Insurance License Hub

The Iowa Appraiser license

Appraiser

Values the loss when an insurer and a policyholder invoke the appraisal clause of a property policy. New in 2025, and it asks for three years as an engineer, architect, adjuster or contractor on top of knowing how buildings are put together.

Course

None

This license has no pre-licensing course route.

Ways in

1

It requires the state exam.

Exam

$44

Required.

Every way to qualify

  1. Route 1 Qualify on trade experience and pass the examination

    State exam required

    Construction knowledge

    • Experience or training in building construction, repair, or estimating property damage

    and three years in one of five callings, unless the Commissioner waives it

    • 3 years a professional engineer licensed under Iowa chapter 542B or similarly licensed in another state

    • or

      3 years an architect licensed under Iowa chapter 544A or similarly licensed in another state

    • or

      3 years an adjuster licensed under Iowa chapter 522C or similarly licensed in another state

    • or

      3 years A residential contractor as defined in Iowa Code section 103A.71

    • or

      3 years A contractor registered under Iowa chapter 91C or similarly registered in another state

    Iowa Code 522F.3(3), and it is a list of four criteria a person shall meet, all of them, with no course among them. The three-year limb at 522F.3(3)(b) may be waived by the Commissioner on the basis of the person's other professional qualifications, which is why it renders as five options rather than five requirements. The examination at 522F.3(3)(c)(1) tests the appraisal process, the duties and responsibilities of an appraiser and Iowa's insurance laws and rules, and the result keeps ninety calendar days. The fourth criterion, 522F.3(3)(d), is the requisite character and competence as the Division determines it. Chapter 522F is entirely new: 2025 Acts, ch 28 created it, and it licenses the people who value a disputed loss rather than the people who sell or settle it. A dozen other states here license an appraiser or an umpire, most of them confined to motor vehicle damage, where Iowa's chapter is written to the disputed loss itself. Crop is outside it, exactly as it is outside the adjuster chapter: 522F.3(1) exempts anybody acting as an appraiser solely for a crop hail or multiperil crop insurance claim. 522C.8(1)(b) is the part with no parallel anywhere else on this site: an individual applying for an adjuster license and an appraiser license under chapter 522F at the same time may sit ONE joint examination covering both, pay one fee, and be licensed as both. That is why the sellers here package adjuster and appraiser preparation together. The examination has a second form and it saves a sitting rather than a requirement: 522F.3(3)(c)(2) lets somebody applying for an appraiser license and an adjuster license at the same time choose one joint examination covering the duties of both, pay a single fee, and be licensed as both on passing it, provided every other requirement of both chapters is met. The three years at 522F.3(3)(b) is one of those other requirements, so the joint paper is a shorter route to two licenses and not a shorter route to this one.

    Read at legis.iowa.gov on 2026-08-18

Courses

You do not have to buy any of this. The Iowa Insurance Division asks for no pre-licensing course, so nothing below is required of you. It is exam prep, priced here so you can see what it costs.

  • WebCE

    Exam practice. No course is required, so this is what to study.

    $169.95

    See 3 options ▾

    • IA Appraiser Exam Prep Complete Package

      $169.95

    • IA Independent Adjuster and Appraiser Exam Prep Complete Package

      $169.95

    • IA Staff Adjuster and Appraiser Exam Prep Complete Package

      $169.95

    Go to WebCE