Getting an insurance license in Maryland
Maryland licenses through the Maryland Insurance Administration, 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 health insurance in Maryland, and the line covers contracts issued by nonprofit health service plans, dental plan organizations and health maintenance organizations as well. The Administration renamed it from Health to Accident and Health or Sickness on October 21, 2021 when it adopted the Producer Licensing Model Act names. Its pre-licensing course was repealed with effect from October 1, 2024.
No course
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Casualty
Sells casualty insurance in Maryland. The pre-licensing course was repealed with effect from October 1, 2024.
No course
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Credit
Limited line credit insurance in Maryland, renamed from Credit Products in 2021. It is the one line in this state that still requires a course: the 2024 repeal took the general pre-licensing requirement and left this one standing, and the course comes from the insurer rather than from a school. There is no examination for it.
No count
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Health Maintenance Organization
A limited lines license for somebody employed by a health maintenance organization solely to solicit members for it. Arkansas is the only other state here with a license of its own for the work, an HMO Agent that takes the disability paper. Maryland asks neither a pre-licensing course nor an examination of it: Md. Code, Insurance 10-124 opens "Without regard to the examination requirements of this subtitle".
No course
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Insurance Adviser
Advises on a policy for a fee paid by the client, under one of two authorities. It is the only Maryland license with a designation waiver, the only one with a bond, and the most expensive individual license the Administration issues.
No course
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Life
Sells life insurance in Maryland. The pre-licensing course this line used to require was repealed with effect from October 1, 2024.
No course
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Motor Club Representative
The person who sells motor club memberships. It is the cheapest thing the Administration issues, at $5 or $7 depending on the month, and the only registration on this site that the licensee may not renew: only the club may.
No course
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Motor Vehicle Rental Company
The limited lines license a car rental company holds so that its counter staff may sell cover with a rental. The license belongs to the company, the staff are not licensed at all, and what the statute asks for instead is a training program the Commissioner approves.
No course
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Motor Vehicle
A license limited to selling motor vehicle insurance coverages only, including bodily injury and property damage cover on a vehicle. Maryland issues it under its own section to somebody qualified in the ordinary way, so the examination reaches it.
No course
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Peer-To-Peer Car Sharing
The newest license on Maryland's schedule: the program that matches a private car owner with a driver, licensed to sell the insurance that covers the sharing period. Maryland licenses it in its own right, where New York reaches the same business through its Limited Agent license instead.
No course
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Personal Lines
Personal lines of property and casualty insurance in Maryland, which the statute names as a kind of its own. It is one line rather than two.
No course
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Portable Electronics
Held by the shop that sells the phone, so that it can sell the cover on it. Like the rental company's, the license reaches every salaried or hourly employee the vendor trains, and the training program is the vendor's to provide rather than the employee's to find.
No course
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Property
Sells property insurance in Maryland. The pre-licensing course was repealed with effect from October 1, 2024.
No course
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Public Adjuster
Adjusts a first-party property claim on the insured's behalf. Maryland issues it to individuals and to business entities, examines every resident applicant, requires no course at all, and says plainly that it does not license the other kind of adjuster: a staff adjuster employed by an insurer needs nothing.
No course
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Self-Service Storage
Lets a storage facility sell cover on what its tenants put in the unit. Maryland licenses the owner and the individual the owner designates, and then writes six things into the statute that must be told to the tenant before anything is sold.
No course
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Surplus Lines
Places business with insurers Maryland has not authorized. It is not a line of its own but a license laid on top of the producer one, it costs $200 rather than $54, and a resident applicant posts a $10,000 surety bond that a nonresident does not.
No course
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Temporary Producer
Keeps a book of business running when the producer who wrote it dies or is disabled. It is issued without regard to the examination requirements, it costs $27, and it is the only Maryland license with no renewal fee at all because it cannot be renewed.
No course
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Third Party Administrator
Holds somebody else's premiums or decides somebody else's claims. Maryland registers it rather than licensing it, asks for no qualification of any person, and sets the bond as a percentage of the money the administrator expects to be holding at any one time.
No course
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Title
Title insurance in Maryland. It is a license type of its own with its own examination, its own shorter continuing education requirement, and two bonds no other Maryland license asks for: the Administration requires a $150,000 title fidelity bond and a $150,000 title surety bond from a title producer applicant.
No course
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Travel
Travel insurance in Maryland, sold under a limited lines license the Commissioner may issue to an individual or a business entity. Maryland asks neither a pre-licensing course nor an examination of it: Md. Code, Insurance 10-122 opens "Without regard to the examination requirements of this subtitle".
No course
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Variable Life and Variable Annuities
Sells variable life and variable annuity products in Maryland. The Code still calls this line Variable Life and Variable Annuity Products; the Administration renamed it Variable Life and Variable Annuities on October 21, 2021 and the license carries the name a licensee actually sees.
No course
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Viatical Settlement Broker
Negotiates the sale of a life policy for the person who owns it. Maryland stacks it on a life producer license and then registers it after the fact: the broker has thirty days from the first contract negotiated, so the paperwork follows the work.
No course
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Viatical Settlement Provider
Buys the life policy. It is the money side rather than the advice side, it costs a thousand dollars to register, and what Maryland asks of it beyond the fee is an antifraud plan the Insurance Fraud Division keeps confidential.
No course
Is a course required?
Maryland requires no pre-licensing course for Any producer line requiring an examination.
The Administration announced the repeal in Bulletin 24-19 on July 24, 2024, ahead of the October 1 effective date. From that date an applicant who has to pass an exam no longer completes a program of study approved by the Commissioner and no longer meets a minimum experience requirement before sitting it. A sourced zero with a date on it. The repeal is scoped to applicants who take an exam, so it says nothing about a line that is licensed without one.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-13 . House Bill 265 / Senate Bill 336 of 2024, Chapters 874 and 873
Maryland requires pre-licensing education for Credit, Credit life, Credit health . No hour count is published with it, and the note below says what that means here.
The 2024 repeal did not reach this one, and the existing record above said as much before it was found: it is scoped to applicants who sit an examination, and a credit applicant does not. Both halves of Maryland's qualifications scheme still oblige a credit applicant personally: 10-104(f)(1) for limited line credit insurance other than credit life or credit health, and 10-105(e)(1) for those two, each reading that "the applicant shall complete successfully a program of instruction" that is provided by an insurer selling the product and designed to give a comprehensive and accurate explanation of it. That is the applicant's duty rather than the insurer's, which is where Maryland differs from Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Wyoming, all of whom oblige only the insurer to offer one. The insurer keeps the materials and a list of everybody who completed the program for at least five years and produces them on request. The hours are null rather than zero because the Code sets no length: the standard is that the explanation be comprehensive and accurate. 10-104(h) and 10-105(g)(2)(i) then excuse the same applicant from the examination, so this is the only line in Maryland that is a course and no test.
Read at mgaleg.maryland.gov on 2026-08-16 . Md. Code, Insurance 10-104(f)(1) and 10-105(e)(1)
Fees
| Charge | Paid to | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Producer license, initial Resident or non-resident, individual or business entity, at the same figure, and the same figure for the motor vehicle rental company, portable electronics, self-service storage and peer-to-peer car sharing limited lines. Md. Code Ann., Insurance section 2-112(a)(6)(iii)1 sets the same $54 in statute, and 2-112(a)(6)(vi) adds a $25 application fee on top of it that the Department's own page does not show separately. | Maryland Insurance Administration | $54.00 |
| Producer license, renewal Includes a $15 fraud prevention fee. Late renewal inside a year is $169, which is the renewal plus a $100 reinstatement fee. Read against the statute this figure is unexplained: Md. Code Ann., Insurance section 2-112(a)(6)(iii)2 prices the biennial renewal at $54, the same as the initial license, and the Department publishes $69. The difference is recorded rather than reconciled, because a renewal is a charge that comes after the license and no cost page totals it. | Maryland Insurance Administration | $69.00 |
| Public adjuster license, initial Individual or business entity. Renewal is $65, including the $15 fraud prevention fee, and reinstatement inside a year is $165. | Maryland Insurance Administration | $50.00 |
| Insurance adviser license, initial The most expensive individual license Maryland issues, on top of a $1,000 surety bond under Md. Code, Insurance 10-206. Renewal is $215 and reinstatement inside a year is $315. | Maryland Insurance Administration | $200.00 |
| Third party administrator registration, initial Renewal is $65 and late renewal $100. An administrator that only administers ERISA plans registers for nothing at all: the Administration's table prices that row at $0. | Maryland Insurance Administration | $250.00 |
| Surplus lines license, initial $100 where the underlying producer license expires within a year and $200 where it expires later, because the surplus lines license is issued to expire on the same day as the producer license under it. Renewal is $200 and reinstatement $300. | Maryland Insurance Administration | $100.00 |
| Viatical settlement broker registration, initial Renewal is $50, and the registration expires on the same day as the producer license it sits on. There is no reinstatement. | Maryland Insurance Administration | $250.00 |
| Viatical settlement provider registration, initial The largest single charge on Maryland's licensing table. Renewal is $50 and there is no reinstatement. | Maryland Insurance Administration | $1,000.00 |
| Motor club representative registration $5 if submitted between 1 September and 30 April and $7 between 1 May and 31 August, because registrations expire on a fixed annual date. Renewal is $2 and only the motor club may file it. | Maryland Insurance Administration | $5.00 |
| Temporary producer license Issued on the death or disability of a producer. The Administration's table prints no renewal and no reinstatement figure against it. | Maryland Insurance Administration | $27.00 |
| License application fee Md. Code Ann., Insurance section 2-112(a)(6)(vi), a flat $25 charged with the application for any license or permit in that paragraph, on top of the license fee itself. It is in the statute and not on the Department's fee page, so a Maryland producer license costs $79 to obtain rather than $54. | Maryland Insurance Administration | $25.00 |
Every amount above was read at its own source between 2026-08-19 and 2026-09-05. Exam and fingerprint charges go to a vendor, not to the Department, and say so.
Approved courses
There is nothing left to approve for a producer. Maryland repealed the program of study for every applicant who sits an examination on 2024-10-01, and Prometric stopped accepting pre-licensing course and provider applications two months before that, so the register that existed under the old regime is closed rather than unread. The one live course requirement in the state, the program of instruction a credit applicant completes under 10-104(f)(1) and 10-105(e)(1), is provided by the insurer selling the product and is approved by nobody: the statutory standard is that the explanation be comprehensive and accurate, and the insurer keeps the materials and the list of who completed them for five years. Read again on 2026-08-19 against the eleven licenses the Administration publishes beyond the producer lines, and none of them adds a course.