Insurance License Hub

The Massachusetts Service Contract Provider license

Service Contract Provider

Stands behind an extended warranty on a home or on consumer goods. Massachusetts registers it, prices the registration at six hundred dollars every three years, and asks it to back the promise with either insurance, a reserve and a deposit, or a parent company's net worth.

Course

None

This license has no pre-licensing course route.

Ways in

1

There is no state exam for this license.

Exam

n/a

Not required on any of the routes below.

Every way to qualify

  1. Route 1 File a registration with the Commissioner

    No state exam for this license

    The registration

    • A registration filed with the Commissioner giving the provider's name, address, telephone number, contact person and a person designated in the commonwealth for service of process, with $600 on initial registration and $600 on each renewal, three years apart.

    and backing the promise, one of three ways

    • Insure every service contract under a reimbursement insurance policy from an insurer holding at least $15,000,000 of surplus and paid-in capital, or at least $10,000,000 with a net written premium to surplus ratio no greater than three to one.

    • or

      Maintain a funded reserve account of at least 40 percent of gross consideration received less claims paid on all in-force contracts, open to the Commissioner's examination, and place a financial security deposit in trust with the Commissioner worth at least 5 percent of that same figure and never less than $25,000, as a surety bond, eligible securities, cash, a letter of credit or another form the Commissioner authorizes.

    • or

      Maintain, alone or together with a parent company, a net worth or stockholders' equity of $25,000,000, and produce the most recent Form 10-K or Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on request, or financial statements showing that figure. Where the parent's filing is what meets it, the parent guarantees the provider's obligations on service contracts sold in the commonwealth.

    G.L. c. 175, sections 149M to 149X. Section 149N(c) is the registration and its fee, and section 149N(d) the financial assurance. There is no examination, no course and no competence finding. The reserve and deposit route is Hawaii's and Minnesota's almost word for word, 40 percent of gross consideration less claims paid with a 5 percent deposit on a $25,000 floor, which is the NAIC shape. Section 149N(a) makes appointing an administrator optional. What is worth reading twice is the Division's own summary of section 149V(c). The Division writes that under it "warranties, service contracts or other agreements regarding automobiles... are deemed insurance products in Massachusetts and must be approved for sale in Massachusetts". Section 149V is headed "Exemptions from Secs. 149M to 149W" and its clause (c) is one of four things exempted from the registration scheme, alongside public utility wiring warranties, mechanical breakdown insurance policies sold by licensed insurers, and builders' warranties on a conveyance of real estate. The department's conclusion and the subsection it cites point in opposite directions, and what an automobile service contract provider does here is settled by the Division rather than by section 149V.

    Read at malegislature.gov on 2026-08-19

No national seller sells a course for this license, and nothing could. Section 149N is a registration backed by insurance or by a reserve and a deposit, with no examination and no course.