Getting an insurance license in Hawaii

Accident and Health or Sickness

Sells cover for sickness, bodily injury or accidental death in Hawaii, with disability income benefits. No pre-licensing course is required.

Limited Lines Motor Vehicle Rental Company Producer

The cover sold across a rental counter in Hawaii, licensed to the rental company itself and reaching its employees through it. At $2,200 to issue and $1,200 to renew it is the second dearest license the Division grants, and the statute gives it five named categories of cover and nothing outside them.

Casualty

Sells cover against legal liability in Hawaii, including liability for death, injury or disability and for damage to real or personal property. No pre-licensing course is required.

Credit

Limited line credit insurance in Hawaii, and it is two things at once. 431:9A-107(a)(7) makes Credit a line of authority on the full producer license, examined like any other; 431:9A-107.5(a)(2) makes it a limited license of its own, and the Division exempts limited license applicants from the paper altogether.

Crop Adjuster

The one Hawaii adjuster license with no Hawaii paper in front of it. What stands in its place is a federal certification: a valid, unexpired Crop Adjuster Proficiency Program card, which the statute accepts as an examination approved by the Risk Management Agency of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Emergency Adjuster

Not a license but a registration, and the only way a nonresident adjuster works a Hawaii loss without sitting the Hawaii paper. It opens only after the commissioner declares that resident adjusters cannot cope, and it runs 120 days.

Independent Adjuster

Investigates, reports and adjusts on behalf of insurers only, as an independent contractor or an independent contractor's employee. There is one way in and the Division says so in a sentence: there is no reciprocity for adjusters in Hawaii, and every applicant, resident or not, sits the Hawaii Adjuster examination.

Independent Bill Reviewer

Reviews and audits billings for medical services under insurance contracts, licensed alongside the adjuster in the same article. It is the only license on this site whose statute names five medical coding credentials and excuses the holder of any one of them from the domicile test, the experience test and the examination together.

Life Settlement Broker

Negotiates life settlement contracts for the owner of the policy. Hawaii asks for a year on the life line, a broker license and a notification within thirty days, which is one more step than any other state here: elsewhere the year buys the license or the notification, not both.

Life Settlement Provider

The buying side of a life settlement, and the dearest license the Division grants an individual: $2,475 to issue and $2,400 a year to keep. The territorial test is the owner rather than the provider, so a provider anywhere in the world needs it to deal with a Hawaii resident.

Life

Sells life insurance in Hawaii, which the statute writes as coverage on human lives including endowment and annuity benefits, benefits for death or dismemberment by accident, and disability income. Hawaii asks no pre-licensing course for it.

Managing General Agent

Manages all or part of an insurer's book and is measured rather than described: five percent of the insurer's policyholder surplus in gross direct written premium in a quarter or a year, plus claims authority above $10,000 or reinsurance negotiation. The Division issues it as its own license type; the statute asks only for a producer license.

Personal

Property and casualty insurance sold to individuals and families for primarily noncommercial purposes in Hawaii. Every other state's name for this line carries the words Personal Lines, alone or qualified as California, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, New York and Texas qualify it. Hawaii's is the one that drops the word lines, and the license carries the name the statute gives it.

Pharmacy Benefit Manager

A registration rather than a license, renewed every 31 March, and the whole of what the statute asks for is who runs the applicant, an agent for service of process and a fee. The Division prices the registration at $420 where the statute names $140.

Limited Lines Portable Electronics

Cover for phones and their accessories sold at the point of sale, licensed to the vendor as a business entity and to nobody else. At $10,000 to issue and $5,000 to renew it is the dearest thing Hawaii licenses by a factor of four, and dearer than any producer license on this site; the only licenses here that cost more are pharmacy benefit manager licenses, in Massachusetts at $25,000, New York at $24,000 and Arkansas and Alaska at $20,000. It sits in its own article rather than among the limited lines.

Property

Sells cover for direct or consequential loss or damage to property of every kind in Hawaii. No pre-licensing course is required.

Public Adjuster

The same qualification and the same paper as the independent adjuster, exercised on behalf only of insureds, with a $10,000 bond filed before the license issues. Hawaii allows one person to hold both licenses and forbids using them on the same claim.

Reinsurance Intermediary Broker

Places reinsurance cessions for a ceding insurer without power to bind. Which license is needed turns on where the office is, and Hawaii will accept another state's license where that state's law is substantially similar to its own article.

Reinsurance Intermediary Manager

Binds or manages reinsurance business for a reinsurer, and Hawaii licenses it separately from the broker. For a reinsurer domiciled here the Hawaii producer license is the only route; there is no substantially-similar-state alternative.

Limited Lines Self-Service Storage Producer

Stored property insurance sold by the owner of a self-service storage facility, and the one Hawaii license a nonresident cannot hold at all. Displaying an insurer's brochures needs no license; selling, soliciting or offering the cover does.

Service Contract Provider

Stands behind the extended warranty on the appliance or the vehicle, registered rather than licensed, business entities only. Three ways to prove it can pay, and the middle one is the NAIC formula that the District, Minnesota and South Carolina write the same way: a funded reserve of forty percent of gross consideration, plus a deposit in trust with the commissioner.

Surplus Lines Broker

Places business with insurers Hawaii has not authorized, on top of a producer license and its own written paper. The statute closes the door on three producer lines by name: a producer holding only life, accident and health, or variable products cannot have it.

Third Party Administrator

Collects premiums or settles claims on Hawaii residents for self-insurance, stop loss, life or health coverage. The bond triples at the first renewal, from $100,000 to $300,000, and it cannot be cancelled until two years after the administrator stops administering.

Travel

Travel insurance in Hawaii, sold under a limited lines travel insurance producer license held by an individual or a business entity. No examination and no course: the Division exempts limited license applicants from the paper, and the 2025 Travel Insurance Act adds a register of retailers rather than a second license.

Variable Life and Variable Annuity Products

Sells cover provided under variable life insurance contracts and variable annuities in Hawaii. The statute lists it among the lines a producer may qualify for and conditions it on nothing else.

Vehicle Protection Product Warrantor

Registers the person contractually on the hook for a vehicle protection product warranty, the theft deterrent or the paint sealant sold with the car. Selling one is not enough to be caught: only the party named in the warranty as obligor registers.

Workers' Compensation Adjuster

A limited adjuster license for somebody who adjusts workers' compensation claims and nothing else, on its own paper. It is the only license on this site that has to be re-examined to be renewed: the extension is biennial and conditional on passing the examination again.