This guide covers the New York Public Adjuster license in full: the 40 hours of DFS-approved pre-licensing education and its employer-statement exemption, PSI’s Series 17-62 examination of 60 questions in one hour at a 70% passing standard, the published outline weights from Adjusting Losses at 22% down to Regulation at 8%, and the bond, character certificates, and fingerprinting in the DFS application. It follows the DFS Candidate Information Bulletin. PassProfessor’s companion program is in the works.
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The DFS Candidate Information Bulletin is the constitution of this examination, and this guide follows it closely: the pre-licensing education chart, the Series 17-62 outline printed at the head of the public adjuster section, the 70% passing standard the bulletin states, and the application’s bond, character, and fingerprint requirements. New York is also the state in this family where the pre-examination step is the longest — forty hours of approved education for most candidates — so the guide begins there, before it reaches the test centre.
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 New York 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, licensed by the Department of Financial Services under the New York Insurance Law |
| Examination | Series 17-62 — Public Adjuster, administered by PSI Services LLC per the DFS Candidate Information Bulletin |
| Format | 60 questions; 1 hour; computer-based |
| Passing standard | 70% correct, per the DFS Candidate Information Bulletin |
| Examination fee | $40 (third-party fee, paid to PSI; not refundable or transferable, per the bulletin) |
| Pre-licensing education | 40 hours from a DFS-approved provider (DFS pre-licensing education page); exemptible by Statement of Employer for qualifying industry experience |
| Outline weights | Adjusting Losses 22%; Businessowners 14%; Insurance Basics 13%; Homeowners 13%; Dwelling 10%; Commercial Package 10%; Other Coverages and Options 10%; Regulation 8% |
| Reciprocity | None for adjusters: every New York adjuster applicant must pass the New York examination, per the bulletin |
| Bond and character evidence | $1,000 bond and five certificates of character accompany the application (DFS adjuster licensing materials) |
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, licensed by the Department of Financial Services under the New York Insurance Law. 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.
Examination. Series 17-62 — Public Adjuster, administered by PSI Services LLC per the DFS Candidate Information Bulletin. 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.
Format. 60 questions; 1 hour; computer-based. 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.
Passing standard. 70% correct, per the DFS Candidate Information Bulletin. 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 fee. $40 (third-party fee, paid to PSI; not refundable or transferable, per the bulletin). 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.
Pre-licensing education. 40 hours from a DFS-approved provider (DFS pre-licensing education page); exemptible by Statement of Employer for qualifying industry experience. 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.
Outline weights. Adjusting Losses 22%; Businessowners 14%; Insurance Basics 13%; Homeowners 13%; Dwelling 10%; Commercial Package 10%; Other Coverages and Options 10%; Regulation 8%. 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.
Reciprocity. None for adjusters: every New York adjuster applicant must pass the New York examination, per the bulletin. 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.
Bond and character evidence. $1,000 bond and five certificates of character accompany the application (DFS adjuster licensing materials). 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.
The licensing route, step by step
Step 1 — Complete the education, or document the exemption
DFS requires an individual seeking a public adjuster license to complete a Department-approved pre-licensing course, and its published minimum for Public Adjusters is 40 hours. Applicants under Insurance Law sections 2104 or 2108 are exempt if they can complete a Statement of Employer based on work experience — for a public adjuster applicant, a year of industry employment involving sales, underwriting, or claims. A preparation program, including this one, earns no pre-licensing credit; the 40 hours must come from a DFS-approved provider.
Step 2 — Register for Series 17-62 with PSI
PSI provides all examination services for New York insurance licensing. The Public Adjuster examination is Series 17-62: 60 questions, one hour, a $40 examination fee paid to PSI, neither refundable nor transferable, and forfeited if the candidate does not test within a year of PSI receiving it. The bulletin prints the question count and time limit at the top of the examination’s outline, and the passing standard is 70% correct on scored questions.
Step 3 — Sit the examination as a public adjuster, not a generalist
The outline’s centre of weight is Adjusting Losses at 22%. Behind it, Businessowners at 14% outweighs the Commercial Package at 10% — a New York particular worth noting, since in most states the order is reversed. Regulation is the smallest section at 8%, about five questions, and the most statute-bound.
Step 4 — Apply to DFS with the full file
The application carries the $1,000 bond, five certificates of character from community members who have personally known the applicant for at least five years, and fingerprinting, alongside the examination record and the education certificate or employer statement. DFS issues the license; the examination pass is an input to that decision, not the decision itself.
The examination outline in full
| Outline section | Weight / character |
|---|---|
| Regulation | 8% |
| Insurance Basics | 13% |
| Adjusting Losses | 22% |
| Dwelling Policy | 10% |
| Homeowners Policy | 13% |
| Commercial Package Policy | 10% |
| Businessowners Policy | 14% |
| Other Coverages and Options | 10% |
Regulation — 8%
Regulation items test the licensing machinery itself: who may act as a public adjuster, what the application and renewal require, which acts are prohibited, and what discipline the regulator can impose. These items reward exact reading of the state’s own adjuster law rather than general insurance knowledge, and they are the section where candidates from other states most often import the wrong rule from home.
A study note on method: regulation items are the least forgiving of approximate knowledge, because their distractors are usually the correct rule for a neighbouring license or a neighbouring state. Work this section from the statute and rule text with a notebook of contrasts — this license against the producer license, this state against the national pattern — and revise it in short sessions close to the sitting, when retention matters most.
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.
Insurance Basics — 13%
The basics block tests the vocabulary and architecture of insurance itself: risk, peril and hazard, insurable interest, indemnity, valued policy and agreed-value concepts, underwriting, and the parties to the contract. It is foundational rather than easy — later coverage items assume this language, and a candidate who is shaky here will misread stems that turn on a single defined term.
A study note on method: basics items are lost less often to ignorance than to speed — candidates skim a stem, recognise a term, and answer the term they expected rather than the one printed. Slow the first reading of every basics stem down deliberately in practice, underline the operative word mentally, and let the speed come from the answer, not the reading.
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.
Adjusting Losses — 22%
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.
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.
Dwelling Policy — 10%
Dwelling policy items concentrate on the DP forms: which perils each form insures, how Coverage A through E are structured, fair rental value and additional living expense treatment, and the valuation basis the form applies. The traps are form-to-form comparisons, because the dwelling and homeowners forms answer the same loss differently.
A study note on method: put the dwelling forms side by side on one page — perils by form, valuation by section, rental and living-expense treatment — and study the grid, because the items are comparisons wearing the dress of individual questions. A candidate who can reproduce the grid unaided owns most of this section.
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.
Homeowners Policy — 13%
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.
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.
Commercial Package Policy — 10%
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.
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.
Businessowners Policy — 14%
Businessowners policy items test the BOP as a packaged product: its property and liability sections, eligibility by business class and size, the standard endorsements, and where the package stops and a commercial package policy begins. The recurring error is answering with homeowners logic, because the BOP borrows the homeowners shape while changing several material rules.
A study note on method: the businessowners section is best studied as an eligibility-and-package problem — which businesses the package accepts, what it bundles, and where its standard endorsements move its edges — because the items test the package’s design decisions rather than isolated coverages. Keep a short list of what the BOP will not do; the examination asks from that list disproportionately.
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.
Other Coverages and Options — 10%
Other coverages is the residual block: inland marine and floaters, flood program mechanics, earthquake and specialty endorsements, and the miscellaneous forms the outline gathers at the margin. Individually small, these items are disproportionately missed because candidates spend their study time where the weights are largest and leave the margin unreviewed.
A study note on method: the residual block is where outlines hide their most specific items — named floaters, program mechanics, and endorsement details that general study never touches. The efficient preparation is a checklist pass through the outline’s own subtopics for this section in the final week, converting unknowns into knowns while the large sections are maintained by timed practice.
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.
The sitting itself: format, scoring, and retakes
One hour, sixty questions: the arithmetic governs the sitting. The bulletin states the passing standard as 70% correct, which on sixty scored questions is forty-two correct answers. Candidates get no separate reading period and no surplus at the end; the working method the examination rewards is first-reading accuracy — identify the section the item belongs to, apply that section’s rule, and move. A candidate who has not practised at one minute per item will feel the second half of the sitting compress, and the items most likely to be rushed are the long adjusting scenarios the outline weights most heavily. Retakes follow PSI’s scheduling rules for New York examinations, with the fee payable again.
What this examination is for
A licensing examination is a profession’s front door, and its outline is the profession’s own account of what a newcomer must know. Read that way, this outline is a description of the work itself: the coverage forms the licensee will read daily, the adjustment process they will perform, and the state law they will practise under. Candidates sometimes resent the state-law section as an obstacle between them and the real material; licensees discover within a year that the state law was the real material, and the examination was the last cheap opportunity to learn it under no client’s deadline. The preparation that treats the whole outline as job training, rather than as a hurdle with a syllabus, produces both passes and practitioners.
Preparation errors this guide is written to prevent
The commonest strategic error is a study plan built from the candidate’s experience rather than from the outline: experienced adjusters over-study the work they already do and under-study the sections their practice never touches, while new candidates do the reverse and neglect the practice material. The outline’s weights are the correction to both. A second error is treating the handbook or bulletin as administrative paperwork; it is the examination’s rulebook, and its scheduling, identification, and retake provisions decide real candidacies every cycle. A third is silence about the result — candidates who fail and tell no one lose the diagnostic conversation that makes the second attempt a different attempt.
After the examination
After a pass, the file goes to DFS, and this state’s file is heavier than most: bond, character certificates, fingerprints, education evidence. The certificates of character are the item candidates most often leave late — they require five people, each of five years’ acquaintance, and they cannot be assembled the night before filing. Licensure follows DFS’s decision, and the license then carries New York’s renewal and continuing requirements as DFS publishes them for adjusters. An experienced out-of-state adjuster should note the bulletin’s plain statement: New York has no reciprocity for adjusters, and every applicant passes the New York examination.
Working under the license
The bulletin defines the public adjuster’s field of work by loss type — fire, miscellaneous property, water, burglary and theft, glass, boiler and machinery, elevator, and marine and inland marine — and that list doubles as a map of the New York practice: property losses, represented for the policyholder, under the Insurance Law’s licensing and conduct provisions. The Regulation section of the examination exists because practice is inside that statutory frame: who may act, on what contract, subject to what departmental authority. Candidates should read the Regulation items as the working rules of the license they are applying for, not as preamble.
A preparation plan that respects the outline
The study plan for New York has a preliminary the other states in this family lack: the 40-hour course comes first, and it is also study — candidates should take the examination soon after the course while its material is current, rather than treating course and examination as separate projects months apart. Inside examination preparation, weight the hours by the outline: Adjusting Losses first, the Businessowners section ahead of the Commercial Package, and short, repeated passes over Regulation’s statute items, which are few, exact, and cheap to secure.
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 New York 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 New York Public Adjuster license? It is the license DFS issues to the adjuster who represents the insured — the policyholder — in a claim, rather than the insurer. Public Adjuster, licensed by the Department of Financial Services under the New York Insurance Law. The holder is retained by the insured, for compensation, to document, evaluate, and negotiate the insured’s claim.
Who regulates public adjusters in New York? the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS). 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 New York public adjuster candidates pass? The New York Public Adjuster examination (Series 17-62), administered by PSI. 60 questions; 1 hour; computer-based
What is the passing standard? 70% correct, per the DFS Candidate Information Bulletin
Is there a pre-licensing education requirement? 40 hours from a DFS-approved provider (DFS pre-licensing education page); exemptible by Statement of Employer for qualifying industry experience
What else does licensure require besides the examination? Licensure sits alongside a $1,000 bond, five certificates of character, and fingerprinting in the DFS application. The examination is one input into the application; DFS issues the license on the completed file, and no candidate may act as a New York 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. The study plan for New York has a preliminary the other states in this family lack: the 40-hour course comes first, and it is also study — candidates should take the examination soon after the course while its material is current, rather than treating course and examination as separate projects months apart.
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 New York 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 DFS approves the completed application. Acting as a public adjuster before the license issues is unlicensed practice, however the examination went.
When will the PassProfessor New York 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 DFS or PSI? No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) 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 New York’s adjuster law as DFS 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 DFS, 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.