Getting an insurance license in District of Columbia
District of Columbia licenses through the District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking, which calls the licensee a producer. Which license you need depends on what you intend to sell, and the requirements differ sharply between them.
License types
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Accident and Health or Sickness
Sells cover for sickness, bodily injury or accidental death in the District of Columbia, including disability income benefits. No pre-licensing course is required.
No course
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Bail Bonds
Insuring or guaranteeing that a person will attend court when required, or obey a court's orders, as a condition of release from confinement, which is the Code's own definition. It is a line of authority in its own right in the District, it is examined, and it cannot be issued to somebody who does not already hold or simultaneously receive a property or casualty license.
No course
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Car Rental
The cover offered alongside a rental car in the District of Columbia. The District asks neither a pre-licensing course nor an examination of a limited lines applicant: 31-1131.05(a)(1) excuses the whole group. The one instruction requirement attached to these lines is 31-1131.05a(b), and it falls on the insurer, which has to give an approved program of instruction to the individual before the individual applies. A licensee holding or applying for property, casualty or personal lines does not apply for this at all: the Department treats the limited lines as inclusive with a major authority.
No course
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Casualty
Sells cover against legal liability in the District of Columbia, including liability for death, injury or disability and for damage to real or personal property. Like Property, it is one of the two lines the bail bonds and surplus lines licenses stand on.
No course
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Credit
Credit insurance sold alongside an extension of credit in the District of Columbia. The District asks neither a pre-licensing course nor an examination of a limited lines applicant: 31-1131.05(a)(1) excuses the whole group. The one instruction requirement attached to these lines is 31-1131.05a(b), and it falls on the insurer, which has to give an approved program of instruction to the individual before the individual applies. A licensee holding or applying for property, casualty or personal lines does not apply for this at all: the Department treats the limited lines as inclusive with a major authority.
No course
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Crop
Crop insurance in the District of Columbia. The District asks neither a pre-licensing course nor an examination of a limited lines applicant: 31-1131.05(a)(1) excuses the whole group. The one instruction requirement attached to these lines is 31-1131.05a(b), and it falls on the insurer, which has to give an approved program of instruction to the individual before the individual applies. A licensee holding or applying for property, casualty or personal lines does not apply for this at all: the Department treats the limited lines as inclusive with a major authority.
No course
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Life
Sells life insurance in the District of Columbia, which the Code writes as coverage on human lives including endowment and annuity benefits, benefits for death or dismemberment by accident, and disability income. No pre-licensing course is required.
No course
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Managing General Agent
Underwrites and binds business for an insurer in the District of Columbia under delegated authority.
No course
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Personal Lines
Property and casualty insurance sold to individuals and families for primarily noncommercial purposes in the District of Columbia. It is one line rather than two and no pre-licensing course is required.
No course
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Portable Electronics
Cover for phones and other portable electronics, sold at the point of sale in the District of Columbia. The Code numbers this one (C-i), inserted between crop and surety without renumbering what follows. The District asks neither a pre-licensing course nor an examination of a limited lines applicant: 31-1131.05(a)(1) excuses the whole group. The one instruction requirement attached to these lines is 31-1131.05a(b), and it falls on the insurer, which has to give an approved program of instruction to the individual before the individual applies. A licensee holding or applying for property, casualty or personal lines does not apply for this at all: the Department treats the limited lines as inclusive with a major authority.
No course
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Premium Finance Company
Lends policyholders the money to pay insurance premiums in the District of Columbia.
No course
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Property
Sells cover for direct or consequential loss or damage to property of every kind in the District of Columbia. It is also one of the two lines the District stacks its bail bonds and surplus lines licenses on, so it is worth holding first or at the same time.
No course
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Public Insurance Adjuster
Represents a policyholder for a fee in a first party claim on property insurance in the District of Columbia.
No course
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Reinsurance Intermediary Manager
Manages the reinsurance of an insurer in the District of Columbia with binding authority.
No course
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Reinsurance Intermediary
Places reinsurance for a ceding insurer in the District of Columbia.
No course
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Service Contract Provider
Stands behind consumer service contracts sold in the District of Columbia as the obligor.
No course
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Surety
Surety in the District of Columbia, filed among the limited lines here rather than given a line of its own the way Delaware and Idaho do. The District asks neither a pre-licensing course nor an examination of a limited lines applicant: 31-1131.05(a)(1) excuses the whole group. The one instruction requirement attached to these lines is 31-1131.05a(b), and it falls on the insurer, which has to give an approved program of instruction to the individual before the individual applies. A licensee holding or applying for property, casualty or personal lines does not apply for this at all: the Department treats the limited lines as inclusive with a major authority.
No course
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Surplus Lines
Places cover with companies the District has not otherwise authorized to do business, under D.C. Code 31-2502.40(a). There is no examination for it and no course, but it cannot be held alone: a property or casualty license has to be held already or issued at the same time.
No course
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Title Insurance Producer
Issues title insurance commitments and policies, and conducts settlements, in the District of Columbia.
No count
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Travel
Travel insurance in the District of Columbia. The District asks neither a pre-licensing course nor an examination of a limited lines applicant: 31-1131.05(a)(1) excuses the whole group. The one instruction requirement attached to these lines is 31-1131.05a(b), and it falls on the insurer, which has to give an approved program of instruction to the individual before the individual applies. A licensee holding or applying for property, casualty or personal lines does not apply for this at all: the Department treats the limited lines as inclusive with a major authority.
No course
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Variable Life and Variable Annuity
Sells cover provided under variable life insurance contracts and variable annuities in the District of Columbia. The Code lists it among the lines a producer may qualify for and conditions it on nothing else, so unlike most states here it asks for no life line and no securities registration of its own.
No course
Is a course required?
District of Columbia requires no pre-licensing course for Life, Accident and Health or Sickness, Variable Life and Variable Annuity, Property, Casualty, Personal Lines, Surplus Lines, Bail Bonds.
The Department states what a resident applicant must do: pass an examination in the area applied for, or have held a like license in another jurisdiction within the previous 90 days. No course appears anywhere in its general information for producers, and it points candidates at the District's insurance code and municipal regulations to study from. The statute is why the Department's own list is the right place to read it. Like Massachusetts, the District neither writes a course into the law nor strikes one out of it: 31-1131.06(a)(3) asks the Commissioner to find that the applicant "if required by the Commissioner, has completed a pre-licensing course of study", and 31-1131.05a(a) gives the Commissioner the power to require one by rule. No such rule has been made, so the answer for these eight lines is zero. Read the examination vendor's handbook before treating that as the whole answer, because it says two things in one paragraph: "A mandatory course of at least forty (40) hours of Pre-Licensing is not mandated by the Commissioner of Insurance for the District of Columbia", and then "Candidates have to show proof of a Pre-Licensing Course of study prior to sitting for the District of Columbia Insurance License Examination."Only one such proof exists anywhere in the District and it belongs to the title license, which the second record here covers.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-20 . D.C. Code 31-1131.06(a)(3) with 31-1131.05a(a), which condition a pre-licensing course on the Commissioner requiring one by rule
District of Columbia requires pre-licensing education for Title Insurance Producer . No hour count is published with it, and the note below says what that means here.
The District requires pre-licensing education for exactly one license, measures it by the applicant's own opinion, and has no power on paper to require it. DISB publishes a one-page Confirmation of Pre-Licensing Requirement carrying a single sentence to sign: "I confirm that I have met the District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking Pre-Licensing requirement in that I have taken sufficient Pre-Licensing Education to pass the DC Title Insurance Producer's Examination."Pearson VUE's candidate handbook says what happens to it: the candidate completes the document and presents it at the testing site as verification of course completion. No hour count, no subjects, no approved provider and no register, so the figure here is null rather than a number, and null is not zero. Where it does not come from is the striking part. Section 31-1131.05a(a) lets the Commissioner require a pre-licensing course by rule of "an individual, other than an applicant for a title insurance producer license", and that exclusion was written into it by D.C. Law 18-223 in 2010, the same act that created chapter 50B for title insurance producers. Chapter 50B has twelve sections and not one of them mentions education or an examination. So the District's only pre-licensing requirement sits on the only license its pre-licensing rulemaking power expressly cannot reach, and is enforced by a form handed over at a test center.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-20 . The Department's Confirmation of Pre-Licensing Requirement, which no statute or rule stands behind: D.C. Code 31-1131.05a(a) excludes the title applicant from the Commissioner's pre-licensing rulemaking power and chapter 50B contains no education section
Fees
| Charge | Paid to | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Producer license, individual, biennial The Department's schedule numbers its producer rows 1 to 14 and lists the labels for those numbers separately in the same order; row 6 is the individual producer license, biennial, at $100 to issue and $100 to renew. Resident and non-resident fees are the same, which the schedule states outright. There is no separate title producer row on it, so this is the row a title applicant pays. | District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking | $100.00 |
| Producer license, firm, biennial Row 5. An alternative to the individual fee above rather than a charge on top of it, so no cost total adds both. A firm must affiliate a Designated Responsible Licensed Producer before it is licensed and may hold no authority greater than that person's. | District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking | $100.00 |
| Limited lines license, biennial Row 14, and the schedule names all six in one line: Surety, Travel, Crop, Car Rental, Credit and Portable Electronics. Nobody holding or applying for property, casualty or personal lines needs to pay it, because the Department treats those limited lines as inclusive with a major authority. | District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking | $100.00 |
| Surplus lines license, biennial Row 13. It sits on top of a property or casualty authority, which 31-1131.07(a-1) requires to be held already or issued at the same time. | District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking | $200.00 |
| Bail bondsman license, biennial Row 2, and the schedule marks it in red: individual only. Like surplus lines it sits on a property or casualty authority under 31-1131.07(a-1). | District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking | $100.00 |
| Public insurance adjuster license, individual, biennial Row 8. Row 7 charges a business entity the same $100, and a natural person adjusting through a company needs both, because 26 DCMR A3900.4 licenses the person and the company separately. | District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking | $100.00 |
| Managing general agent authority, individual, biennial Row 4, with row 3 charging a firm the same $300. Three times the producer license it sits on. | District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking | $300.00 |
| Reinsurance intermediary authority, individual, biennial Row 10, with row 9 charging a firm the same $300. | District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking | $300.00 |
| Reinsurance intermediary manager authority, individual, biennial Row 12, with row 11 charging a managing firm the same $300. The schedule prices the manager apart from the intermediary, which is why this site carries them as two licenses. | District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking | $300.00 |
| Premium finance company license, annual Set in the statute rather than left to the schedule: D.C. Code 31-1103(b) fixes $150 and renews it on the first day of May each year. | District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking | $150.00 |
| Service contract provider registration, annual D.C. Code 31-2351.03(d)(2), on initial registration and every year after. The renewal window opens sixty days before April 30. | District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking | $200.00 |
| Company appointment, annual Row 1. Paid by the insurer that appoints the producer rather than by the producer, renewed by the company through NIPR by April 30 each year, and owed only where the producer acts as an agent of the insurer. | District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking | $25.00 |
| Licensing examination Per examination, and the District gives six of them. Combination examinations are no longer available, so anyone sitting more than one pays more than once; a Personal Lines applicant has no paper of that name to sit and takes papers named for other lines, so the figure here is a floor for that license rather than a total. The initial resident bail bonds test is DISB's own and is not this fee. | Pearson VUE | $75.00 |
Every amount above was read at its own source on 2026-08-20. Exam and fingerprint charges go to a vendor, not to the Department, and say so.
Approved courses
There is no register and, for eight of the District's licenses, no course to approve. The Department sends candidates to the District of Columbia insurance code and the DCMR regulations, and to its exam vendor for study material. The ninth license, the title insurance producer, does carry a pre-licensing requirement and the Department approves nothing for it either: the applicant signs a statement that their own study was sufficient. For the public insurance adjuster the Department publishes a Suggested Study Guide instead, which is two public glossaries, a list of coverage concepts and four legal citations.