Getting an insurance license in California

Accident and Health or Sickness

Sells accident, health and sickness cover in California. It pairs with the Life Agent license on the application form and each is licensed separately.

Administrator

Collects charges or premiums from, or adjusts or settles claims on, California residents under somebody else's life or health cover or annuity. California issues it as a certificate of registration and asks for no residency at all, which most of its licenses do require.

Apprentice Public Insurance Adjuster

Employed by a public insurance adjuster for the purpose of training, in the statute's own six words. It is the only California license the Department's fee schedule prices with no renewal fee at all, because it is not meant to be held twice.

Bail Agent

Solicits, negotiates and effects undertakings of bail on behalf of a surety insurer. It is one of the two California licenses AB 943 did not touch.

Bail Fugitive Recovery Agent

Licensed to do what subdivision (d) of Penal Code section 1299.01 describes, which is to apprehend a bail fugitive. The Insurance Code grants the license and the Penal Code defines the work, and the twenty classroom hours are waived outright for anybody already holding a bail agent or bail permittee license.

Bail Permittee

Permitted to solicit, negotiate, issue and deliver bail bonds. At $1,248 to file and $788 to renew it is the most expensive of California's four bail licenses, on the same twenty classroom hours the bail agent and the bail solicitor take.

Bail Solicitor

Transacts bail as the employee of somebody who holds a bail license. It carries the same twenty classroom hours the bail agent does and sits an examination drawn from them, and the Department says so plainly: the paper is based on the course.

Cargo Shippers' Agent

Buys cargo insurance for a cargo owner or shipper the agent is also arranging carriage for. At $64 to file and $64 to renew it is the cheapest license California issues, and it cannot be used at all until a $10,000 bond or a business entity endorsement is on file.

Casualty Broker-Agent

Places casualty insurance in California: the liability half of what most of the country sells as property and casualty.

Credit Insurance Agent

Lets a business sell credit insurance and take commission without anybody there holding a life agent or property and casualty broker-agent license. It is the only California license that must be renewed annually rather than every two years, and its endorsees are registered and renewed annually too, at $45 each.

Crop Insurance Adjuster

Investigates, negotiates or settles crop insurance claims. It is the insurance adjuster license with the examination taken out and a federal training curriculum put in its place, which is the clearest statement of that trade on this site: the Commissioner must issue it to anybody who meets both halves.

Insurance Adjuster

California's independent adjuster license, which the Department files under the code AJ. It is licensed as a business with a qualified manager rather than as a person: the Department prices it $311 per qualified manager and issues the adjusters working underneath it $28 identification cards instead of licenses. An adjuster employed exclusively and regularly by one insurer needs none of it.

Life Agent

Sells life insurance and annuities in California. Since 2026 the only course California requires of it is twelve hours of ethics and the Insurance Code.

Life and Disability Insurance Analyst

Advises people about their life or disability insurance for a fee paid by somebody other than an insurer. Its two qualifications are unlike any other California license: a minimum age of twenty-three where every other one takes eighteen, and five years holding BOTH the life-only and the accident and health licenses before the applicant may sit the paper.

Life-Limited To The Payment of Funeral And Burial Expenses

A life license cut down to one purpose, which the Department writes into the name itself. It is priced exactly like a full life agent license and examined like one, and it is the only California life class that takes no prelicensing course and no continuing education at all.

Life Settlement Broker

Brokers the sale of a life policy by the person insured under it. California splits the trade into two instruments by seniority: a life agent of at least a year notifies the Department within ten days of starting, and everybody else needs this license first.

Life Settlement Provider

Enters into or effectuates a life settlement contract with the owner of a policy, which is the buying side of the trade the life settlement broker arranges. It is the one California license the Producer Licensing Bureau names on its list of classes and does not license: the page sits in the insurers section and the fee is on a different schedule, at $4,656.

Automobile Insurance Agent (Limited Lines)

Sells private passenger automobile insurance in California and nothing else.

Motor Club Agent

Solicits, delivers or negotiates a membership or service contract for an appointing motor club. It is licensed out of the Insurance Code's motor club article rather than its producer article, and it takes no course and no examination.

Part-Time Fraternal Agent

Sells a fraternal benefit society's insurance to its own membership on a substantially less than full-time basis, which is the statute's own phrase and the whole of what distinguishes this license from a life agent's. Individual only, and no examination.

Personal Lines Broker-Agent

Places the property and casualty cover a household buys rather than the cover a business buys.

Portable Electronics Insurance Agent

Sells cover on portable electronic devices at the counter where they are sold. California puts the training on an individual licensee: the vendor's program has to be developed by a licensed property and casualty broker or agent before any endorsee may sell, where Indiana, Massachusetts, Oregon and South Carolina put the same job on the insurer or on the supervising entity.

Property Broker-Agent

Places property insurance in California, which is the cover on the building and its contents rather than on liability.

Public Insurance Adjuster

Adjusts a claim on behalf of the policyholder rather than the insurer. California asks for a course, an exam, two years in adjusting and a $20,000 bond.

Reinsurance Intermediary-Broker / Intermediary-Manager

One license covering both halves of the reinsurance intermediary trade, and the Department names it that way rather than choosing between them. No residency, no course, no examination, and no renewal fee on the schedule.

Rental Car Agent

Lets a rental company offer insurance with its rentals through its own counter staff. The license sits on the employer, the people selling are endorsees on a list, and the employer trains them on subjects the Department sets out in a form rather than in hours.

Self-Service Storage Agent

Lets a self-service storage facility or its franchisee sell hazard cover to renters on the goods they are storing, and only with and incidental to the rental agreement. The facility holds the license and its endorsees sell under it.

Special Lines' Surplus Line Broker

The narrower of California's two nonadmitted-market licenses, built on the same two producer licenses as the surplus line broker and secured by a fifth of the bond, $10,000 against $50,000.

Stock Agent

Sells securities within California for an insurer or a broker, for compensation. Kansas is the only other state here whose Insurance Commissioner licenses somebody to sell shares rather than insurance, and like Kansas's this one has no renewal fee on the schedule.

Surplus Line Broker

Places California business with insurers not admitted here. It cannot be a first license: the applicant must already hold both the property broker-agent and the casualty broker-agent licenses, and a nonresident must hold a surplus line broker license at home as well.

Title Marketing Representative

A certificate of registration for the employee of a title insurer, underwritten title company or controlled escrow company whose primary duty is to market, offer, solicit, negotiate or sell title insurance. Nobody may be employed in that job in California without one.

Limited Lines Travel Insurance Agent

Licenses the travel insurance business, whose travel retailers then transact under it. At $4,540 to file and $4,540 to renew it is the third most expensive license California issues, behind the vehicle service contract provider and the life settlement provider, and the statute puts a floor under how often the retailers must be retrained: at least every three years.

Vehicle Service Contract Provider

The entity legally obligated under a vehicle service contract. At $5,433 to file it is the most expensive license California issues, and its renewal is $932, so the gap between getting it and keeping it is the largest on any schedule this project has read.