The Rhode Island Pet license

Pet

Sells pet insurance in Rhode Island as a non-core limited line. No pre-licensing course and no state examination, but the Pet Insurance Act adds a product training that has to be done before the first sale.

How to qualify

The Pet Insurance Act, chapter 27-83, took effect on 2026-01-01 and is the newest insurance chapter in Rhode Island. It creates no license: the Department names Pet Insurance on its own list of producer lines of authority, and the chapter regulates what is sold rather than who may sell it. Rhode Island’s producer examination requirement at 27-2.4-7(a) and 27-2.4-8(a)(4) is written by line, "the examinations passed for the lines of authority for which the person has applied", and for this line there is no paper to pass. Three documents say so and none of them contradicts the others. The Department’s own list of lines of authority annotates one group and one group only, "Major Lines (exam required)", and puts this line in a limited group that carries no such note. Pearson VUE’s Rhode Island candidate handbook lists every available examination, nine of them, five major producer papers and four limited ones that are the three adjuster papers and the motor vehicle damage appraiser, and no limited producer line is among them. And the Department’s own instruction sheet for the title line, the one limited line for which it publishes a checklist, asks for the application, a background report and the fee, and for no examination. What 27-83-6 does add is training, and it is worth reading before assuming it is a pre-licensing course. It is not one. A producer may not sell, solicit or negotiate pet insurance "until after the producer is appropriately licensed and has completed the required training", so it comes after the license rather than before it, and it is the insurer that has to ensure its producers have had it. The four topics are written into the statute: pre-existing conditions and waiting periods, the difference between pet insurance and non-insurance wellness programs, hereditary and congenital disorders and chronic conditions and how policies interact with them, and rating, underwriting, renewal and related administrative topics. 27-83-6(d) accepts another state’s substantially similar training. No national seller offers a product against this line.