The New Hampshire Surplus Lines license
Surplus Lines
Places New Hampshire risks with companies the state has not admitted. It is a line on a producer license rather than a license of its own, and no policy goes out until the producer has satisfied the commissioner that no admitted company would write it.
Course
None
This license has no pre-licensing course route.
Ways in
3
2 of them skip the state exam.
Exam
Varies
Priced per paper. The prices are below.
A combination paper is $72. Every other paper is $59.
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 sitting the examination, a license held in another state or moving here already licensed.
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Route 1 Pass the examination
State exam required
RSA 405:24, III is the granting sentence and the first four words of it decide how this license is modelled: "The commissioner, pursuant to RSA 402-J, may issue a producer license" permitting the holder to place insurance with foreign companies not authorized here. New Hampshire does not issue a separate surplus lines broker license the way Delaware, Arizona, Vermont, Rhode Island and Alaska do; it issues a producer license carrying this authority, which is what RSA 402-J:7, I(h) leaves room for when it ends the enumeration of lines with "any other line of insurance permitted under state law or rules". RSA 402-J:6 is the closed list of what the commissioner must find before approving a resident producer application, and its third item is the one worth looking at: it reads "[Repealed.]" and the slot has been empty since 2008-07-11, when 2008, 18:1, III took the education requirement out. What is left is age, no disqualifying act, the fees, and the examinations passed for the lines applied for. RSA 402-J:5 sets the examination itself, testing the lines applied for, the duties of a producer and the insurance laws of the state. RSA 402-J:9 waives both the education and the examination for somebody currently licensed for the same lines in another state, or applying within 90 days of that license being cancelled with good standing certified or shown in the NAIC database, and again for a producer who moves here and applies within 90 days. Two duties attach to the authority rather than to the application. The producer places business with an unadmitted surplus lines company only "for such amount as the producer cannot place with an admitted company", and only after satisfying the commissioner of that. And every binder or policy carries a stamped warning in a form the commissioner approves, saying that the rates and forms are unapproved and that the New Hampshire insurance guaranty fund will not answer for claims if the insurer fails.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-19
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Route 2 Hold the same line in another state
Exempt from the state exam
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an insurance producer license carrying this line of authority in another state, current, or cancelled within the last 90 days with good standing certified by that state or shown in the NAIC Producer Database
RSA 402-J:9, I. New Hampshire waives "any prelicensing education or examination" on this route, which is a wider form of words than the statute needs, because the prelicensing education it refers to has not existed here since 2008.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-19
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Route 3 Move to New Hampshire and apply within 90 days
Exempt from the state exam
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90 days Licensed as an insurance producer in another state carrying this line of authority there, and applying to become a New Hampshire resident licensee within 90 days of establishing legal residence.
RSA 402-J:9, II, written as a duty rather than an option: a producer who moves here "shall make application within 90 days". No prelicensing education or examination is required for a line of authority previously held, except where the commissioner determines otherwise by regulation.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-19
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No national seller sells a course for this license. There is no separate surplus lines paper in New Hampshire to prepare for: the authority sits on a producer license, and the producer papers do have a course list on this site.