Washington · Insurance Adjuster SampleInteractive Mind Map
Washington Adjuster Regulations
A visual breakdown of the Washington rules an adjuster is tested on — including the three licenses and the rule against using two on one claim, the crop routes that invert each other, the scope clause that unlocks remedies rather than liability, the four day-type vocabularies, and the retention period that lives in a licensing statute.
Washington issues three adjuster licenses — independent, public and crop — and RCW 48.17.390(1)(b) requires “separate licenses… for each type of adjuster,” at the full fee for each. You may hold more than one. What you may not do is use two at once: RCW 48.17.410 provides that an adjuster licensed concurrently as both an independent and a public adjuster “shall not represent both the insurer and the insured in the same transaction.” There is no prelicensing education for the independent or public license — Washington asks for demonstrated competence instead, satisfied by a year of full-time claims employment, a six-month supervised trainee program, or a CPCU, AIC or PCLS designation. The crop license inverts on both counts: the route with the education requirement is exempt from the state examination and carries the broader authority.
The examination is 100 questions in 135 minutes and covers both the independent and the public license. The passing score is a published 70 percent — stated by the Commissioner and by the testing vendor alike, as a true percentage of questions answered correctly rather than a scaled score — and there is no limit on retakes. Continuing education is 24 hours including 3 of ethics, but note where that lives: the statute only says the commissioner “may by rule establish” it, and the hours, the ethics component and an adjuster-specific subject restriction are all in the rule.
On the job, a first-party insured has three overlapping remedies. The Insurance Fair Conduct Act, enacted by the voters as Referendum Measure No. 67 in 2007, gives a first party claimant uncapped treble damages and mandatory attorney fees after twenty days' notice to the insurer AND the Insurance Commissioner. But read its scope clause carefully, because the Supreme Court had to: subsection (5) makes five claims regulations count “for the purposes of subsections (2) and (3)” — trebling and fees — not for subsection (1), the cause of action. In Perez-Crisantos the court held that “an IFCA claim cannot be predicated on a regulatory violation alone.” The Consumer Protection Act runs alongside with a $25,000 treble cap. Meanwhile the claims rule itself has no general business practice element — a single act violates it — and because it binds “the insurer,”Keodalah v. Allstate holds that employee adjusters are not personally liable. Three more Washington answers sit somewhere other than where the question points: the five-year record retention period is in a licensing statute, the continuing education hours are in a rule, and the ban on depreciating labor is in the standard fire policy chapter.
Washington issues THREE adjuster licenses, and forbids using two on one claim. The chapter is RCW 48.17. § 48.17.390(1)(b): “Separate licenses shall be required for each type of adjuster.” You may hold more than one — and § 48.17.390(4) makes you pay the full fee for each. What you may not do is stand on both sides of one transaction.
💼 INDEPENDENT ADJUSTER
🏠 PUBLIC ADJUSTER
Acts “on behalf only of the insurers.” Individual or business entity. No bond. Same 100-question exam as the public adjuster.
“Employed by and representing solely the financial interests of the insured named in the policy.” Individual or business entity. $5,000 bond — and no fee cap, no filed contract, no rescission window.
§ 48.17.410 — THE CONFLICT RULE“An adjuster licensed concurrently as both an independent and a public adjuster shall not represent both the insurer and the insured in the same transaction.”This is a conflict rule, not a licensing rule. Insurer work Monday and insured work Tuesday is fine. Both sides of one claim is not.
§ 48.17.010 — the four exclusions
#
The limit on it
Attorneys
1
Only where losses are adjusted “incidental to the practice” of law
Marine loss adjusters
2
⚠ Excluded entirely. No analogue in most states and omitted from nearly every national summary
Salaried employees of an insurer or MGA
3
⚠ “except when acting as a crop adjuster”
Appraisers and umpires
4
Only when functioning under the policy’s appraisal clause
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The staff exclusion turns on EMPLOYMENT — not on pay, and not on contractor status
Washington asks one question: are you a salaried employee of an insurer or of a managing general agent? It does not ask whether your compensation moves with claim outcomes, and it does not ask whether the paperwork calls you an employee or a contractor.
⚠ But it fails completely for crop. A salaried carrier employee adjusting crop losses is an adjuster and must be licensed. WAC 284-17-730 exists for exactly that situation.
✅ TWO CROP ROUTES — WAC 284-17-705
FEDERAL ROUTE. Must complete all educational and examination requirements of a certification program — in practice the CAPP card
⚠ EXEMPT from the state exam
⚠ MAY adjust crop losses that are AND are not federally insured — the broader license
❌ AND THE ROUTE THAT INVERTS IT
STATE ROUTE.“Is not required to complete a prelicensing education course”
⚠ MUST pass the state crop adjuster exam
⚠ MUST NOT adjust federally insured crop losses — the narrower license
And crop is carved out of BOTH exam exemptions — § 48.17.110(2)(b) and (2)(c) each open “With the exception of crop adjusters”
BOTH HALVES INVERT THE INTUITIONYou would expect the route with the education requirement to be the narrower one, and the route with the examination to be the broader one. Washington does the opposite on both counts — the educated route skips the exam and carries the wider authority. Crop is also individual-only: § 48.17.390(1)(a)(ii) says “an individual,” where independent and public may be “an individual or business entity.”
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The emergency adjuster REGISTRATION — and the 180 days start without you
Washington issues no emergency license and uses no blanket exemption. It uses a registration, required of a non-resident independent adjuster who is not licensed in Washington, completed with the governor’s proclamation number.
⚠ The Department’s own words:“Your submission is valid for 180 days from the disaster proclamation date, not the day you submitted the registration form.”
Deploy on day 120 of a proclamation and you have 60 days, not 180. The clock has been running since the governor signed. If the proclamation is extended beyond 180 days, you must reregister.
Washington asks whether you are competent — not how many hours you sat. § 48.17.380(3)(d) requires “experience or special education or training with reference to the handling of loss claims under insurance contracts, of sufficient duration and extent reasonably to make the individual… competent.”That is a competency standard with no hour count, which is why there is no prelicensing education for the independent or public license. WAC 284-17-123 supplies three ways to prove it.
Qualification route
Length
What it takes — and what it also buys
Experience
1 year
Full-time salaried employee of an insurer or MGA adjusting, investigating or reporting claims, part of it in the preceding year. ⚠ ALSO WAIVES THE EXAM — § 48.17.110(2)(b)
Trainee program
6 months
Supervised by a licensed adjuster; limited to “factual investigation and tentative closing of losses”; all transactions in the supervisor’s name. ⚠ 9 months maximum
Designation
—
CPCU, AIC or PCLS
THE EXPERIENCE ROUTE DOES DOUBLE DUTYIt satisfies the competency requirement and removes the examination. A candidate with a year as a carrier’s salaried claims employee can be licensed in Washington without sitting a paper at all. And a nonresident adjuster licensed elsewhere never sits it either — the Department’s instructions for a non-resident individual license read, in full: “you’ll need to apply for your license online.”
The examination — PSI
Figure
Note
Vendor
PSI
Confirmed on the Commissioner’s own page, which names PSI, lists 10 Washington centers and gives its phone number
Adjuster exam
100 / 135 min
⚠ Covers BOTH the independent and the public license — three licenses, two exams
Crop adjuster exam
50 / 60 min
The only separate paper
Exam fee
$38
Either exam
Passing score
70%
⚠ Published by BOTH the OIC and PSI, as a true percentage of questions correct. No scaled-score conversion
Attempt limit
None
⚠ “There is no limit to the number of times a candidate may retake an examination.”
Retake wait
—
Call the next business day; back in a seat as soon as space allows
Test centers
10
Remote testing available — laptop or desktop only, no phones or tablets
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A published, genuine percentage — and that is rarer than it sounds
Two independent sources publish the same figure and both express it as a percentage of questions answered correctly: the Commissioner (“You must score at least 70%”) and PSI (“You must get 70% correct”).
⚠ Many states publish nothing at all, or publish a SCALED 70 that then circulates as though it were a percentage. A scaled score is a converted figure that can correspond to different numbers of correct answers depending on form difficulty. Washington’s 70 is raw — so the arithmetic is exactly what it looks like: 70 of 100 on the adjuster exam, 35 of 50 on the crop exam.
✅ WHO FINGERPRINTS
Resident applicants
⚠ Nonresidents who DESIGNATE Washington as their home state — so “residents only” is wrong
Prints go to the Washington State Patrol and the FBI, via IDEMIA IdentoGo
❌ WHO DOES NOT
A nonresident holding a license in their ACTUAL home state — § 48.17.380(1)(b)
Nonresident crop applicants
⚠ NO FEE IS PUBLISHED, and that is by design: § 48.17.380(1)(a) makes it a statutory cost pass-through from whichever agency or firm charges it
⚠ SEQUENCING TRAP:“you won’t be able to schedule your appointment until we’ve received your license application.”Apply first, then print
Fees and term
Figure
Note
Application
$50
⚠ Per license. § 48.17.390(4): “the full license fee shall be paid for each”
Renewal
$50
Every two years
Late renewal
$75 / $100
Up to 30 days / 31–60 days
Reinstatement
$150
61 days to 12 months
Public adjuster bond
$5,000
Payable to the people of the state; secures the accounting for the insured’s money. Does not scale with affiliates
Initial term
—
⚠ “until the end of the licensee’s next birth month plus one year” — roughly 12 to 24 months, not a flat two years
Renewal cycle
2 years
The flat two-year figure describes renewals, not the first term
Business entity term
2 years
Flat, no birth-month machinery
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Continuing education: 24 hours, 3 of ethics — and the statute says NONE of it
§ 48.17.150(2), as amended by SHB 1037 (2021 c 22), says only that “the commissioner may by rule establish minimum continuing education requirements… to a crop adjuster, an independent adjuster, and a public adjuster.”That is a grant of authority and imposes nothing.
The numbers are in WAC 284-17-224:24 credit hours, including 3 of ethics“during every license continuation period,” completed within the 24-month period before expiration, late renewal or reinstatement.
⚠ And an adjuster-specific subject restriction most summaries drop:“Adjusters must take either property and casualty insurance related continuing education courses, or insurance claim adjusting related courses, or both.”Generic insurance credit does not count.
Adjuster CE is recent — the rule took effect 15 July 2022, and crop adjusters were exempt until 1 November 2024.
One act violates the rule. And the clocks run on four different vocabularies. WAC 284-30-330’s chapeau: “The following are hereby defined as unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices of the insurer in the business of insurance, specifically applicable to the settlement of claims:” — then nineteen practices.
❌ NO GENERAL BUSINESS PRACTICE ELEMENT
🔑 AND IT BINDS “THE INSURER”
The chapeau contains no frequency element of any kind. The NAIC model and many state statutes require conduct “with such frequency as to indicate a general business practice.”Washington requires nothing of the sort. A single act violates the rule — one late acknowledgment, one unexplained denial, one dishonored draft.
Those three words are load-bearing. They are why the Supreme Court held an employee adjuster cannot be sued on this regulation (cluster 4). The one provision aimed at a non-insurer is WAC 284-30-350(2), and it names insurance producers and title insurance agents — not adjusters.
WAC 284-30-310 — THE SCOPE, AND IT EXCLUDES NOTHING“This regulation applies to all insurers and to all insurance policies and insurance contracts. This regulation is not exclusive, and acts performed, whether or not specified herein, may also be deemed to be violations…”⚠ No carve-out for workers’ compensation or title — many states exclude both by name. And “not exclusive” means compliance with the nineteen is not a safe harbor.
The clocks — chapter 284-30 WAC
Days
Day type and cite
Acknowledge a claim — individual policy
10
WORKING — 360(1)
Acknowledge — group contract (51+ lives)
15
WORKING — 360(1)
Respond to a Commissioner inquiry
15
WORKING — 360(2), by the electronic complaint system
Complete the investigation
30
⚠ PLAIN — 370. From notification of the claim
Accept or deny
15
WORKING — 380(1), from fully completed and executed proofs of loss
Status letter, then recurring
45 / 30
PLAIN — 380(3). 45 days, then every 30
Limitations warning — first / third party
30 / 60
PLAIN — 380(5). The longer period runs to the stranger claimant
Honor a draft
3
WORKING — 330(15)
Pay after properly executed releases
15
⚠ BUSINESS — 330(16)
Furnish the release after settlement
20
⚠ WORKING — 330(16), same subsection
PLAIN days: the 30-day investigation clock, the 45-then-30 status cycle, and the 30/60 limitations warningsWORKING days: acknowledgment, the Commissioner response, accept-or-deny, drafts, and furnishing the release — but PAYMENT is in BUSINESS days
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Two undefined day types in ONE subsection — and the headline clock is plain days
WAC 284-30-330(16) requires payment within fifteen BUSINESS days of properly executed releases, and requires the insurer to furnish the release within twenty WORKING days of settlement. ⚠ Neither term is defined anywhere in the chapter. Read WAC 284-30-320 end to end: it defines file, written, current data, investigation, total loss and a dozen more. It defines neither day type.
⚠ And the 30-day investigation clock is PLAIN days while acknowledgment and accept-or-deny are working days. An adjuster who assumes working days throughout takes about two extra weeks Washington has not given them.
The two clocks also do not nest. The investigation clock runs from notification; the decision clock runs from fully completed proofs of loss. A claim reported on day 1 with proofs on day 40 has an expired investigation clock and a decision clock that has not started.
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The retention period is FIVE YEARS — and it is not in the claims rule
WAC 284-30-340, captioned File and record documentation, is a content standard with no duration: the files must contain notes and work papers “in enough detail that pertinent events and dates of the events can be reconstructed.”That is the whole section.
⚠ The period is in a LICENSING statute, and the duty is the ADJUSTER’S.§ 48.17.470 requires a record of “each investigation or adjustment undertaken or consummated, and a statement of any fee, commission, or other compensation received,” kept open to inspection “during the five years immediately after the date of the completion of such transaction.”It does not apply to life or disability insurance.
⚠ Washington runs THREE retention clocks from three sources:5 years claim records (§ 48.17.470) · 3 years CE certificates (WAC 284-17-224) · 3 years portable-electronics employee lists (§ 48.17.071).
FIVE PRACTICES WORTH KNOWING BY NUMBER(6) includes “an obligation to promptly pay property damage claims to innocent third parties in clear liability situations… leaving to themselves the burden of apportioning liability” — a third-party duty inside a first-party rule. (14)“Unfairly discriminating against claimants because they are represented by a public adjuster” — Washington protects the choice. (15) drafts honored in 3 working days. (16) the two day types. (18)“a good faith effort to settle before exercising a contract right to an appraisal” — invoking appraisal instead of negotiating is itself a violation. And WAC 284-30-350(7): no payment “without clearly advising the payee, in writing, that it may require reimbursement.”
Three overlapping remedies — and only one door into the biggest one. A Washington first-party insured can proceed on the common-law bad faith tort, on the Insurance Fair Conduct Act, or on the Consumer Protection Act. They have different triggers, different damages and different limitations periods. Naming the route is most of the analysis.
Route
Trebling
Trigger, fees and limitations
Common-law bad faith
—
Breach of the duty of good faith. No fee shifting. 3 years
Insurance Fair Conduct Act RCW 48.30.015
3× NO CAP
⚠ Requires an unreasonable denial of coverage or payment of benefits. Fees MANDATORY. ⚠ No limitations period stated, and none settled by any court
Consumer Protection Act ch. 19.86 RCW
3× $25,000 cap
Five Hangman Ridge elements. A WAC 284-30-330 violation satisfies only the public interest element. Fees yes. 4 years
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The Insurance Fair Conduct Act — enacted by the voters, and its notice goes to TWO recipients
RCW 48.30.015 was enacted as Referendum Measure No. 67, approved 6 November 2007. Its own first section: “This act may be known and cited as the insurance fair conduct act.”
⚠ Subsection (8):“Twenty days prior to filing an action based on this section, a first party claimant must provide written notice of the basis for the cause of action to the insurer and office of the insurance commissioner.” The recipients are deemed to have received notice three business days after mailing, and the limitations period is tolled during the twenty days.
Most pre-suit notice statutes run only to the defendant. This one runs to the regulator as well — and notice served on the carrier alone is defective. Subsection (7) carves out health plans.
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Subsection (5) is a REMEDIES trigger, not a LIABILITY trigger
§ 48.30.015(5) lists five regulations — WAC 284-30-330, -350, -360, -370, -380 — whose violation counts “for the purposes of subsections (2) and (3) of this section.”Subsections (2) and (3) are trebling and fees. Subsection (1) — the cause of action — is not in the list.
⚠ Perez-Crisantos v. State Farm, Docket 92267-5 (Wash., 2 February 2017):“We conclude that IFCA does not create an independent cause of action for regulatory violations.” and “We hold that an IFCA claim cannot be predicated on a regulatory violation alone.”
So the order of operations is fixed. FIRST you must be a first-party claimant unreasonably denied coverage or benefits. THEN a listed regulation unlocks trebling and fees. The regulations do not open the door; they raise the stakes once you are through it.
⚠ And note what is NOT listed: -340 (file documentation), -390 (motor vehicle), -391 (total loss), -392, -393, -394 and -395 (PIP).
✅ YOU CANNOT BE SUED PERSONALLY
⚠ BUT THE GRID IS ONLY HALF FILLED IN
Keodalah v. Allstate, Docket 95867-0 (Wash., 3 October 2019):
“RCW 48.01.030 does not create an implied cause of action for insurance bad faith.”
“Smith did not owe Keodalah a duty under that regulation because that regulation defines only unfair acts or practices of the insurer. Because Smith is not the insurer, Keodalah cannot seek to enforce the regulation against Smith.”
“Of the insurer” — cluster 3 — is the whole reason.
Keodalah decided a NARROW question: an employee adjuster, RCW 48.01.030, and per se CPA.
Merriman, Docket 33929-7-III (Wash. Ct. App., 11 Apr 2017), held a third-party administrator“owed the insureds a duty of reasonable care” from its administration agreement, plus viable negligent misrepresentation and non-per-se CPA claims.
Employee adjuster, negligence or non-per-se CPA: undecided. TPA, negligence or non-per-se CPA: Merriman says yes.
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⚠⚠ THE LEADING PRACTITIONER SURVEY STATES THIS BACKWARDS
A widely used compendium — Washington Bad Faith Law at a Glance, 2019 edition — says an insured MAY assert a bad faith claim against an insurer’s claim adjuster, citing Keodalah at the COURT OF APPEALS, 3 Wn. App. 2d 31 (2018).
That is the decision the Supreme Court REVERSED later the same year. Numerous 2018 practitioner blog posts carry the identical defect.
⚠ Check the LEVEL OF COURT and the YEAR on any compendium proposition. A peer-level survey can state a state’s headline rule backwards by citing a decision that no longer exists.
THIRD-PARTY CLAIMANTS — NO DIRECT ACTION, BUT ASSIGNMENT CHANGES EVERYTHINGTank:“third party claimants may not sue an insurance company directly for alleged breach of duty of good faith under a liability policy.”IFCA excludes them on its face — the action belongs to one “asserting a right to payment as a covered person.”⚠ But Trinity Universal notes an insured “may be able to ASSIGN its IFCA claims,” and a covenant judgment plus assignment puts the claimant in the insured’s shoes. And do not misread Onvia’s “third-party context” — there it means liability insurance, and the plaintiff was the insured who tendered a defense.
The numbers Washington answers backwards — and the ones it never states. The fastest way to get a Washington question wrong is to supply a national default for a figure Washington either inverts or leaves blank.
Automobile
Washington
The trap
System
Tort
No no-fault act, no threshold of any kind — enumerate ch. 48.22 and there is nothing to threshold
Liability minimums
25/50/10
§ 46.29.090, unchanged since 1980
Personal injury protection
Offer
A mandatory offer with written rejection — not mandatory coverage
PIP medical / funeral
$10k / $2k
Higher tier $35,000 medical — ⚠ but the funeral benefit is $2,000 in BOTH tiers
PIP denial grounds
4
Not reasonable, not necessary, not related, not incurred within 3 years. And the insurer must give “the true and actual reason”
UIM trigger
Damages
⚠⚠ The tortfeasor’s limits against the claimant’s DAMAGES — not difference-in-limits. A $50k tortfeasor vs a $50k UIM limit still triggers if damages exceed $50k
Comparative fault
PURE
⚠ No bar at any percentage. 95% at fault still recovers 5%
Total loss
No %
⚠ Parts and labor PLUS SALVAGE VALUE meets, exceeds, or is “likely to” meet or exceed ACV
Comparable vehicle
—
Same or NEWER model year; current data = within 90 days of the loss
Search radius
150 mi
Expands in 25-mile increments; beyond 150 only with the claimant’s agreement
Total loss reopen
35 days
⚠ If the claimant located but could not purchase a comparable. Excused only by written notice of a specific vehicle not bought in 5 business days
Appraisal clause
NEW
⚠ Mandatory for policies issued or renewed from 1 January 2026. 10 days / 30 calendar days / 15 days — then the COMMISSIONER designates the umpire
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Labor depreciation is BANNED — by rule, in the standard fire policy chapter
WAC 284-20-010(3) prescribes the 1943 New York Standard Fire Insurance Policy — by rule, not by statute. And subsection (4) answers a question most states leave to litigation:
“Except for the intrinsic labor costs that are included in the cost of manufactured materials or goods, the expense of labor necessary to repair, rebuild, or replace covered property is not a component of physical depreciation and may not be subject to depreciation or betterment.”
No policy-language precondition and no methodology test to run first. The carve-out is a real distinction: the labor inside the price of a shingle may be depreciated as part of the material; the labor of installing it may not.
⚠ And note where it lives — the standard fire policy chapter, NOT the claims regulation. That is the third time Washington puts the answer somewhere other than where the question points, after the retention period and the CE hours.
Property, guaranty, fraud, comp
Washington
The trap
Valued policy law / matching
None / None
Neither in the RCW nor in ch. 284-30 WAC
Suit limitation floor
1 year
⚠ A policy MAY shorten — but not below one year. Property runs from the DATE OF LOSS; everything else from ACCRUAL
Cancellation — general / auto
60 / 20 days
⚠ 60 days is the general and HOMEOWNERS figure. The auto number gets wrongly generalized
Nonrenewal — general / auto
60 / 20 days
Nonpayment is 10 days in both
Guaranty cap / deductible
$300k / $100
⚠ Washington KEPT the $100 deductible
Guaranty net worth exclusion
None
⚠ The phrase does not appear in ch. 48.32 — a large commercial insured recovers. No unearned premium sublimit either
LHWCA account
Separate
A Longshore and Harbor Workers’ account, insolvencies after 20 April 2005 — most states have none
Fraud reporting deadline
None
Mandatory, “within a reasonable time” — no day count in ch. 48.50, 48.135 or 48.30A
Fraud warning
Both forms
⚠⚠ Required on applications AND claim forms, and NO type size is specified — both halves invert the common pattern
Fraud immunity
Actual malice
⚠ Not “good faith.” Immunity is lost only on actual malice
False claim felony
$1,500
⚠ Gross misdemeanor, rising to a class C felony above the threshold — the amount decides the grade
Workers’ compensation
Monopolistic
§ 51.14.010 gives exactly two options: state fund or self-insure. Washington calls it industrial insurance
Comp benefit basis
Monthly
⚠ $9,516.00 max monthly time-loss, injuries on or after 1 July 2025. There is no weekly maximum — do not convert
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The claims rule excludes NOTHING — and still never reaches workers’ compensation
WAC 284-30-310 applies to “all insurers and to all insurance policies and insurance contracts” with no comp carve-out. Many states exclude comp by name. Washington excludes nothing, and the regulation still does not reach industrial insurance.
The reason is definitional rather than express.§ 48.01.050 defines an insurer as “every person engaged in the business of making contracts of insurance” — and neither the State nor a state agency appears in it, so L&I is not an insurer. A self-insured employer is not making contracts of insurance either. And a Title 51 claim arises under statute, not under a policy — so there is no instrument for the rule to attach to.
⚠ Yet Title 51 supplies its OWN good-faith duty, and it reaches the administrator directly.§ 51.14.180: self-insured employers and third-party administrators“have a duty of good faith and fair dealing to workers.”Set that against Keodalah and Washington answers the same human question in opposite directions depending on which title you are working in.
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⚠⚠ THE LIVE CURRENCY RISK IS A RULEMAKING, AND NO CODE CHECK WILL SURFACE IT
Washington acts take effect 90 days after sine die unless they say otherwise. The 2025 general date was 27 July 2025; the 2026 date was 11 June 2026. Both have passed, there was no special session, and core adjuster law did not change — the Insurance Fair Conduct Act has never been amended.
But the Commissioner has a proposal on file to rewrite WAC 284-30-300 through 284-30-395 — the entire unfair claims regulation. Matter R 2025-05, filed March 2026, supplemented in May, comments closed June 2026. No adoption order has issued.
⚠ An enacted-but-not-effective act has a KNOWN date you can diary. A proposed rule past its comment period has NO date at all — and a currency check against the code will report everything current, and be right, until the morning it is not. The only place that risk is visible is the rulemaking docket.
Separate licenses
§ 48.17.390(1)(b) — required for each type, at the full fee for each.
The conflict rule
§ 48.17.410 — may not represent insurer and insured in the same transaction.
Subsection (5)
Five WACs — a remedies trigger for trebling and fees, not a liability trigger.
Total loss
Parts and labor plus salvage value, meeting or likely to meet ACV. No percentage.
Intrinsic labor costs
The carve-out from the labor depreciation ban — labor inside the cost of manufactured goods.
Industrial insurance
Washington’s term for workers’ compensation. Monopolistic state fund, Title 51 RCW.
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Top Exam Tips — Washington Adjuster Regulations
1. THREE LICENSES, SEPARATE FOR EACH — and you may not use two on one claim. 2. THE STAFF EXCLUSION TURNS ON EMPLOYMENT, and fails when acting as a crop adjuster. 3. THE CROP ROUTES INVERT: education route skips the exam and is broader; exam route is narrower. 4. COMPETENCY, NOT HOURS — one year of experience also waives the exam. 5. 70% IS A PUBLISHED, RAW PERCENTAGE, and there is no attempt limit. 6. ONE ACT VIOLATES THE CLAIMS RULE — there is no general business practice element. 7. 30-DAY INVESTIGATION CLOCK = PLAIN DAYS. Payment after releases = business days. 8. SUBSECTION (5) UNLOCKS REMEDIES, NOT LIABILITY — Perez-Crisantos. 9. THE ADJUSTER CANNOT BE SUED PERSONALLY — and the leading survey says otherwise. 10. UIM COMPARES LIMITS TO DAMAGES, not to your UIM limit. 11. FIVE-YEAR RETENTION, IN THE LICENSING STATUTE, and it is your duty. 12. LABOR DEPRECIATION IS BANNED BY RULE, with an intrinsic-labor carve-out.
Ten Washington fact patterns — the traps, not the definitions. Each turns on a place where Washington answers a national assumption backwards, or where the answer lives in an instrument the question does not name. Read the feedback even when you are right.
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