Getting an insurance license in New Jersey
New Jersey licenses through the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance, 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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Limited Lines - Bail Bonds
Writes bail bonds in New Jersey, on half the hours the other lines take.
10 hrs
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Car Rental Insurance
Sold with the rental at the counter. New Jersey runs it as one of eight limited lines rather than as a scheme of its own, so what a reader needs to know is the application and the fee.
No course
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Casualty
Sells casualty insurance in New Jersey, licensed apart from Property.
20 hrs
4 courses from $79.95
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Credit
Limited line credit insurance in New Jersey. It is the only line of authority the Producer Licensing Act itself calls limited, and it sits in the same list as Life and Property rather than in the Department's separate limited lines list.
No course
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Group Mortgage Cancellation
Cover that pays off a mortgage when the borrower dies or is disabled, sold under a group policy. No other state on this site names it as a limited line of its own.
No course
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Health
Sells health insurance in New Jersey.
20 hrs
4 courses from $79.95
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Legal Insurance
Sells cover for legal expenses in New Jersey as a limited line. It takes no examination and no course, and the Department names it in a single sentence listing what its limited lines are.
No course
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Life
Sells life insurance in New Jersey.
20 hrs
4 courses from $79.95
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Personal Lines
Sells the household half of property and casualty in New Jersey.
20 hrs
1 course from $169.95
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Property
Sells property insurance in New Jersey, licensed apart from Casualty.
20 hrs
4 courses from $79.95
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Public Adjuster
Negotiates a property claim for the insured. New Jersey examines it, bonds it at $10,000, names every officer or partner who may act under it as a sublicensee, and bars it from soliciting between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m. in the 24 hours after a loss.
No course
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Self-Storage Personal Property
Lets a storage facility sell cover on what a tenant puts in the unit, as a limited line of the producer license.
No course
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Special Nonresident Limited Lines
A license for a limited line New Jersey does not itself issue. A nonresident licensed at home for something New Jersey has no category for is licensed here under this name, and Ohio is the only other state on this site that issues the same instrument, under the name Reciprocal.
No course
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Surplus Lines
Places business with insurers not admitted in New Jersey. The Department's table of mandatory hours reads None against it, and the examination still applies.
No course
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Temporary Sublicensee
Ninety days of public adjusting after a catastrophe, under the supervision and at the risk of the public adjuster who sponsors it. Nobody applies for it alone, and it costs more than the license it stands under.
No course
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Title
Sells title insurance in New Jersey, which is one of the few states that asks a course of it.
20 hrs
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Travel Insurance
Trip cancellation, baggage and the rest, sold as a limited line. New Jersey asks for no paper and no course, which makes the application the whole of the requirement.
No course
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Variable Life and Variable Annuity Products
Sells insurance whose value moves with a separate account. It is a full line of authority in the statute rather than a limited one, and New Jersey asks it for neither a course nor a paper of its own.
No course
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Viatical Settlement Provider
Buys the life policy from the person insured by it. New Jersey licenses the provider where it merely registers the person who negotiates the sale, and it is the only half of the viatical trade the state still issues a license for.
No course
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Registration to Negotiate Viatical Settlements
What replaced a license New Jersey stopped issuing. Since 2005 there is no viatical settlement broker license here: a life producer of a year's standing registers instead, and registers only after the first contract has been negotiated.
No course
Is a course required?
New Jersey requires pre-licensing education for Life, Health, Property, Casualty, Personal Lines, Title , at 20 hours.
The Department counts these as classroom hours but permits approved providers to deliver them in a self-study format. The 20 hours absorb the 15 hours of insurance regulation the state used to mandate on top; there is no separate regulation course to add. The statute requires the course and does not set its length: an applicant must have "completed a prelicensing course of study for the lines of authority for which the individual has applied as prescribed by the commissioner by regulation". The hour count is the Commissioner's, which is why the Department's own page is the source for it here. No authority_url is recorded because New Jersey publishes its statutes only through a session-based viewer that cannot be linked to a section. Three grounds waive the education and the Department publishes them on a one-page form: an approved insurance designation in good standing, equivalent college coursework with a transcript and the catalog description, and, for Title alone, admission as a New Jersey attorney. The waiver is good for ninety days and buys as many attempts at the examination as fit inside them. A resident license for the same line in another state, current or lapsed inside ninety days, waives the examination instead, and it is not one of the three education grounds.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-16 . N.J.S.A. 17:22A-32.a(3)
New Jersey requires pre-licensing education for Combined Life and Health, Combined Property and Casualty , at 40 hours.
The combined figure is the two single-line courses added together, so nothing is saved by taking the pair at once. The statute requires the course and does not set its length: an applicant must have "completed a prelicensing course of study for the lines of authority for which the individual has applied as prescribed by the commissioner by regulation". The hour count is the Commissioner's, which is why the Department's own page is the source for it here. No authority_url is recorded because New Jersey publishes its statutes only through a session-based viewer that cannot be linked to a section. Three grounds waive the education and the Department publishes them on a one-page form: an approved insurance designation in good standing, equivalent college coursework with a transcript and the catalog description, and, for Title alone, admission as a New Jersey attorney. The waiver is good for ninety days and buys as many attempts at the examination as fit inside them. A resident license for the same line in another state, current or lapsed inside ninety days, waives the examination instead, and it is not one of the three education grounds.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-16 . N.J.S.A. 17:22A-32.a(3)
New Jersey requires pre-licensing education for Limited Lines - Bail Bonds , at 10 hours.
The statute requires the course and does not set its length: an applicant must have "completed a prelicensing course of study for the lines of authority for which the individual has applied as prescribed by the commissioner by regulation". The hour count is the Commissioner's, which is why the Department's own page is the source for it here. No authority_url is recorded because New Jersey publishes its statutes only through a session-based viewer that cannot be linked to a section. Three grounds waive the education and the Department publishes them on a one-page form: an approved insurance designation in good standing, equivalent college coursework with a transcript and the catalog description, and, for Title alone, admission as a New Jersey attorney. The waiver is good for ninety days and buys as many attempts at the examination as fit inside them. A resident license for the same line in another state, current or lapsed inside ninety days, waives the examination instead, and it is not one of the three education grounds.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-16 . N.J.S.A. 17:22A-32.a(3)
New Jersey requires no pre-licensing course for Surplus Lines.
The Department's own table of mandatory hours reads "None" against Surplus Lines. A sourced zero, not an absence. The examination is still required.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-13
Fees
| Charge | Paid to | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Major line license, two years Resident or nonresident, individual or business entity, at the same figure. A paper application adds a $40 processing fee and a paper renewal $20. Renewal is another $150, and a late renewal adds $100. | New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance | $150.00 |
| Limited lines license, two years Half the major line fee, with the same $40 processing fee on a paper application. A late renewal adds $50 rather than the major lines' $100. The variable line is added to an existing license for the $40 additional line of authority charge rather than at this figure. | New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance | $75.00 |
| Public adjuster license, two years Bulletin 12-01 cut this from $170 and the renewal from $150 to $50. N.J.S.A. 17:22B-9 set $300 for a four-year term in the Act's first year and left the figure to the commissioner thereafter; the term has been two years since. | New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance | $70.00 |
| Temporary sublicensee license, ninety days N.J.S.A. 17:22B-11(b)(2), and another $150 to renew for a second 90 days. It costs more than the public adjuster license it stands under. | New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance | $150.00 |
| Application fee, new application Charged on an application whatever the license, and shown on the Department's FAQ rather than on its fee table, where the same charge appears as a $40 processing fee on a paper application. | New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance | $20.00 |
| Paper application surcharge Added to any renewal not made online. The Department's fee table shows $40 on a paper initial application and $20 on a paper renewal. | New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance | $20.00 |
| Additional line of authority A processing fee for adding a line to a license already held, which is how the variable life and variable annuity authority is taken. It is not a license fee, so no route on this site is costed with it. | New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance | $40.00 |
| Branch office registration A registration a producer files for an office rather than a license anybody holds. | New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance | $20.00 |
| Viatical settlement provider and registration fee Searched and not published. The Department's viatical page requires a life producer acting as a viatical settlement broker to have "notified the Commissioner and paid the appropriate fees not less than 30 days from the first date of negotiating a viatical settlement on behalf of a viator", and names no amount for that or for the provider license. N.J.S.A. 17B:30B leaves the figure to the Commissioner. The amounts are left unread rather than guessed. | New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance | Not confirmed |
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
New Jersey approves the education provider and publishes the list as a spreadsheet rather than a searchable register, marking which providers teach in a classroom and which offer self-study. Read again on 2026-08-19 across every license the Department publishes. The pre-licensing requirement is a closed list in the Department's own words, "Life, Health, Property, Casualty, Personal Lines, Title and Limited Line Bail Bonds", and nothing else the Department licenses is on it: not the public adjuster, not the seven other limited lines, not the variable authority, and not the viatical registration. The register of approved education providers is a spreadsheet the Department publishes, covering pre-licensing and continuing education alike. You can search it at the Department .