Insurance License Hub

Getting an insurance license in New York

New York licenses through the New York State Department of Financial Services, which calls the licensee an agent or broker. Which license you need depends on what you intend to sell, and the requirements differ sharply between them.

License types

Is a course required?

New York requires pre-licensing education for Life, Accident and Health Agent, Life, Accident and Health Broker, Personal Lines Agent, Personal Lines Broker, Public Adjuster , at 40 hours.

New York sets hours per license rather than per state, and splits agent from broker. Waivers exist for CPCU, CLU, CLUA, ChFC and an MSFS, and brokers and public adjusters may substitute qualifying employment on a Statement of Employer form under Insurance Law 2104 or 2108. The statute puts the course inside the examination rule rather than beside it: nobody is deemed qualified to take the examination without it.

Read at the Department on 2026-08-13 . Insurance Law 2103(f)(2), 2104(c)(1)(A) and 2108(e)(1)(B)

New York requires pre-licensing education for Life Agent, Life Broker, Accident and Health Agent, Accident and Health Broker, Life Settlement Broker , at 20 hours.

The Department publishes two different hour counts for the Life Settlement Broker and Insurance Law 2137(e) carries neither. Its pre-licensing education page, the page that exists to answer this question and lists all twelve lines together, says twenty hours; its application page for the license says not less than forty. The statute asks only for "a course or courses, approved by the superintendent" and sets no figure at all, so nothing above the Department resolves it. Twenty is carried here because it is the Department's own hours table. A producer with a life line of authority licensed in New York for at least a year is excused from the course and the examination together.

Read at the Department on 2026-08-21 . Insurance Law 2103(f)(2), 2104(c)(1)(A) and 2137(e)

New York requires pre-licensing education for Property/Casualty Agent, Property/Casualty Broker , at 90 hours.

Ninety hours is what Insurance Law 2103(f)(2)(B) sets, and the same figure carries the Mortgage Guarantee Agent license, which the Department prices at nothing and lists on no education page. A CPCU excuses the hours and leaves a shorter paper, Series 17-74, the Property and Casualty Laws and Regulations examination.

Read at the Department on 2026-08-21 . Insurance Law 2103(f)(2)(B) and 2104(c)(1)(A)

New York requires pre-licensing education for Title Insurance Agent , at 20 hours.

The Department's pre-licensing education page lists twelve lines and their hour counts and this license is not on it. The figure is in the statute instead, and the DFS Portal register carries a Title Insurance Agent listing of its own with six approved providers. A New York attorney in good standing is excused from the course and the examination together.

Read at the Department on 2026-08-21 . Insurance Law 2139(f)

New York requires pre-licensing education for Mortgage Guarantee Agent , at 90 hours.

Also absent from the Department's pre-licensing education page, and stated on the Department's own page for this license instead. Ninety hours is what Insurance Law 2103(f)(2)(B) sets for an agent licensed under 2103(b), and mortgage guaranty is one of the kinds of insurance that subsection reaches. An applicant licensed as a mortgage guarantee agent within the previous two years does not retake the examination.

Read at the Department on 2026-08-21 . Insurance Law 2103(f)(2)(B)

Fees

Charge Paid to Amount
Insurance agent or broker license, New York resident, two-year term Insurance Law 2103(j)(9) and 2104 both price this at $40 for each year or fraction of a year, and a license issued for a year or less is half. New York prices a non-resident by what that person's own state would charge a New Yorker, and publishes the whole retaliatory table: $300 from a Hawaii resident, $250 from an Illinois resident, $93.50 from a Coloradan, against the $80 a New Yorker pays. Nebraska is the other state here that prices a producer by where the applicant lives, charging a nonresident a retaliatory fee in place of a fixed one since 2026-07-17. Arkansas and Tennessee add a retaliatory amount to a fixed figure rather than replacing it. New York State Department of Financial Services $80.00
Life settlement broker license, New York resident, two-year term Insurance Law 2137(h)(5)(B) leaves the amount to the superintendent and caps it at whatever a producer with a life line of authority pays, and the Department prints $80 for a New York resident. No fee is charged to a qualifying veteran. New York State Department of Financial Services $80.00
Title insurance agent license, two-year term Insurance Law 2139(d) prices it at $40 for each year or fraction of a year. Half fee for a term of a year or less. New York State Department of Financial Services $80.00
Mortgage guarantee agent license The Department states there is no fee for this license and that it does not expire, so no renewal application is filed either. New York State Department of Financial Services $0.00
Adjuster license, two-year term Insurance Law 2108 prices every adjuster license at $50 for each year or fraction of a year, and $50 is the whole charge where a license is issued for a year or less. One payment covers any number of the eleven independent adjuster types: 2108 says the fee "shall cover any one or more of the various types of independent adjusters' licenses issued by the department". No fee is charged to a qualifying veteran. New York State Department of Financial Services $100.00
Public adjuster bond Insurance Law 2108 requires the bond in the penal sum of $1,000 before the license issues, covering the licensee and every sub-licensee named in it. An independent adjuster no longer files one. A bond is a sum guaranteed rather than a sum paid, so it is scoped to nothing and no cost page totals it; what the applicant pays is a surety premium, a fraction of this figure that no regulator publishes. Found on 2026-08-21 by reading a built page that had added the penal sum to a license fee, and Missouri had three of the same shape. A surety the Department approves $1,000.00
Insurance consultant license, two-year term Insurance Law 2107(b)(1) prices it at $50 for each year or fraction of a year, and the same again per year for every sub-licensee named in a firm's or corporation's license. New York State Department of Financial Services $100.00
Excess line broker license, two-year term, county under 100,000 inhabitants Insurance Law 2105(c)(1)(B) prices this at $25 for each year or fraction of a year. It is the lower of two alternatives and it is the one totalled here; the higher one is on the row below, scoped to nothing so that no page adds them together. Population is taken from the most recent United States or New York census. New York State Department of Financial Services $50.00
Excess line broker license, two-year term, county of 100,000 inhabitants or more Insurance Law 2105(c)(1)(A): $200 for each year or fraction of a year where the broker keeps an office in, or places insurance on risks located in, any New York county of 100,000 people or more. It is an alternative to the row above rather than a charge on top of it, so it is scoped to nothing and no cost page totals it. A broker in New York City pays this one. New York State Department of Financial Services $400.00
Reinsurance intermediary license, two-year term Insurance Law 2106(b)(1) prices it at $500 for each year or fraction of a year. New York State Department of Financial Services $1,000.00
Bail bond agent license, two-year term Insurance Law 6802(f) prices it at $25 for each year or fraction of a year, for each individual applicant and each proposed sub-licensee. New York State Department of Financial Services $50.00
Charitable bail organization certificate, five-year term Paid by check with the application, which goes to the Licensing Bureau in Albany on paper. Superintendent of Financial Services $1,000.00
Life settlement provider license Paid by check with the duplicate paper application. The license expires on 30 June of odd-numbered years. Superintendent of Financial Services $10,000.00
Life settlement provider license renewal 11 NYCRR 381.1(c), Regulation 198. A renewal is not a cost of getting a first license, so it is scoped to nothing and no cost page totals it. Insurance Law 7803(h)(3) requires it at least sixty days before the license expires. Superintendent of Financial Services $5,000.00
Life settlement intermediary registration Paid by check with the emailed application. The registration expires on 30 June of odd-numbered years. Superintendent of Financial Services $7,500.00
Service contract provider registration, one year Insurance Law 7907(b) prices it at $250 for each year or fraction of a year the registration is in effect. New York State Department of Financial Services $250.00
Pharmacy benefit manager license, three-year term Insurance Law 2906(d)(1) prices it at $8,000 for each year or fraction of a year and 2906(d)(2) runs the license thirty-six months, which is where the Department's $24,000 comes from. It is the only insurance license the Department's own application fee page prices. New York State Department of Financial Services $24,000.00
Temporary license or permit Insurance Law 2109(b)(2) charges nothing for a temporary agent or broker license or for renewing one, except that renewing a license issued to an armed forces designee costs half the ordinary fee. The Department states separately that there is no fee for the temporary adjuster permit. New York State Department of Financial Services $0.00
Check returned for insufficient funds Charged on any e-check or paper check the bank returns. It is a penalty rather than a cost of applying, so it is scoped to nothing and no cost page totals it. New York State Department of Financial Services $20.00
Limited agent license fee Searched and not published on the page that describes the license. The Department's limited agent licensing page points a reader at its Application Fee Schedule "to determine the specific fee for any application being filed with the Department" rather than naming one, because the limited agent covers several distinct authorities that are not priced alike. The amount is left unread rather than guessed. New York Department of Financial Services Not confirmed

Every amount above was read at its own source between 2026-08-21 and 2026-09-05. Exam and fingerprint charges go to a vendor, not to the Department, and say so.

Approved courses

New York approves the provider rather than the individual course, and lists them by course type. There are seven listings: Life, Accident and Health; Life Settlement; Property and Casualty; Public Adjuster; Personal Lines; Title Insurance Agent; and Property Companies. One course type serves both the agent and the broker license on that line, because the register's own preamble cites Insurance Law 2103, 2104 and 2108 together. That preamble does not cite 2139, though a Title Insurance Agent listing sits in the same dropdown. Choose a listing, then SHOW ALL under county, or the result is one county's providers reading as the whole state's. An (I) after a name is the Department's mark for a provider offering online courses and a (W) is webinar. There is no independent adjuster listing, which agrees with the Department: no prelicensing course is required of that candidate. You can search it at myportal.dfs.ny.gov .