California Prelicensing Program Requirements

Prelicensing Education

Applicants for the license types listed in the table below must complete the required hours of General Insurance prelicensing education and the required hours of Ethics and California Insurance Code as stated below prior to applying for a license. The required hours of Ethics and the California Insurance Code must only be taken once (Section 1749 (g) of the California Insurance Code (CIC)); therefore, applicants applying for more than one license type need not repeat the required hours of Ethics and California Insurance Code*.

*Please note that producers licensed prior to 1992, when prelicensing took effect, must complete the 12 hours of ethics and CIC when they are adding an additional license type to their license.

**Section 1749(j) of the CIC and Section 2187.5 (a) and (b) of the California Code of Regulations requires that the Personal Lines Broker-Agent licensee, who would like to apply to become a Property Broker-Agent and Casualty Broker-Agent licensee, is required to complete a minimum of 20 hours prelicensing classroom study on commercial insurance.

Exemptions from General Insurance prelicensing education hours:

1. Applicants for a property broker-agent license, casualty broker-agent license, life-only agent license, accident and health agent license, personal lines broker-agent license, and limited lines automobile insurance agent license, who are currently licensed as non-residents in California shall be required to complete only the 12 hours of study on Ethics and California Insurance Code (Sections 1749 (h) and (i) of the CIC); or,
2. Applicants for a license holding one or more of the following designations shall be required to complete only the 12 hours of study on Ethics and California Insurance Code (Section 1749 (h) and (i) of the CIC):

3. There is no prelicensing education exemption for bail agents, bail permittee or bail solicitor applicants.
4. There are no prelicensing education requirements for independent insurance adjusters and public insurance adjusters.

Licensing Examination

Insurance license examination information is available on the California Department of Insurance’s (CDI) web site at www.insurance.ca.gov, on the Main page, in the Search box, type “insurance license examination” to retrieve links to the online examination scheduling service, examination locations and hours, examination time limit and number of questions, examination admittance and forms of identification, examination fingerprint requirement and other examination topics.

In addition, the Candidate Information Bulletin (CIB) is available on CDI’s web site. The CIB provides detailed information on how to prepare for your license examination, prelicensing education requirements, examination site procedures, sample examination questions, test taking strategies, and driving directions to the both CDI’s examination sites and PSI's test centers located throughout California. To access this information, go to CDI’s web site at www.insurance.ca.gov, on the Main Page, in the Search box, type “Candidate Information Bulletin” to retrieve a link to the CIB.

CDI encourages license applicants to carefully review the CIB to assist in preparing applicants to take the license examination. Please note that, on page 8, the CIB provides a link to the available Education and Examination Educational Objectives as well as references to study materials for bail agents and adjusters. The educational objectives are an outline of the topics that will be included in each license examination that requires prelicensing education for applicants to review and study.