Getting an insurance license in South Dakota

Accident and Health or Sickness

Sells cover for sickness, bodily injury or accidental death in South Dakota, and it may carry dismemberment and disability income benefits too. No pre-licensing course is required.

Professional Bondsman

Pledges its own cash as security for a bail bond. South Dakota approves it directly rather than through an insurer, and the price of that is an annual financial statement, trust deposits and a yearly list of forfeitures.

Property Bondsman

Pledges real or other property rather than cash as security for a bail bond. It is the only bail license in South Dakota whose definition does not turn on the director's prior approval.

Runner

Works for a bail bondsman: gets the defendant to court, keeps them under surveillance, and helps bring them back if they run. South Dakota licenses it separately from the bondsman it works for, and the same felony disqualification reaches it.

Surety Bondsman

Writes bail bonds for an insurer under a power of attorney. It is the one of South Dakota's four bail licenses that depends on somebody else's appointment, and the paper behind it cannot be sat online.

Casualty

Sells cover against legal liability in South Dakota, and this line is drawn wider than in most states: the statute folds fidelity and surety bonds into it rather than giving them a line of their own. No pre-licensing course is required.

Crop

Sells crop and hail cover to South Dakota growers. It is the only producer line here with a paper of its own that the statute never names: the Division's examination vendor publishes it, and the sixty questions are two-thirds federal multi-peril crop insurance.

Discount Medical Plan Organization

Sells a card that gets a discount on medical care rather than a policy that pays for it. South Dakota licenses it under the insurance code and takes a surety bond for it, which few states asking for this registration do.

Independent Review Organization

Decides the appeal when a health carrier says no and the member will not accept it. South Dakota certifies it, and what it is certifying is independence rather than expertise.

Life

Sells life insurance in South Dakota, which the statute writes as coverage on human lives including endowment and annuity benefits, benefits for death or dismemberment by accident, and disability income. South Dakota asks no pre-licensing course for it.

Limited Lines

South Dakota names Limited Lines as a line of authority in its own right and then leaves it unenumerated, which no other state on this site does: everywhere else the limited lines are listed one by one. A limited license to sell limited line credit or limited line insurance exclusively needs neither a pre-licensing course nor an examination.

Managed Care Contractor

Contracts to deliver or arrange health care for a plan's members. Its own chapter of the insurance code was repealed and transferred, and the registration outlived it: the Division still issues one and publishes the checklist.

Personal Lines

Property and casualty insurance sold to individuals and families for primarily noncommercial purposes in South Dakota. It is one line rather than two and no pre-licensing course is required.

Pharmacy Benefits Manager

Administers the drug half of a health plan. South Dakota gave it its own chapter of the insurance code, and the Division lists it beside the third party administrator on the same page of licenses that are not producer licenses.

Portable Electronics

The retailer's license for the cover sold with a phone. One license reaches every location the vendor trades from, and the register of those locations is kept by the supervising entity rather than by the Division.

Property

Sells cover for direct or consequential loss or damage to property of every kind in South Dakota. No pre-licensing course is required.

Rental Car Limited Lines Producer

The rental counter's license. It is the one South Dakota license with a training requirement, and the training is given by the rental car agent to its own counter staff before any of them may say a word about the cover.

Surplus Line Broker

Places business with insurers South Dakota has not authorized. It is built on a producer license and a judgment about the applicant rather than on a course: there is no prelicensing education and no separate examination anywhere in the chapter.

Third Party Administrator

Handles somebody else's premiums or claims on a life or health plan. South Dakota is one of the few states that issues this two ways, as a license or as a registration, with a separate application checklist for each.

Utilization Review Organization

Decides whether somebody else's medical care will be paid for. South Dakota registers it rather than licensing it, and the chapter it lives in was rewritten around benefit determinations rather than around the reviewer.

Variable Life and Variable Annuity Products

Sells cover provided under variable life insurance contracts and variable annuities in South Dakota. The statute lists it among the lines a producer may qualify for and conditions it on nothing else.