The Rhode Island Surety license
Surety
Sells surety in Rhode Island as a non-core limited line. Neither a pre-licensing course nor a state examination is required of the applicant.
Course
None
This license has no pre-licensing course route.
Ways in
None
There is nothing to qualify for. Neither a course nor an examination is required.
Exam
n/a
Not required.
How to qualify
Rhode Island asks neither a prelicensing course nor an examination for this license, and that was read at the Department rather than left blank here: there is no route to show because there is nothing to qualify.
The Department names Surety on its own list of the lines a producer may qualify for, grouped with pet insurance and the life settlement broker as a non-core limited line. It is one of the two Rhode Island lines that exists only on that list: 27-2.4-9(a) enumerates seven lines of authority and then opens itself with "(8) Any other line of insurance permitted under state laws or regulations", and surety is there rather than in the enumeration. 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. No national seller offers a product against this line.