Insurance License Hub

The Massachusetts Reinsurance Intermediary Broker license

Reinsurance Intermediary Broker

Places a ceding insurer's reinsurance without the power to bind any of it. Massachusetts allows no exemption from the license at all, and it will not issue one to anybody who has not held a producer license for three years first.

Course

None

This license has no pre-licensing course route.

Ways in

2

None of them requires a state exam, because this license has none.

Exam

n/a

Not required on any of the routes below.

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 the Massachusetts producer license for three years

    No state exam for this license

    Three years on the producer license first

    • 3 years an active Massachusetts insurance producer license carrying the lines to be transacted as a reinsurance intermediary broker

    and the same license, kept active throughout

    • the same Massachusetts producer license, maintained for as long as the reinsurance intermediary broker license is held

    G.L. c. 175, section 177O(A) is the granting sentence and it is written as a prohibition: nobody may act as a reinsurance intermediary broker keeping an office in the commonwealth unless licensed as a producer here, and nobody keeping an office in another state may unless licensed as a producer here, or in a state whose law is substantially similar, or licensed here as a nonresident reinsurance intermediary. Section 177O(D)(1) adds the three years: "Each applicant for a license to act as a reinsurance intermediary must have been licensed as an insurance agent or broker for the lines for which he intends to transact business as a reinsurance intermediary for a period of at least three years prior to applying for such license."The Division makes the underlying license a continuing condition rather than a starting one. Section 177P sets out what the contract with the ceding insurer has to say and section 177Q the records the broker keeps for ten years after the contract expires.

    Read at the Department on 2026-08-19

  2. Route 2 Hold the lines for three years in your home state

    No state exam for this license

    The home state producer license

    • 3 years a resident producer license in the applicant's home state carrying, for at least three years, the lines of authority applied for under the reinsurance intermediary broker license, verifiable through the NAIC Producer Database

    and a home state that returns the favor

    • The applicant is currently licensed and in good standing at home, has sent the Commissioner the application filed at home or a completed uniform application, and comes from a state that awards nonresident reinsurance intermediary licenses to Massachusetts residents on the same basis. A nonresident also designates the Commissioner as agent for service of process and names a Massachusetts resident on whom notices may be served.

    The last paragraph of section 177O(E) is the nonresident grant and it is conditional on the home state doing the same for Massachusetts residents. The Division's page is where the three-year period is tied to the resident producer license rather than to any Massachusetts license, and where the Producer Database is named as the proof. Section 177O(D)(1) also says the applicant "shall take a written examination prepared and administered by the commissioner or an independent testing service designated by the commissioner". Neither of the Division's two reinsurance intermediary pages mentions an examination, and Pearson's published list of every Massachusetts insurance licensing examination it gives has no reinsurance intermediary paper on it. So the statute asks for a paper that the department does not describe and the vendor does not sell, and the requirement recorded here is the one the department publishes.

    Read at the Department on 2026-08-19

No national seller sells a course for this license. Section 177O(D)(1) does say the applicant "shall take a written examination", and there is no such paper on Pearson's list of every examination the Division gives and no mention of one on either of the Division's reinsurance intermediary pages, so there is nothing here a seller could prepare anybody for.