules: two forms of ID whose names must match your registration exactly, a 30-minute early arrival, and a prohibited-items list long enough to catch most people's wristwatch. The Life & Health guide covers exam day in full — read it before you drive anywhere.
Getting Your Results, and Reading Them
You will know before you leave the room. The bulletin: "At the end of the exam, the score will be shown on the screen and you will receive an emailed score report." There is no waiting period, no mailed letter and no separate results portal to check the next morning.
What the report contains. It "indicates the overall score and grade, including the numerical percentage of questions answered correctly and whether you passed or failed," and it "also displays the correct percentage in each major section of the exam." For Series 11-07 that means a percentage against each of the seven content domains — regulation, general insurance, P&C basics, dwelling, homeowners, auto and other coverages. On a failed attempt that section-level breakdown is the most valuable thing you will receive, because it tells you where the 100 questions actually went wrong rather than merely that they did.
Your score is a raw percentage, not a scaled score. That sounds like a technicality and is not. Many states report a scaled number and tell candidates plainly that it is "neither the number nor the percentage of questions answered correctly." Virginia's bulletin contains no such language, and the words "scaled score" do not appear in it. What Virginia reports is the percentage you actually got right.
The unscored questions do not count either way. Series 11-07 seeds 5 pretest items among the 100 scored ones, and the bulletin is explicit that they "will not be counted for or against you in the final examination score." You cannot identify them, and trying to is wasted time.
Duplicate reports are available through Prometric's Score Report Portal if you lose the email.
Now the part we are not going to fudge. Virginia does not publish the passing score. We searched the current test-center bulletin, the ProProctor bulletin, Prometric's Virginia FAQ and § 38.2-1817, which says only that "each applicant shall pass the examination prescribed by the Commission unless otherwise exempted." No cut score appears in any of them. Prep sites assert 70% with striking uniformity and none of them cites anything. It may well be 70 — but a site whose whole value is verified state-specific facts does not print a number it cannot source, so we tell you what the Bureau tells you: your report shows a percentage correct and a pass-or-fail grade, and the threshold between them is not published.
If you pass, two clocks start. § 38.2-1817 gives you 183 calendar days — and read the trigger, because the statute runs the clock to obtaining the license, not to filing the application. With a 15-business-day processing floor, or 30 business days or more if you answer a background question affirmatively, the practical deadline to apply is materially shorter. Miss it and both the examination fee and the application processing fee are forfeited. And until the Bureau actually issues the license, you cannot sell, solicit or negotiate — the bulletin adds that "passing an exam does not guarantee that you will be issued a license."
If you fail, wait 24 hours before rebooking; Prometric's Virginia FAQ notes the system may want 24 to 48 hours to reopen registration. There is no lifetime or annual cap on attempts — but § 38.2-1817 imposes a 30-calendar-day waiting period after a third failure, and each attempt is another nonrefundable $35. Use the section percentages in the interval. They are the only diagnostic you get.
What It Costs
Two published line items: $35 to Prometric for the Series 11-07 exam and $15 to the Bureau for the Personal Lines authority — $50 on a first-attempt pass. There is no pre-licensing tuition, because Virginia requires no course for this line, and no premium for testing remotely.
The Fieldprint live-scan fingerprint fee is mandatory and unpublished. § 38.2-1819 has required prints from every resident applicant since January 1, 2021 and assigns the cost to the applicant, but neither the Bureau nor Prometric prints the amount. Ask Fieldprint when you schedule.
The largest cost on this page is one you can avoid entirely by reading the overview again: do not pay for both this license and Property and Casualty. The P&C license already contains Personal Lines authority. A candidate who buys 11-07 and then decides to write commercial business pays a second $35 exam fee and a second $15 line fee for authority they could have had in one sitting.
Both fees are nonrefundable, and there are three ways to lose them. Change or cancel an appointment without 24 hours' notice and the exam fee is forfeit. Sit an exam unnecessarily or be found unqualified and the bulletin says neither fee is refunded. And let the 183-day window lapse and § 38.2-1817 forfeits both.
Eligibility Requirements
You must be at least 18 and must use a Virginia address for both mailing and residence. No pre-licensing education is required for Personal Lines, and there is no experience prerequisite.
Since January 1, 2021, § 38.2-1819 requires every resident individual to be fingerprinted at the time of applying for a new license — Fieldprint live scan, routed through the Central Criminal Records Exchange to the FBI. Prints must be under 90 days old at application and remain valid on file for one year. The Life & Health guide walks the process; the Life & Annuities guide walks the Sircon application it attaches to.
Answer the background questions on the uniform application completely. An affirmative answer moves you from the 15-business-day processing lane to 30 business days or more, and the SCC quotes 30 to 60 business days where a conviction is involved. That is a delay. An omission is a misrepresentation, which is not.
Moving to Virginia with a personal lines or P&C license from another state? § 38.2-1817 waives the prelicensing examination for the same lines of authority where you are currently licensed there, or apply within 90 days of that license's cancellation in good standing. The Property & Casualty guide covers reciprocity in full — including the fact that Virginia grants no professional-designation waivers of the kind Florida and Texas offer.
Keeping Your License Active
Important CE details: Sixteen hours per biennium covers one license type. Personal Lines and Property and Casualty are the same category for this purpose, so adding a life or health license is what moves you to 24 hours with a minimum of 8 in each.
16 credit hours per biennium, including at least 3 hours of insurance ethics (Va. Code § 38.2-1866). Sixteen is the figure for holding one license type — and Personal Lines and Property and Casualty sit in the same category, so moving between them changes nothing. What moves you to 24 hours with a minimum of 8 in each category is adding a license from a different category, such as Life and Annuities or Health.
Virginia gives agents a useful latitude on the ethics hours: a course in insurance laws and regulations applicable to Virginia may be applied toward the three-hour ethics requirement. Given how heavily this exam weights Virginia regulation, a Virginia-law course is rarely wasted study anyway.
Your license renews biennially at the end of your birth month, in odd-numbered years if you were born in an odd-numbered year and even years if you were born in an even one, at $10 per line of authority. The Property & Casualty guide covers the full renewal and reinstatement machinery, including the 12-month reinstatement window and what happens after it closes.
One ceiling to watch in a personal-lines career, where carrier-run training is plentiful: no more than 75 percent of your required credits may come from courses sponsored or given by or through an insurance company or insurance agency (§ 38.2-1866(J)). At 16 hours that leaves at least 4 hours that must come from somewhere other than a carrier or agency — plan them rather than discovering them at renewal.
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