This guide covers the Minnesota Public Adjuster license and the examination that actually gates it: licensure under Minnesota Statutes chapter 72B through the Department of Commerce, PSI’s Property & Casualty Adjuster examination — the shared adjuster examination, since the PSI bulletin lists no public adjuster examination — at one hour and a $25 fee with a 70% passing standard, fingerprinting, the $10,000 bond, and application through Sircon. It follows the PSI bulletin throughout. PassProfessor’s companion program is in the works.
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This guide is organised around a distinction the Minnesota record forces on any honest treatment: license and examination are not the same object in this state. The license is the public adjuster license of chapter 72B, with its own bond, contract, and disclosure law. The examination is PSI’s Property & Casualty Adjuster examination, shared across the property and casualty adjuster classes, documented in a bulletin the guide follows line by line. Sections of the guide are labelled accordingly, so a candidate always knows which body of fact they are reading. Where the bulletin is silent — on the scored-question count — the guide reports the silence.
The companion program is in the works, built on the same primary documents this guide follows. Join the notify list and you will be emailed when enrollment opens. Until then, this guide gives preparation a structure worth starting now, because a licensing examination is never only an examination: in Minnesota it sits inside a route — eligibility, the sitting, and the application file — and candidates who understand the whole route prepare for the sitting itself with better judgement about what matters.
The license at a glance
| Fact of record | Detail |
|---|---|
| License | Public Adjuster — one of the three adjuster classes Minnesota Statutes 72B.03 creates (independent adjuster, public adjuster, crop hail adjuster) |
| Regulator | Minnesota Department of Commerce |
| Examination — read this first | Minnesota publishes NO separate public adjuster examination. The PSI Candidate Information Bulletin lists the adjuster examinations as Property & Casualty Adjuster, Crop Adjuster, and Workers Compensation Adjuster. Public adjuster candidates in the property and casualty line sit the Property & Casualty Adjuster examination, because 72B.041 tests by line of authority |
| Vendor and format | PSI Services LLC; computer-based at PSI centres or remotely proctored; Property & Casualty Adjuster examination time allowed: 1 hour |
| Examination fee | $25 per attempt (third-party fee, paid to PSI, per the PSI Minnesota bulletin) |
| Passing standard | 70% correct — ‘You will need 70% correct to pass the exam’ (PSI Minnesota Candidate Information Bulletin, Score Reporting) |
| Scored question count | Not published in the PSI bulletin for this examination; none is stated on this page |
| Pre-licensing education | None for adjusters: ‘There are no prelicensing education requirements for adjusters’ (PSI bulletin). The 20-hour education requirement in the bulletin applies to producers, not adjusters |
| Fingerprinting and bond | Fingerprint-based criminal history check required of all adjuster applicants (electronic fingerprinting at PSI sites, $66.75 per the current bulletin); $10,000 surety bond under 72B.041; application through Sircon after passing, with a $50 application fee under 72B.041 |
Reading the verified facts
A fact table compresses; this section decompresses the lines a candidate is most likely to misread, skip, or confuse with a neighbouring license’s facts. Each line below restates one row of the table and adds what the row means in practice.
License. Public Adjuster — one of the three adjuster classes Minnesota Statutes 72B.03 creates (independent adjuster, public adjuster, crop hail adjuster). Where a figure appears in this line, it is a third-party figure — a fee or filing owed to the state or the vendor — and it is printed because candidates budget a licensing route better when its third-party costs are visible in one place.
Regulator. Minnesota Department of Commerce. For the candidate, the practical consequence is sequencing: this fact belongs at the start of the plan, not in its footnotes, because later steps assume it has been settled.
Examination — read this first. Minnesota publishes NO separate public adjuster examination. The PSI Candidate Information Bulletin lists the adjuster examinations as Property & Casualty Adjuster, Crop Adjuster, and Workers Compensation Adjuster. Public adjuster candidates in the property and casualty line sit the Property & Casualty Adjuster examination, because 72B.041 tests by line of authority. Candidates should verify this line against the regulator’s current page at application time; licensing facts of this kind are the ones regulators amend between bulletin editions.
Vendor and format. PSI Services LLC; computer-based at PSI centres or remotely proctored; Property & Casualty Adjuster examination time allowed: 1 hour. This is one of the facts that distinguishes this license from its neighbours in the same state, and it is worth stating to any adviser, employer, or bond agent in exactly these terms.
Examination fee. $25 per attempt (third-party fee, paid to PSI, per the PSI Minnesota bulletin). In preparation terms, this fact earns its place in the study plan rather than only in the application plan: material attached to it is examinable in the state-law and regulation content of the outline.
Passing standard. 70% correct — ‘You will need 70% correct to pass the exam’ (PSI Minnesota Candidate Information Bulletin, Score Reporting). Keep the documentary evidence for this line with the application file from the beginning of preparation; assembling it after a pass is the commonest avoidable delay in this route.
Scored question count. Not published in the PSI bulletin for this examination; none is stated on this page. Where a figure appears in this line, it is a third-party figure — a fee or filing owed to the state or the vendor — and it is printed because candidates budget a licensing route better when its third-party costs are visible in one place.
Pre-licensing education. None for adjusters: ‘There are no prelicensing education requirements for adjusters’ (PSI bulletin). The 20-hour education requirement in the bulletin applies to producers, not adjusters. For the candidate, the practical consequence is sequencing: this fact belongs at the start of the plan, not in its footnotes, because later steps assume it has been settled.
Fingerprinting and bond. Fingerprint-based criminal history check required of all adjuster applicants (electronic fingerprinting at PSI sites, $66.75 per the current bulletin); $10,000 surety bond under 72B.041; application through Sircon after passing, with a $50 application fee under 72B.041. Candidates should verify this line against the regulator’s current page at application time; licensing facts of this kind are the ones regulators amend between bulletin editions.
The licensing route, step by step
Step 1 — Establish the license first
Minnesota Statutes 72B.03 requires a license to act as an adjuster, and creates the classes: independent, public, and crop hail. The public adjuster is the class that represents the insured. Everything else in the route serves that license, under the Department of Commerce, and applications for it are filed through Sircon.
Step 2 — Find the right examination in the PSI bulletin
The PSI Minnesota Candidate Information Bulletin (copyright 2026, current edition) lists the examinations the Department contracts for. Its adjuster examinations are Property & Casualty Adjuster, Crop Adjuster, and Workers Compensation Adjuster; there is no public adjuster examination in the bulletin, and its fee table prices the Property & Casualty Adjuster examination at $25. Section 72B.041 tests adjusters by line of authority, so the property and casualty line’s examination is the public adjuster candidate’s examination.
Step 3 — Sit the shared examination
Time allowed for the Property & Casualty Adjuster examination is one hour, per the bulletin’s examination summary table. The bulletin adds that a small number (5 to 15) of experimental questions may be administered, unscored but inside the examination time. Its Score Reporting section states the standard directly: ‘You will need 70% correct to pass the exam,’ with the result displayed on screen at the end of the sitting and a diagnostic report by examination type emailed after a failure. The bulletin publishes no scored-question count for the examination. Adjuster candidates need no pre-licensing education certificate to be admitted — the bulletin’s adjuster section states there are no prelicensing education requirements for adjusters — and fingerprinting is recommended on the day of the examination at PSI sites.
Step 4 — Fingerprint, bond, and apply through Sircon
All producer and adjuster applicants provide fingerprints for a state and national criminal history record; electronic fingerprinting at a PSI site on the examination day carries a $66.75 fee under the current bulletin, and the authorisation form expires one year after signing. The public adjuster file also carries the $10,000 surety bond of 72B.041, subdivision 3, and the application is submitted electronically through Sircon after the examination is passed, with the $50 application fee the statute sets. The Department of Commerce decides licensure on the completed file.
The examination outline in full
| Outline section | Weight / character |
|---|---|
| Property and casualty insurance terms and concepts | Shared-examination block |
| Personal and commercial property coverages | Shared-examination block |
| Commercial coverages and liability basics | Shared-examination block |
| Adjuster duties and the adjustment process | Shared-examination block |
| Minnesota insurance law — chapters 72B and 60K subjects | Shared-examination block |
Property and casualty insurance terms and concepts — Shared-examination block
Terms and concepts items are definitional on the surface and applied underneath: actual cash value against replacement cost, coinsurance, proximate cause, negligence, liability, subrogation, and the standard conditions vocabulary. The examiners write distractors that are correct definitions of a neighbouring term, so preparation has to separate close concepts, not merely recognise them.
A study note on method: build pairs, not lists. Every term in this block has a neighbour it is confused with — actual cash value against replacement cost, peril against hazard, direct against consequential loss — and the examination lives in the seam between them. Flashcards that present the pair and ask for the distinction outperform flashcards that ask for a definition, because the examination asks for the distinction.
Preparation for this section should be built from the outline’s own subtopics, worked at examination pace. In the program in the works, this section’s practice set is weighted to the outline’s figure for the section, and results are reported against it separately.
Personal and commercial property coverages — Shared-examination block
Homeowners items work through the HO forms section by section: Section I property coverages and their internal limits, Section II liability, the named-perils against open-perils distinction, and the exclusions and conditions that decide real claims. Because the examinee population lives in these policies, the items are written at working depth rather than survey depth.
A study note on method: read one complete homeowners policy, jacket and endorsements, before item practice in this section. The items assume a reader who knows where a provision lives in the document — which section, which condition, which exclusion — and that structural knowledge cannot be acquired from summaries, only from the document itself.
Candidates most often underrate this section because its items look familiar from practice; the examination tests the published version, not the remembered one. In the program in the works, this section’s practice set is weighted to the outline’s figure for the section, and results are reported against it separately.
Commercial coverages and liability basics — Shared-examination block
Commercial property items cover the commercial package and commercial property forms: causes-of-loss forms, coinsurance at commercial scale, business income and extra expense, equipment breakdown, and the endorsements that move coverage. Candidates whose experience is residential-only should budget extra time here; the vocabulary is familiar but the forms behave differently.
A study note on method: commercial forms reward candidates who think in exposures before forms — what does this business own, owe, and interrupt — because the items present a business first and a form second. Candidates with residential habits should name the habit when they catch it: the commercial package is not a large homeowners policy, and its coinsurance and business income machinery has no domestic analogue.
Study this section from the primary text first and from summaries second; its items are written closely to the source. In the program in the works, this section’s practice set is weighted to the outline’s figure for the section, and results are reported against it separately.
Adjuster duties and the adjustment process — Shared-examination block
The adjustment process block is the practice block: duties after a loss, investigation and documentation, estimating and valuation, the proof of loss, negotiation, the appraisal clause, and settlement options. Items are scenario-led — a described loss, a described record, a choice of next steps — and they reward the sequence a careful adjuster actually follows over the sequence that merely sounds decisive.
A study note on method: adjustment items should be answered as the adjuster in the scenario, in sequence — notice, coverage, investigation, documentation, valuation, negotiation — and any answer that skips a step the scenario has not yet completed should be suspected, however attractive its conclusion. Practise by narrating the file forward, not by jumping to the settlement figure.
The efficient method here is worked examples: short scenarios, answered and reviewed, rather than rereading notes. In the program in the works, this section’s practice set is weighted to the outline’s figure for the section, and results are reported against it separately.
Minnesota insurance law — chapters 72B and 60K subjects — Shared-examination block
The state-law block is the part of the examination that cannot be prepared from a national text: the licensing statute, the contract and fee rules that govern practice in this state, unfair claims settlement duties, and the regulator’s enforcement powers. It is also the block that most distinguishes this examination from the insurer-side adjuster examinations in the same state.
A study note on method: read the state’s text, not a summary of it. State-law items are drawn from the licensing statute, the adjuster regulations, and the claims-practice provisions the outline names, and their distractors are drafted from plausible misreadings of those texts. An hour with the primary text is worth three with a digest, and the habit also serves the licensee the candidate is about to become.
Preparation for this section should be built from the outline’s own subtopics, worked at examination pace. In the program in the works, this section’s practice set is weighted to the outline’s figure for the section, and results are reported against it separately.
The sitting itself: format, scoring, and retakes
One hour is the whole sitting. PSI delivers the examination by computer with a tutorial of up to fifteen minutes that does not count against examination time, one question per screen, and the ability to return to questions inside the hour; remote proctored sittings are offered under the bulletin’s rules, with no breaks permitted in that mode. The retake rule is the bulletin’s own example: a candidate who tests unsuccessfully on a Wednesday can call Thursday and retest as soon as Friday, space permitting — there is no same-day rebooking. The score appears on screen at the end of the examination. What the bulletin does not give the candidate is a question count to pace against, which makes time discipline, rather than item counting, the pacing skill this sitting rewards.
What this examination is for
Finally, the examination is a shared reference point for a dispersed profession. Public adjusters work alone or in small firms, across a whole state, and rarely meet; the outline they all passed is one of the few texts they hold in common, and its vocabulary becomes the profession’s working shorthand. That is a practical reason to learn the material at the depth the outline intends rather than at the depth a pass minimally requires: the candidate is acquiring the language in which their future negotiations, contracts, and disputes will be conducted.
Preparation errors this guide is written to prevent
Three preparation errors recur in this examination’s candidate population. The first is studying from another state’s material, or from a national survey, and treating the state-law section as a supplement; in this outline it is a load-bearing section, and it is the one whose content cannot be borrowed. The second is rehearsing only in untimed conditions, so that the sitting’s pace arrives as a surprise in the room. The third is neglecting the application file until after the pass, then losing weeks — or, where a validity window applies, the pass itself — to bonds, fingerprints, and forms that could have been assembled during preparation.
After the examination
The post-examination file is the public adjuster file, not the shared examination’s: bond, fingerprints, Sircon application, and the Department’s decision. Two timing rules govern it — the fingerprint authorisation expires a year after signing, and the application follows the pass — and both argue for assembling the file promptly. Minnesota practice then begins inside chapter 72B’s public adjuster provisions: the written fee disclosure Minnesota requires instead of a fee cap, and the client’s 72-hour cancellation right, are the working terms a new licensee’s first contracts must carry. Licensees should read 72B.041 and the public adjuster sections of the chapter as their first practice documents.
Working under the license
Minnesota’s public adjuster law is thinner on fee control and thicker on disclosure than most states in this family: the state uses written fee disclosure rather than a percentage cap, and gives the client a 72-hour cancellation right. Its storm-market contractor laws draw the boundary between adjusting and contracting that Minnesota licensees must not cross — a boundary with real enforcement behind it in a hail state. None of that law is optional knowledge for a licensee, and the shared examination’s Minnesota-law content is the candidate’s first encounter with the chapter they will practise under. This program’s Minnesota layer exists because the license’s law deserves direct study, examination or no examination.
A preparation plan that respects the outline
Plan in two layers, in this order. Layer one is the shared examination: property and casualty concepts, coverages, adjuster duties, and Minnesota law, studied to the PSI bulletin’s structure and rehearsed at the one-hour limit, without inventing a question count to rehearse against. Layer two is chapter 72B’s public adjuster material — bond, contract, disclosure, cancellation — studied from the statute. Candidates should resist any material that merges the layers into a fictional dedicated examination; the fastest route through Minnesota is the true one: pass the shared sitting, then be ready to practise under the distinct license.
Three working rules govern the plan whatever the calendar allows. First, study in the examination’s format from the second week onward — timed, single-best-answer, at the sitting’s pace — because format familiarity is a real component of the result and the cheapest one to acquire. Second, keep the state-law material in a separate, recurring track from the coverage material; the two are retained differently, and mixing them in a single rotation starves the statute work. Third, take the score report’s section structure as the plan’s structure from the beginning, so that practice results arrive already organised in the units a retake would need.
Candidates with examination experience in another state should audit their instincts at the door: the coverage vocabulary travels, and almost nothing else does. The license name, the bond, the contract rules, the fees, and the regulator’s process in Minnesota are this state’s own, and the state-law section exists to test exactly the material that does not travel.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Minnesota Public Adjuster license? It is the license the Department of Commerce issues to the adjuster who represents the insured — the policyholder — in a claim, rather than the insurer. Public Adjuster — one of the three adjuster classes Minnesota Statutes 72B.03 creates (independent adjuster, public adjuster, crop hail adjuster). The holder is retained by the insured, for compensation, to document, evaluate, and negotiate the insured’s claim.
Who regulates public adjusters in Minnesota? the Minnesota Department of Commerce. The regulator writes or administers the licensing rules, receives the application, and issues the license; the examination vendor administers the test and nothing more.
What examination must Minnesota public adjuster candidates pass? The Minnesota Property & Casualty Adjuster examination (the adjuster examination for the public adjuster license), administered by PSI. PSI Services LLC; computer-based at PSI centres or remotely proctored; Property & Casualty Adjuster examination time allowed: 1 hour
What is the passing standard? 70% correct — ‘You will need 70% correct to pass the exam’ (PSI Minnesota Candidate Information Bulletin, Score Reporting)
Is there a pre-licensing education requirement? None for adjusters: ‘There are no prelicensing education requirements for adjusters’ (PSI bulletin). The 20-hour education requirement in the bulletin applies to producers, not adjusters
What else does licensure require besides the examination? Licensure sits alongside fingerprinting and a $10,000 surety bond in the Sircon application the Department decides. The examination is one input into the application; the Department of Commerce issues the license on the completed file, and no candidate may act as a Minnesota public adjuster before it issues.
How should I divide study time across the outline? By the outline’s own weights, which the guide’s outline section prints in full. The heaviest sections earn the most hours; the state-law material earns short, repeated passes rather than one long session, because statute items are exact and are retained by repetition. Plan in two layers, in this order.
What happens if I do not pass? You schedule a new sitting with PSI under its rules and pay the examination fee again. The score report from the failed attempt is the most useful study document you own: read it by section, and rebuild the study plan around the section that cost the pass rather than restarting the whole syllabus.
How is a public adjuster different from an independent adjuster? By client. An independent adjuster adjusts claims on behalf of insurers; a public adjuster is retained by and represents the insured. The licenses, the duties, and in Minnesota the licensing treatment are distinct, and preparation for one does not substitute for preparation for the other.
Does passing the examination make me a licensed public adjuster? No. Passing satisfies the examination requirement; the license issues when the Department of Commerce approves the completed application. Acting as a public adjuster before the license issues is unlicensed practice, however the examination went.
When will the PassProfessor Minnesota program open? The program is in the works and enrollment is not open yet. Join the notify list on this page and you will be emailed when enrollment opens; the companion exam guide is available to read now for planning your preparation.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with the Department of Commerce or PSI? No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with the Minnesota Department of Commerce or PSI Services LLC. The regulator owns the license and the vendor administers the examination; this program is preparation only.
What should I read besides practice material? The primary documents this guide is built on: the vendor’s candidate handbook or bulletin for this examination, the published content outline, and Minnesota’s adjuster law as the Department of Commerce publishes it. Those documents are the examination’s sources; everything else, this guide included, is a commentary on them.
Can preparation replace any step in the licensing route? No. Preparation — this program included — earns no credit with the Department of Commerce, satisfies no education, bond, fingerprint, or application requirement, and is reported to no one. It prepares you for the examination step only, and the guide keeps that boundary in view throughout.