Getting an insurance license in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania licenses through the Pennsylvania Insurance Department, 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 and Health or Sickness
Sells cover for sickness, bodily injury or accidental death in Pennsylvania, and it may carry disability income benefits too. It is the one line all three of the act's named designations reach, and the pre-licensing course it used to require was deleted from the act on 2024-10-31.
No course
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Casualty
Sells cover against legal liability in Pennsylvania, including liability for death, injury or disability and for damage to real or personal property. The pre-licensing course this line used to require was deleted from the act on 2024-10-31.
No course
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Credit
Limited line credit insurance in Pennsylvania, which the act defines as a list of covers written alongside an extension of credit: credit life, credit disability, credit property, credit unemployment, involuntary unemployment, mortgage life, mortgage guaranty, mortgage disability and guaranteed automobile protection among them. Pennsylvania asks neither a pre-licensing course nor an examination of somebody whose authority is limited to it.
No course
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Emergency Motor Vehicle Physical Damage Appraiser Registration
What an out-of-state appraiser gets after a Governor's disaster declaration. Nobody may apply for it: an insurance company registers the appraiser, and the whole of it is free.
No course
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Pennie-Certified Exchange Assister
Helps a Pennsylvanian enroll through Pennie, the state health insurance marketplace, and may not sell anything. Registered rather than licensed, and at $1 to register and $1 to renew it is the cheapest thing the Department issues.
No course
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Exclusive General Agent
Runs a portion of a Pennsylvania-domiciled insurer's business under sole authority, with the power to bind. It is licensed under the producer article and priced on the company side, and the Department charges four times what the statute names.
No course
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Insurance Administrator
Pennsylvania's third-party administrator license, and the Department names the trigger narrowly: it is needed to administer life or health insurance or annuities, and the statute behind it is its own act rather than a corner of the producer law.
No course
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Life
Sells life insurance in Pennsylvania, which the act writes as coverage on human lives and allows to carry endowment and annuity benefits, benefits for death or dismemberment by accident, and disability income. The pre-licensing course this line used to require was deleted from the act on 2024-10-31.
No course
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Limited Lines Travel Insurance Producer
Trip cancellation, baggage and travel sickness cover, licensed as its own limited line rather than as a line on a producer license. At $400 to issue and $400 to renew it costs more than seven times a Pennsylvania producer license, and it takes no examination at all.
No course
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Motor Vehicle Physical Damage Appraiser
Writes the estimate that decides what a damaged vehicle is worth putting right. Pennsylvania licenses no independent or staff adjuster at all, so this and the public adjuster are the only two claims licenses in the state, and this is the one the auto claim runs through.
No count
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Motor Vehicle Rental
Limited line motor vehicle rental insurance in Pennsylvania: the cover offered alongside a rental car, from personal accident and personal effects to roadside assistance and excess liability. Pennsylvania asks neither a pre-licensing course nor an examination of somebody whose authority is limited to it, and the people who take the money at the counter are exempt from licensing altogether.
No course
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Personal Lines
Property and casualty insurance sold to individuals and families primarily for noncommercial purposes in Pennsylvania. It is one line rather than two, its pre-licensing course was deleted from the act on 2024-10-31, and it is the only examined producer line here that none of the act's three named designations excuses.
No course
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Pharmacy Benefit Auditing Entity
Audits pharmacies on a benefit manager's behalf, and Pennsylvania prices it exactly as it prices the manager. No other state on this site registers the auditor separately from the manager at all.
No course
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Pharmacy Benefit Manager
Administers prescription drug benefits for a health insurer. Pennsylvania registers it for two years at $10,000, which Act 77 of 2024 raised tenfold from a $1,000 ceiling that had covered every registrant in the chapter.
No course
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Pharmacy Services Administration Organization
Contracts on behalf of independent pharmacies with the benefit managers that pay them. Act 77 of 2024 added it to the register at $500, a twentieth of what the same chapter charges a benefit manager.
No course
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Premium Finance Company
Lends a policyholder the premium and takes the unearned premium as security. Licensed on the company side under an act of its own, renewed every year, and the Department publishes a search tool of every agency holding one.
No course
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Property
Sells cover for direct or consequential loss or damage to property of every kind in Pennsylvania. The pre-licensing course this line used to require was deleted from the act on 2024-10-31.
No course
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Public Adjuster
Works the claim for the insured rather than the insurer, on a contract the Department has approved and behind a $20,000 bond. Pennsylvania licenses no independent adjuster, so this is the only claims license here that answers to the policyholder.
No course
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Reinsurance Intermediary Broker
Places cessions and retrocessions for a ceding insurer without authority to bind. Pennsylvania licenses it separately from the reinsurance intermediary manager and charges nothing for either.
No course
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Reinsurance Intermediary Manager
Binds or manages a reinsurer's assumed business. It is the second half of a trade Pennsylvania licenses in two pieces, on a separate application from the broker's and on the same absence of a fee.
No course
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Self-Service Storage
Limited line self-service storage insurance in Pennsylvania: personal property cover sold to the person renting the unit, added to the act in 2018. It is the one line here issued to the owner of the business rather than to an individual who qualifies for it, and there is no examination and no course.
No course
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Surplus Lines
Places Pennsylvania risks with insurers the Commonwealth has not admitted. It is stacked on a property and casualty producer license, and its examination is the only one in the state the Department says has no exemptions at all.
No course
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Title Insurance
Searches the title, issues the policy and usually runs the closing. Pennsylvania calls what it grants a certificate of qualification and asks the holder for three separate financial instruments at once, which only the District's title license also does.
No course
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Variable Life and Variable Annuity Products
Sells cover provided under variable life insurance contracts and variable annuities in Pennsylvania. Its pre-licensing course was deleted from the act on 2024-10-31, and unlike the same line in most states it is not written into the act as one that needs the Life line first: what the act asks for is the examination required for the line, and it excuses this line from nothing.
No course
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Viatical Settlement Broker
Acts for the policy owner in selling a life policy for less than its death benefit. It renews every year rather than every two, and the examination behind it is the Department's own rather than the statute's.
No course
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Viatical Settlement Provider
Buys the life policy the broker brings. It is licensed on the company side where the broker is licensed on the producer side, costs three times as much, and is the only Pennsylvania license conditioned on an audited financial statement.
No course
Is a course required?
Pennsylvania requires no pre-licensing course for Any producer line requiring an examination.
Section 604-A of the act is headed "License prerequisites", and its subsection (b) is headed "Preexamination education requirements". The whole of that subsection now reads "((b) deleted by amendment Oct. 31, 2024, P.L.1155, No.142)". Subsection (a) was amended on the same day and now requires only that an applicant pass the examination for the lines wanted. A sourced zero with a date on it. The 24 hours that circulate for Pennsylvania are a different requirement read off the wrong subsection: 40 P.S. 310.8 sets 24 credit hours of continuing education per two-year period as a condition of license RENEWAL, three of which must be ethics and, for a property and casualty line, two of which must be flood insurance. That is what a licensee does to keep a license, not what an applicant does to get one.
Read at palegis.us on 2026-08-14 . Act 142 of 2024 (P.L.1155), enacted from Senate Bill 1241, amending section 604-A of The Insurance Department Act of 1921
Pennsylvania requires pre-licensing education for Motor Vehicle Physical Damage Appraiser . No hour count is published with it, and the note below says what that means here.
The producer zero of 31 October 2024 does not reach this license, which is not a producer license and sits under an act of its own. Section 3(b) of the Motor Vehicle Physical Damage Appraiser Act asks an applicant to establish "experience or special education or training with reference to the business of the appraising of physical damages to motor vehicles of sufficient duration and extent reasonably necessary to make him competent", which is the same sentence Washington, Hawaii and Idaho put on their adjusters and carries no number on any limb. The rule then supplies two alternatives and one of them is education: "Successful completion of education or training related to appraising motor vehicle physical damage taken within the previous 3 years."No hour count, no register and nothing approved in advance, so the hours are null rather than zero and no product can be recorded as satisfying it.
Read at pacodeandbulletin.gov on 2026-08-19 . 31 Pa. Code ยง 62.2(a)(1)(ii)
Fees
| Charge | Paid to | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| License application, individual resident Set by the Department at $55 for a resident individual producer license, the same to renew, on a two-year term running from the licensee's birth month. A nonresident pays $110 to issue and $110 to renew, which is an alternative to this figure rather than a charge on top of it. An additional line of authority costs $25 and a lapsed license renews at $165 either way. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $55.00 |
| License application, individual non-resident What a nonresident individual pays instead of the $55 resident fee, to issue and to renew. It is an alternative to the resident fee and not a second charge, so no cost page totals both. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $110.00 |
| Limited lines travel insurance producer license To issue and to renew, on a two-year term, for an individual or a business entity alike. Section 8(b) of the Travel Insurance Modernization Act sets it and lets the commissioner adjust it no more than annually by notice in the Pennsylvania Bulletin. It is more than seven times a resident producer license. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $400.00 |
| Motor vehicle physical damage appraiser license To issue and to renew. The license expires annually at midnight on 30 June rather than on a birth month, so a first-year holder may pay twice within twelve months. The act's own figure is $10, repealed as a set fee by Act 48 of 1981. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $55.00 |
| Emergency motor vehicle physical damage appraiser registration There is no fee at all, which the Department states in its own words. The registration is made by the insurer rather than by the appraiser and runs 90 days from submission. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $0.00 |
| Pennie-certified exchange assister registration To register and $1 to renew, on a two-year term. It is the smallest fee the Department actually charges: the only cheaper rows on this schedule are the two that cost nothing at all, the emergency appraiser registration and the reinsurance intermediary license. The applicant also pays the cost of the federal criminal history records check. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $1.00 |
| Public adjuster license To issue and $200 to renew, on a two-year term, for an individual or a business entity. A lapsed license renews at $400 and only within 60 days; past that the licensee reapplies from the beginning. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $200.00 |
| Surplus lines license To issue and $200 to renew, on a two-year term, and it is charged on top of the property and casualty producer license the applicant has to hold first. A lapsed license renews at $400. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $200.00 |
| Viatical settlement broker license To issue and $100 to renew, on a one-year term, which is half the length of most Pennsylvania licenses. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $100.00 |
| Viatical settlement provider license To issue and $300 to renew, on a one-year term. Three times what the broker pays, and licensed by the Company Licensing Division rather than by producer licensing. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $300.00 |
| Manager or exclusive general agent license To issue and $400 to renew, on a one-year term. Section 632-A(c) of the Insurance Department Act names $100 "unless modified by the department by regulation", and the Department's own company licensing table charges four times that, so the statute's figure is not the price. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $400.00 |
| Insurance administrator license To issue and $100 to renew, on a two-year term. Maine, South Carolina and Arkansas charge the same $100 for the equivalent registration, and Connecticut charges nothing at all. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $100.00 |
| Premium finance company license To issue and $200 to renew, on a one-year term. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $200.00 |
| Reinsurance intermediary license, broker or manager There is no fee for either. Pennsylvania licenses the broker and the manager separately, on separate applications and separate renewals, and charges nothing for either, on a two-year term. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $0.00 |
| Pharmacy benefits manager or auditing entity registration To register and $10,000 to renew, on a two-year term. Act 77 of 2024 raised the statutory ceiling from $1,000 to this figure and the Department charges the ceiling. The initial fee is nonrefundable; a renewal fee is returned if the renewal is not granted. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $10,000.00 |
| Pharmacy services administration organization registration To register and $500 to renew, on a two-year term, being the separate ceiling Act 77 of 2024 set for this registrant. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $500.00 |
| Title insurance agent certificate of qualification To issue and to renew for a resident, $110 for a nonresident, on a two-year term. This is the whole of what the Department charges for the certificate; the three instruments behind it are not cheap: errors and omissions cover of at least $250,000 per claim, a fidelity bond of at least $150,000 and a surety bond of at least $100,000. | Pennsylvania Insurance Department | $55.00 |
Every amount above was read at its own source on 2026-08-19. Exam and fingerprint charges go to a vendor, not to the Department, and say so.
Approved courses
Pennsylvania approves continuing education rather than pre-licensing education, because there is no pre-licensing education left to approve: Act 142 of 2024 deleted section 604-A(b) of the Insurance Department Act on 31 October 2024. The register that circulates for this state is the continuing education one, which is a condition of keeping a license rather than of getting one.