The West Virginia Independent Adjuster license

33-12B-5(a) is a closed list of seven findings the commissioner must make and no course is in it: eighteen or older; a West Virginia resident or eligible to designate West Virginia as a home state; trustworthy, competent, reliable and of good reputation; a business or mailing address here for service of process, or an acknowledgement of this state's jurisdiction and an automatic appointment of the Secretary of State as agent; no act that is a ground for refusal under 33-12B-11; the written examination passed for the lines applied for; and the fees paid. The Department says the rest in four words in its own candidate handbook: "Pre-licensing education is not required of adjusters." 33-12B-5(b)(8) dates the whole examination requirement: it applies to individual adjusters first licensed on or after 2021-07-01, or adding a line of authority on or after that date. West Virginia separated the company adjuster from the independent adjuster in the same act, House Bill 4502 of 2020. 33-12B-7(a) gives this license three lines of authority, property and casualty, workers compensation and crop, and the Department’s own crosswalk names a separate paper for the first two. Crop takes none of West Virginia’s: 33-12B-5(b)(1) lets the commissioner accept, in place of the state examination, certification that the applicant passed a proficiency examination approved by the United States Department of Agriculture Risk Management Agency. The examination has a limit on it that almost no state writes down. 33-12B-5(b)(4): an individual who initially fails "is limited to seven additional attempts to pass the examination", which is eight sittings in a lifetime. West Virginia writes the same cap on the producer side at 33-12-5, and the Department states it in its own bail bondsman instructions as "an eight-test limit per lifetime of the individual". It is the only lifetime cap on this site. Arizona is the other state here that caps sittings, at four inside any rolling twelve months rather than for good, and Rhode Island says in terms that somebody who fails simply reapplies and pays again. The line between this license and the company adjuster is drawn by tax treatment rather than by the work. The Department’s handbook defines an independent adjuster as somebody whose "tax treatment of the individual is consistent with that of an independent contractor, rather than as an employee, as defined in the Internal Revenue Code, United States Code, Title 26, Subtitle C". Iowa splits its adjusters the same way and Rhode Island by the same fact in different words; before House Bill 4502 of 2020 West Virginia did not split them at all. The fee is $25 a year under 33-12B-8(a), which the handbook states as $50 renewing every two years on the licensee's birth month, and a business entity adjuster license is $200 a year. Fingerprinting is separate and is the Department's, not the vendor's: $45.75 through IdentoGo, made up of $12.50 for the print, $20.00 to the West Virginia State Police and $13.25 to the FBI, and it is required when adding a new adjuster license type or a new line of authority but not on renewal. There is a $25 examination fee payable to the commissioner under 33-12B-5(b)(2) on top of whatever the testing service charges, and Pearson is the service; every West Virginia insurance examination is in person only.

Read at code.wvlegislature.gov on 2026-08-19

33-12B-5(b)(5), and the last sentence is the one to read twice: "The certification must be of a license with the same line of authority for which the individual has applied."A property and casualty adjuster license elsewhere does not open the workers compensation line here. 33-12B-9 is the separate non-resident license and it turns on the other state rather than on the applicant: West Virginia licenses a non-resident only where that person’s home state has established like requirements for licensing a West Virginian as a non-resident adjuster. A resident of Canada may hold one, but only after obtaining a resident or home state adjuster license in another United States jurisdiction.

Read at code.wvlegislature.gov on 2026-08-19

33-12B-5(b)(6), written as a duty rather than an option: an adjuster who moves here "shall make application within 90 days of establishing legal residence". No pre-licensing examination is required for any line of authority previously held, except where the commissioner determines otherwise by rule. 33-12B-9(c) says the same thing from the other direction, for a non-resident licensee who becomes a resident.

Read at code.wvlegislature.gov on 2026-08-19