North Carolina State Requirements

Updated: 3/6/2012 

Continuing Education Hours

Agents and Adjusters:

• 24 CE credit hours, including 3 hours of ethics, are required biennially for a single license.

Course Subject Requirements

• All courses must be licensed related courses.
• Each person holding a property and liability, personal lines, or adjuster license shall complete a continuing education course on flood insurance and the National Flood Insurance Program within two years after January 1, 2008, and every four years thereafter.
• L/H agents complete 9 hours L/H and 3 hours in general insurance.
• LH/PC-combined licensees must complete at least 6 credit hours in LH courses and at least 6 hours in PC courses.
• L/H agents may only complete 75% of the required hours in insurer- sponsored courses.
• Effective March 7, 2011: Initial 8-hour training requirement: All producers licensed prior to March 7, 2011 must complete an initial 8-hour training course by March 7, 2012 before they can sell, solicit, or negotiate long-term care partnership products. All producers licensed on or after March 7, 2011 must complete this training prior to selling, soliciting, or negotiating such products. 
• Nonresidents who satisfy the training requirements of another state that are similar to North Carolina's law will be deemed compliant with this requirement only if the insurance company chooses to accept the training completed in another state.
• Ongoing 4-hour training requirement: After completing the initial 8-hour LTCP training requirement, producers must complete a 4 hour follow-up training course every 24-month compliance period following the initial training.  *Nonresidents who satisfy the training requirements of another state that are similar to North Carolina's law will be deemed compliant with this requirement only if the insurance company chooses to accept the training completed in another state.

Compliance Date

The renewal date is the first day of the agent's birth month biennially. The renewal date for agents born in odd years will be in odd years, and the renewal date for agents born in even years will be in even years.

Public Adjusters renew on 3/31 annually.

License Renewal Date

No license renewals in this state. License is perpetual as long as agent does not go more than 1 year without a valid appointment and meets CE requirement.

Type of courses accepted for CE Credit

Independent self study online courses or classroom.

The North Carolina Department of Commerce requires that all online interactive continuing education courses record the actual time the student spends in the course and not allow access to the final exam until the student's time equals the number of approved credit hours for the course. The course must also be stopped if the student has been inactive for more than 15 minutes.  Seat time is calculated by 50 minutes equals 1 credit hour.

Carryover Requirements

Excess credit hours can be carried forward to the next license term. Excess hours in ethics or flood insurance will carry forward as general credit.  Only whole credit hours will be carried forward.

Credit hours that are carried over from a previous compliance period may be taken again in the next compliance period, and WILL NOT be considered a duplicate.

Course Repetition

Credit will not be given for a course taken more than once in a two year period.

Final Exam

Final exams for correspondence courses are required to be monitored by a disinterested third party. ONLINE EXAMS DO NOT REQUIRE A MONITOR. If the course consists of simply a book or exam, a monitor must be present. 

Exemptions

• Newly licensed individuals are exempt for the calendar year in which the license is issued.
• Individuals who are at least 65 years of age, have been licensed continuously for at least 25 years, and either a) hold a CLU, CPCU, ChFC, FLMI or IIA designation, or b) certify that they are inactive insurance agency owners who neither solicit applications for insurance nor take part in the day-to-day operation of the agency. Effective 10/1/10, these licensee's will continue to be exempt from completing all of the CE requirements except for ethics and/or flood.

Method to Certify Completion

Your certificate of completion will be printed and mailed to your permanent address on file. The course provider reports credits earned to the insurance department with in 15 business days of course completion. The licensee keeps the original certificates of completion in his or her files for 3 years.

Roster Fees

A roster fee of $1.65 per credit hour ordered is required to process course completion hours in North Carolina and will be added to the order total upon checkout.

Nonresidents

• Exempt if licensee meets home state CE requirement. Licensee must submit filing fee to the insurance department by March 1.
• Nonresident adjusters can complete 12 hours of property/ casualty courses approved by their home state.

For Additional Information please Contact:

North Carolina Department of Insurance
Agent Services Division
1204 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-1204

Phone: (919) 807-6800
Fax: (919) 715-3794

State Website: http://www.ncdoi.com/

 CE Subscriptions

Monitor Information

Many states require that your test be monitored by a 3rd party when you take this course. The person taking the test and the monitor must sign an affidavit and submit it to the CE Provider. Those states are:

Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbie, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Other states require no monitor, but still require an affidavit to be filled out and submitted to the CE Provider before credit can be granted for a passed course. Those states are:

Florida and Ohio.

If you are going to be requesting a certificate or credit in any of the states' mentioned, then you will need to have a monitor present when you take the 8 hour course, and have them fill out the correct monitor form (one for each state you are requesting the certificate from that requires a monitor). You can find all of the monitor forms by clicking here.