The West Virginia Professional Bail Bondsman license

The Department’s own definition is what separates the two licenses: a professional bondsman "pledges cash, an irrevocable letter of credit, an annuity, a financial guarantee bond, or real estate as security for bail bonds", has no agreement with an insurance company, and is sometimes called a cash, property or self-insured bondsman. Both West Virginia bail bond licenses take the same paper and it is new: the Department announced that from 2024-07-01 a candidate for a professional or surety bail bond license must pass the bail bond examination, 30 questions, 80% to pass, 90 minutes. The Department states in the same breath that there are no pre-licensing requirements for it and no continuing education for bail bonds. Every applicant is fingerprinted after passing, at initial application and again at every renewal, which is stricter than the adjuster rule where prints are not required on renewal. The licensing is younger than the trade. House Bill 2758 of 2021 required the Insurance Commissioner to regulate professional bondsmen and, after 2022-07-01, required every bondsman to be licensed by the Offices of the Insurance Commissioner; the rule that implements it, W. Va. Code R. 114-103, took its current form on 2024-04-01. Before that West Virginia's bail bondsmen answered to the courts under W. Va. Code 51-10 alone. No producer license sits underneath this one, which is the whole difference from the surety bondsman: the security is the applicant’s own. The fee side is regulated rather than left to the market. W. Va. Code 51-10-5a and the rule at 114-103-5.1 set a floor and a ceiling on what a bondsman may charge: the bonding fee shall be at least ten percent of the bond and, in the aggregate, may not exceed the amount of the bond, payable in full at issuance or with at least three percent down and the rest over no more than twelve months. Receipts for collateral are prenumbered, used in consecutive order and kept five years.

Read at the Department on 2026-08-19