Insurance License Hub

The South Carolina Service Contract Provider license

Service Contract Provider

Stands behind a consumer service contract on a car, an appliance or anything else tangible. It is a registration rather than a license and the statute says so twice: providers file a registration, and 38-78-30(I) exempts them and everybody selling for them from state licensing requirements altogether.

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 File the registration and show financial security

    No state exam for this license

    • a reimbursement insurance policy covering all the provider's service contracts, issued by an insurer authorized here or eligible under S.C. Code 38-45-110

    • or

      a funded reserve account of at least 40 percent of gross consideration received less claims paid, plus a security deposit in trust with the Director worth at least 5 percent of the same figure and never less than $25,000, as a surety bond, eligible securities, cash or a letter of credit

    • or

      a net worth or stockholder's equity of $100,000,000, the provider's own or its parent's, evidenced by a Form 10-K, a Form 20-F or audited statements, with the parent guaranteeing the provider's South Carolina obligations where the parent's figures are the ones filed

    S.C. Code 38-78-30(C) is the whole of what a provider must do to be on the register: file a registration on the Director's form and pay $200 a year. Subsection (D) then makes it choose one of three ways to prove it can pay claims, and subsection (E) forbids the Director to ask for any other financial security, or for financial statements at all from a provider that has taken the reimbursement insurance route. The Department and the statute disagree about what this is, and the Department disagrees with itself. Its page is headed How to Register and its body says "pay the registration fee ($200.00)", while the heading above the renewal dates reads "Service Contract Provider License Renewal Period". The statute settles it: 38-78-30(I) says that except for the registration requirement, providers and related sellers, administrators and anybody marketing or selling service contracts "are exempt from state licensing requirements". Registrations expire on 30 September and the renewal window runs from 2 July.

    Read at scstatehouse.gov on 2026-08-20

A registration granted on a form, a fee and a choice of three financial instruments, with no examination and no course, so there is nothing for a school to sell.