Life insurance license — Georgia

Georgia sits between Texas and Florida. There is required pre-licensing education — the Commissioner's rules set a minimum of twenty hours per major line of authority — but it is a third of what Florida asks for, and you can move quickly once it is done.

The order matters here and it is not the order most people assume. In Georgia you pass the exam and complete fingerprinting first, then apply. Applying before you have both is a way to waste $120.

The steps, in order

1. Finish 20 hours per line. Life is one major line, Accident and Sickness is another. Most agents sit the combined Life, Accident and Sickness exam, which means the education for both.
2. Pass the exam with Pearson VUE. 125 scored questions plus 10 unscored pretest questions the state uses to trial future items — you cannot tell which is which, so treat all 135 as real. Two and a half hours, 70% to pass.
3. Get fingerprinted. Register through the GBI's approved vendor with service code 2TGJ6B. Write that code down; it is the thing people ring the Department about. Prints go to both GBI and the FBI.
4. Apply. $120 for a resident individual producer licence, through Sircon.
5. Get appointed. As everywhere: the licence permits an appointment, the appointment is what lets you write business.

What it costs

| Item | Cost | Paid to | | --- | --- | --- | | Pre-licensing course | $100–300 | Provider of your choice | | Exam | ≈ $67 | Pearson VUE | | Fingerprinting (GBI + FBI) | ≈ $52 | GBI-approved vendor | | Licence application | $120 | Georgia OCI |

The $120 application fee is first-party from the Commissioner's office. The exam and fingerprint figures are what providers currently quote; confirm both before you pay.

After you're licensed

Twenty-four hours of continuing education every two years, three of which must be ethics, due on or before the last day of your birth month.

One quirk worth filing away for later in your career: once you have held a Georgia licence for more than twenty years, the requirement drops to 20 hours, still with 3 in ethics. It is the only state rule most Georgia agents can quote from memory, and it is twenty years away, so do not plan around it.

Georgia is a heavy final expense state and a common resident state for agents who then write across the Southeast. Start non-resident applications as soon as the resident licence issues — they lean on it, and the process is far shorter.