While this complete guide won’t be that long, it will explain everything you need to know about certifications and licenses for senior market insurance agents, including our experiences and recommendations.
If you’re just getting into the Medicare market, you’ll first need to get your professional insurance license.
To begin, we recommend getting in touch with your state’s Department of Insurance (DOI). There, you’ll find out where you should go to take your pre-licensing training course. Fair warning: some state’s DOI websites aren’t particularly user-friendly.
Once you’ve finished your pre-licensing, you can go to the National Insurance Producer Registry (NIPR) website, http://www.nipr.com/, to see the fees for each state and also the requirements for resident and non-resident licenses.
In general, licensing can be difficult, because it’s not the same for each state.
Once you have your license, you need to make sure you have the proper insurance and training to sell certain products.
Life Insurance Training
In order to sell life insurance, you must take Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Training. Illinois agents can go to LIMRA to complete that. For other states, RegEd is a good option, and Foresters also offers a course.
You must also have Errors & Omissions (E&O) Coverage in order to sell life insurance. We don’t have any particular recommendations for where you get this – you probably get a lot of emails from different companies, and the choice is up to you.
Long-Term Care (LTC) Certifications
In order to sell Long-Term Care or Life with a Long-Term Care rider, you need your LTC Certification. We now recommend ClearCert for this, as it’s the only company John Hancock currently recognizes.
The LTC Certification requires that you take an 8-hour course the first time, and every 2 years, you take a 4-hour refresher course.
Annuity Suitability Course and Product Training
Annuity companies will generally have their own product-specific training that you’re required to take. Sometimes, that training can be done through the web portal, or you’ll just have a PDF that you read and sign.
In Illinois, there is also a required Annuity Suitability course. That can be completed through Dohrn at http://dohrnit.com/.
And that’s it! If you have any questions or comments, leave them in the comment section below.
