The Tennessee Surplus Lines Agent license
Surplus Lines Agent
Places Tennessee risks with insurers that are not licensed here. It sits on top of a Tennessee producer license rather than beside one, and it expires on the day that producer license expires.
Course
None
This license has no pre-licensing course route.
Ways in
2
None of them requires a state exam, because this license has none.
Exam
n/a
Not required on any of the routes below.
Every way to qualify
More than one route leads to this license, and which one you take changes what you study and whether you sit the exam. There is no pre-licensing course among them: this license is qualified for by a license already held or a license held in another state.
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Route 1 Hold a Tennessee producer license and apply
No state exam for this license
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a current Tennessee insurance producer license
The Department's whole resident requirement is the producer license, the electronic application through NIPR and the $120 filing fee. There is no separate examination, no bond on the Department's page and no course. The license has no term of its own: TDCI writes that "All Surplus Lines Agent licenses expire on the same date as the producer license".
Read at the Department on 2026-08-20
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Route 2 Hold the surplus lines authority at home and a Tennessee nonresident producer license
No state exam for this license
Tennessee license
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a current nonresident Tennessee insurance producer license
and home state authority
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a surplus lines license in the applicant's resident state
The nonresident route asks for both licenses rather than either, and the $120 filing fee carries a retaliatory addition under Tenn. Code Ann. 56-4-218 where the applicant's home state charges a Tennessee resident more.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-20
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Tennessee sets no surplus lines examination and no course, so there is nothing for a school to sell against this license. No national seller prices a product for it.