Insurance License Hub

The Maine Surplus Lines Producer license

Surplus Lines Producer

Places Maine risks with insurers Maine has not admitted. Maine grants it as an authority on a producer license rather than as a license of its own, and the authority costs five times the license underneath it.

Course

None

This license has no pre-licensing course route.

Ways in

2

1 of them skips the state exam.

Exam

Varies

Priced per paper. The prices are below.

Either combination paper is $80. Every other paper is $55.

Every way to qualify

More than one route leads to this license, and which one you take changes what you study and whether you sit the exam. There is no pre-licensing course among them: this license is qualified for by a license already held or a license held in another state.

  1. Route 1 Hold a Maine resident producer license and apply for the authority

    State exam required

    The license underneath it

    • a Maine resident insurance producer license, on which the examinations for the lines being placed have already been passed

    and an office at a designated location in Maine

    • A maintained office at a designated location in this State, which 2012(1) writes as a continuing condition of holding the authority rather than as a fact proved once at application

    and the bond, filed before the authority issues

    • A bond in favor of the State from an authorized surety insurer, aggregate liability of not less than $20,000, conditioned on full accounting and due payment of funds passing through the producer's hands on surplus lines business

    24-A M.R.S. 2012(1) is the granting sentence and it grants no license: "Any person while licensed in this State as a resident producer who is determined by the superintendent to be competent and trustworthy with respect to the handling of surplus lines, and while maintaining an office at a designated location in this State, may be licensed as a producer with surplus lines authority." 1415(1) says the same thing from the producer's side, listing the full authorities at 1420-F(1)(A) to (F) "and surplus lines authority in accordance with chapter 19". So Maine issues no surplus lines broker license, unlike Delaware, Arizona, Vermont, Rhode Island and Alaska, and unlike them it charges more for the authority than for the license: $150 at 601(32) against $30 for the resident producer license at 601(5)(A). Pearson VUE publishes fourteen Maine papers and none of them is a surplus lines paper, so the examinations in front of this are the producer examinations for the lines being placed. 2020 is the bond and 2020(2) makes it the same trapdoor the consultant's is: the surety may cancel on 30 days' notice and, with no replacement in place, "the surplus lines producer's authority terminates". Two conditions run for as long as the authority does rather than being proved once. The office in Maine is one; competence and trustworthiness "with respect to the handling of surplus lines" is the other, and it is a separate finding from the general competence 1420-E asks for on the producer license. 2004 is what the authority is for and what limits it: a risk may be exported only after a diligent search of the admitted market, and 2006 lets the superintendent declare open lines that skip the search.

    Read at legislature.maine.gov on 2026-08-19

  2. Route 2 Be a nonresident producer meeting one of three conditions

    Exempt from the state exam

    • a nonresident Maine producer license, held by somebody who maintains a business location in Maine and keeps all surplus lines records here

    • or

      a nonresident Maine producer license, held by somebody transacting only liability insurance and only for a purchasing group registered with the superintendent, who agrees to produce surplus lines records in Maine within 14 days of a request

    • or

      a resident producer license in another state carrying surplus lines authority, where the Maine license is to issue on a reciprocal basis under 1420-G and 1420-O

    24-A M.R.S. 2012(5) is a closed list of three, and the first two are conditions rather than exemptions: a nonresident who does not keep a Maine business location and Maine records, and who is not confined to purchasing group liability business, gets in only on the third, the reciprocal route through 1420-G and 1420-O. Competence and trustworthiness in the handling of surplus lines is still a finding the superintendent makes about the person, in the same words as for a resident. What the paragraph does not do is waive the bond: 2020(1) falls on "every applicant for a surplus lines producer's authority" without distinguishing residents from anybody else.

    Read at legislature.maine.gov on 2026-08-19

No national seller sells a course for this license. Nothing could. Pearson VUE publishes fourteen Maine papers and no surplus lines paper is among them, because 2012(1) grants an authority on a producer license rather than a license of its own. The examinations in front of it are the producer examinations for the lines being placed, and those have course lists on this site.