Insurance License Hub

The North Dakota Third Party Administrator license

Third Party Administrator

Underwrites, collects premiums from, or adjusts and settles claims on North Dakotans in connection with life, annuity or health coverage, including coverage under a self-funded plan. The Department calls the document a Certificate of Authority. Acting as one without it is a class C felony, which is the heaviest penalty on this schedule and is shared with exactly one other North Dakota license, the pharmacy benefits manager.

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 Apply for the certificate of authority

    No state exam for this license

    Written agreement

    • A written agreement between the administrator and the insurer, which both must keep for the life of the agreement and five years after it. N.D.C.C. 26.1-27-05 forbids acting as an administrator without one.

    and bond, for a self-insured plan

    • An administrator that administers self-insured plans in North Dakota keeps a surety bond or proof of insurance of the greater of $100,000 or ten percent of the aggregate total amount of administered coverage under the plans handled in the state.

    N.D.C.C. 26.1-27-03(1) makes it an offense to act as an administrator without a license from the commissioner and 26.1-27-03(3) has the commissioner issue one unless the applicant is not competent, trustworthy, financially responsible or of good personal and business reputation, or has had an insurance license application denied for cause in the last five years. There is no examination and no course. The applicant files the NAIC uniform third party administrator application, through NIPR or on paper. The Department's own page also says a pharmacy benefits manager must hold this certificate of authority as well as its own license, and the section that used to say so is gone: 26.1-27-01.1 was headed Pharmacy benefits manager and its whole text now reads "Repealed by S.L. 2025, ch. 278, section 11", the year the separate pharmacy benefits manager license and its $10,000 fee began. What survives is the width of 26.1-27-01, which defines an administrator as anybody who collects charges or premiums from, or adjusts or settles claims on, North Dakotans in connection with life or health coverage, and lists ten exceptions of which none is a pharmacy benefits manager. So the Department's sentence rests on a definition rather than on the repealed section.

    Read at the Department on 2026-08-20

North Dakota sets no examination and no course for the certificate of authority. No national seller prices a North Dakota product for it.