The Washington Independent Adjuster license

RCW 48.17.380(3)(d) asks every adjuster applicant for "experience or special education or training with reference to the handling of loss claims under insurance contracts, of sufficient duration and extent reasonably to make the individual... competent", and puts no number on any of the three. RCW 48.17.110(2)(b) is where the number is, and it does a second job: an applicant with that year of full-time salaried claims employment behind them is exempt from the written examination as well. The Office's own pre-licensing experience page states the qualifying employment in the same terms and adds the proof it wants, a verification on the employer's letterhead. The exemption is drafted "with the exception of crop adjusters", so it reaches the independent and public licenses and stops there.

Read at app.leg.wa.gov on 2026-08-19

WAC 284-17-123(2) lets a resident applicant satisfy the special education limb of RCW 48.17.380(3)(d) with the CPCU program, the AIC program or the American Educational Institute's property program and its Property Claim Law Specialist designation. The rule names that designation and the Office's own page does not: it lists the third option as "American Education Institute (AEI) property program" and stops. This route replaces the experience and does not touch the paper, and the Office says so in one sentence: "Once you've obtained a designation, you must still take and pass our adjuster exam."Each of the three is a series of courses and examinations run by its awarding body, and none of them is sold by a pre-licensing school.

Read at app.leg.wa.gov on 2026-08-19

WAC 284-17-123(1) is the trainee route and it is written in months: a minimum of six, a maximum of one nine-month period, salary only, with every adjusting transaction completed in the supervising adjuster's name and the supervisor answerable for the trainee's acts. The trainee may sit the examination after six months. The Office's own page converts the same period into 960 hours, eight hours a day, five days a week, six months, and the rule carries no hour count at all. The documentation goes in with the application after the paper is passed. This is training given by an employer, not a course a school can sell.

Read at app.leg.wa.gov on 2026-08-19

WAC 284-17-123(3)(a) issues the nonresident license where the applicant holds and maintains a home state adjuster license in good standing and that home state reciprocates. RCW 48.17.110(2)(c) is the statutory half, exempting a nonresident applicant already licensed elsewhere whom the commissioner deems fully qualified and competent, and it too is drafted "with the exception of crop adjusters". Where the home state issues no adjuster license at all the applicant sits the Washington paper under WAC 284-17-123(3)(b), unless they hold an examined nonresident license in a third state, which 284-17-123(3)(c) accepts in its place. RCW 48.17.380(4) and (5) are the designated home state provisions: an applicant whose own state has no substantially similar adjuster law may designate Washington or another state where they are licensed, and must then have met that designated state's resident requirements.

Read at app.leg.wa.gov on 2026-08-19