Getting an insurance license in Michigan
Michigan licenses through the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services, 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 & Health
Sells accident and health cover in Michigan.
20 hrs
5 courses from $79.95
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Adjuster for the Insured
Michigan’s name for the public adjuster, and it is drawn by the peril rather than by the line: fire and other hazards for somebody who has suffered a covered loss, and never workers’ compensation.
No course
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Casualty
Sells casualty insurance in Michigan, licensed apart from Property.
20 hrs
4 courses from $79.95
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Counselor
Sells advice about insurance rather than insurance. In Michigan only a counselor may audit a policy, give a paid opinion on one, or call themselves a consultant.
No course
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Credit
Michigan's limited line credit insurance qualification, sold with a loan or a purchase rather than on its own. It has no registered program of study and the commissioner may waive the examination for it, because the statute treats a limited license differently from a full one.
No course
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Insurance Adjuster
Contracts with and represents insurance companies to adjust Michigan losses. Michigan calls this the independent adjuster and examines it two ways, by whether the license carries workers’ compensation authority.
No course
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Life/Limited Life
Sells life insurance in Michigan. Twenty hours for the line alone, and forty if it is taken with Health.
20 hrs
5 courses from $79.95
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Personal Lines
Sells the household half of property and casualty in Michigan. Its twenty hours are property and casualty coursework rather than a course of its own.
20 hrs
5 courses from $109.95
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Property
Sells property insurance in Michigan, licensed apart from Casualty.
20 hrs
5 courses from $79.95
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Reinsurance Intermediary Broker
Places reinsurance cessions for a ceding insurer without the power to bind it. The absence of that power is the whole definition, and it is what separates this license from the manager’s.
No course
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Reinsurance Intermediary Manager
Binds or manages a reinsurer’s assumed business as its agent. Michigan writes four people out of this license by name, and each exclusion is somebody who looks like a manager and is not one.
No course
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Solicitor
A producer’s licensed helper, sponsored by exactly one Michigan producer or agency and appointed by nobody. It is the only license Michigan added here that needs the pre-licensing coursework, and it sits the producer’s own examination.
No count
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Surplus Lines Producer
Solicits or binds Michigan surplus lines coverage. Michigan stacks it on two chapters of its own code rather than on a producer license alone, and it is one of five licenses the state names as needing no pre-licensing coursework.
No course
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Variable Life and Variable Annuity Products
One of the seven lines of insurance Michigan's statute lets a producer qualify in. It is the line with no course behind it: MCL 500.1204a registers a program of study for health, life, property, casualty and personal lines and registers none for this one.
No course
Is a course required?
Michigan requires pre-licensing education for Life and Health, Property and Casualty, Property, Casualty, and Personal Lines , at 40 hours.
A waiver is available for CLU, ChFC, CPCU, AAI or CIC, or a concentration of insurance college credits. It must be requested in writing and granted before the exam is scheduled, which makes it a step rather than an automatic exemption. The statute sets the hours and permits classroom instruction "or its equivalent in home study or online courses", so a self-paced course is not disqualified here. It also requires the course to have been completed not more than twelve months before the application for examination is received, and it lists thirteen designations rather than the five on the Department's page. The coursework has to be a program of study registered with the Department: MCL 500.1204(2) says an applicant "shall not be given an examination" without one, so registration is a condition of sitting the exam rather than a mark of quality on a course you could otherwise use.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-15 . MCL 500.1204a(1)(b) and 500.1204(2)
Michigan requires pre-licensing education for Life/Limited Life, Accident & Health, Property only, Casualty only, Personal Lines , at 20 hours.
Personal Lines is 20 hours of Property and Casualty coursework rather than a course of its own. The statute sets the hours and permits classroom instruction "or its equivalent in home study or online courses", so a self-paced course is not disqualified here. It also requires the course to have been completed not more than twelve months before the application for examination is received, and it lists thirteen designations rather than the five on the Department's page. The coursework has to be a program of study registered with the Department: MCL 500.1204(2) says an applicant "shall not be given an examination" without one, so registration is a condition of sitting the exam rather than a mark of quality on a course you could otherwise use.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-15 . MCL 500.1204a(1)(b) and 500.1204(2)
Fees
| Charge | Paid to | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| License application MCL 500.240(1)(d) prices it and names who pays: each initial applicant for a license as resident producer, nonresident producer, surplus lines producer, solicitor, counselor or adjuster. The statute makes it neither transferable nor refundable. It is the application rather than the license, and every line except the producer lines carries an annual license fee on top of it. | Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services | $10.00 |
| NIPR transaction fee | National Insurance Producer Registry | $5.00 |
| Solicitor license, each year MCL 500.240(1)(e). It is an annual charge rather than a one-off, and it sits on top of the $10 application fee at (1)(d), which the statute makes neither transferable nor refundable. | Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services | $10.00 |
| Insurance counselor license, each year MCL 500.240(1)(f), annual and on top of the $10 application fee at (1)(d). | Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services | $10.00 |
| Adjuster license, each year MCL 500.240(1)(g). It is the cheapest annual license fee in the Michigan schedule, half the solicitor's and a twentieth of the surplus lines producer's, and it sits on top of the $10 application fee at (1)(d). | Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services | $5.00 |
| Surplus lines producer license, each year MCL 500.240(1)(i). At $100 a year it is ten times the solicitor and counselor annual fee and twenty times the adjuster's, and it is the only license in the Michigan schedule priced above $10 a year. | Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services | $100.00 |
Every amount above was read at its own source between 2026-08-13 and 2026-09-05. Exam and fingerprint charges go to a vendor, not to the Department, and say so.
Approved courses
Michigan registers the program of study, and the registration is a gate rather than a badge: MCL 500.1204(2) bars the Department from examining an applicant who has not completed a program registered under MCL 500.1204a, and the provider files the completion with the Department electronically rather than the candidate carrying a certificate to the exam. So a Michigan course that is not registered is of no use to a candidate at all, whatever it teaches. The register is the Department's insurance education search, covering providers, courses, offerings and instructors, and it names courses rather than companies. It was read here on 2026-08-15 across both pages of results: 114 approved pre-licensing courses from 27 providers, 110 of them 20 hours and four of them 40, and 112 of them self-study. It carries no link on this page because the search sits behind a Cloudflare check that asks the visitor to confirm they are human, which a person clears in one click and an automated reader does not clear at all. The Department's pre-licensing education FAQ, which is the source for the hours here, describes it and links it.