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1. The combined exam, in one paragraph
Pennsylvania takes the opposite approach from Texas and the other split-exam states: there is one Property and Casualty producer exam, and Series 16-06 is it. The Pennsylvania Insurance Department contracts with PSI Services LLC to administer the Producer’s Examination for Property and Casualty Insurance — a single computer-based sitting of 150 scored questions (plus a handful of unscored pretest items) that must be completed in 2 hours and 50 minutes, blending national property and casualty material with a heavy layer of Pennsylvania law. You pass by scoring 70% — on PSI’s scaled reporting, at least 105 of 150 questions correct. There are no separately passed parts and no subscores that can save or sink you independently: one exam, one score, one result. Around the exam sit Pennsylvania’s own gates — 24 hours of approved pre-licensing education (with defined exemptions), fingerprint-based background checks for most applicants, and a license application filed with the Insurance Department through Sircon after you pass.
2. Who can take the Pennsylvania P&C exam?
Pennsylvania’s licensing framework makes some requirements part of the application rather than the exam registration, so read this section as the full eligibility picture — the exam is one gate in a sequence, not the whole sequence.
- Age: as with nearly every state, you must be an adult licensee. This guide does not state a specific age for Pennsylvania because PSI’s bulletin states the operative gates below and ties age-related eligibility to the Insurance Department’s application rules rather than to a candidate-facing exam rule; confirm on the Department’s licensing pages if your situation is unusual.
- Pre-licensing education: 24 hours of study with an Insurance Department–approved provider is the standard requirement before licensure (see below for exemptions). This is Pennsylvania’s main front-end gate: candidates cannot treat the exam as a stand-alone first step the way Texas candidates can.
- Character and background: Pennsylvania requires fingerprinting for most new producer applicants, used for state and federal criminal-history checks, and the application itself asks the standard background questions. Certain prior criminal history, license denials, or revocations can bar licensure — if that is a live question for you, resolve it with the Insurance Department before spending money on education and exam fees.
- No state residency rule for the exam itself: nonresidents license in Pennsylvania too, generally on the strength of a home-state license; this guide focuses on the resident path, which is the path the exam serves.
The 24-hour education requirement — and its exemptions
The 24 hours must come from a provider approved by the Pennsylvania Insurance Department, and completion is tied to your license application; approved providers report completions into the licensing system. PSI’s bulletin notes that the exam registration process itself collects information about your education status, so treat the hours as a before step, not an afterthought. Cost varies by provider — Pennsylvania sets the hours, not the price.
Exemptions from the pre-licensing education requirement exist for defined categories, principally:
- Prior licensure: candidates who held an equivalent license within the defined look-back period under the Department’s rules.
- Professional designations: specified insurance designations (the bulletin names qualifying designations for the lines sought) can substitute for the hours.
- Other Department-recognized categories as published in PSI’s bulletin and on the Department’s site.
If you believe an exemption applies to you, confirm it with the Department before registering — an exemption dispute discovered at application time costs months, not minutes. Note what this guide deliberately does not claim: it does not assert that a designation or prior license waives the examination itself. The exam is waived only where the Department’s rules say so (reciprocity for currently licensed nonresidents being the standard case), and that determination is the Department’s to make.
3. The exam, piece by piece
PSI’s content outline for Series 16-06 has four sections, and its published weights are unusual in two ways candidates should understand before they study. First, the “Common” section — material PSI considers shared across property and casualty — is the largest single block. Second, PSI’s published per-section counts total 151 against a stated 150-question exam (Section II is printed as 56 in the outline while its published percentage is 37%, which is 55.5 of 150); this guide uses PSI’s outline as published and flags the arithmetic quirk rather than silently fixing it. The exam administers 150 scored questions; the outline proportions govern what you study either way.
| PSI outline section | Published weight | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| I. Insurance Regulation | 30 questions (20%) | Pennsylvania law, almost entirely: types of licenses and lines of authority; who must be licensed and the exemptions; license maintenance — duration, fees, renewal, continuing education, change of address, reporting of actions, assumed names; appointment and termination of appointments; the Commissioner’s general powers and duties; state licensing examination rules; unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts — unfair marketing practices, illegal inducements, misrepresentation and false advertising, defamation, false financial statements; unfair claims settlement practices, refusal to renew, and the consumer privacy act; and the residual-market and specialty Pennsylvania mechanisms — the FAIR Plan Act, the Assigned Risk Plan, the Mine Subsidence Fund, the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error Fund (MCARE), political subdivision tort claims, the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law, and the residual market. Regulation is the single densest Pennsylvania-specific block on the exam. |
| II. Common to Property and Casualty Only | 56 questions per the outline (37%) | The shared foundation both lines rest on: general insurance concepts (risk, hazards, perils, law of large numbers, insurable interest, indemnity); the insurance contract (elements, characteristics, warranties, representations, concealment, fraud); types of insurers and their authority (stock, mutual, reciprocal, Lloyd’s, fraternal; admitted vs. non-admitted; certificate of authority); private vs. government insurers; agents and agency authority (express, implied, apparent); basic legal concepts and terminology (tort law, negligence, liability, damages, burden of proof); insurance terms and concepts shared across lines; and the shared coverage parts PSI tests in common — Dwelling policies and Homeowners policies in full (forms, coverages A–F, conditions, endorsements including Pennsylvania-specific mandatory and amendatory endorsements), the Commercial Package Policy structure, commercial property coverage parts and forms, causes of loss forms, and the boiler-and-machinery/equipment-breakdown coverage part. This section is why a property background alone cannot carry the exam. |
| III. Property Only | 32 questions (21%) | Property-specific depth: the Commercial Property Coverage Part in detail (building and personal property forms, condominium forms, builders risk, business income and extra expense, legal liability coverage); commercial property conditions, exclusions, and endorsements; floaters and specialized property forms; the property side of commercial crime and inland marine as PSI assigns them; and the property-specific Pennsylvania provisions PSI weaves in — state-mandated policy provisions, cancellation and nonrenewal rules for commercial and personal lines, policy form and rate filing concepts, and the Commonwealth’s residual property mechanisms (FAIR Plan, mine subsidence) as they apply to property risks. |
| IV. Casualty Only | 33 questions (22%) | Casualty-specific depth: liability concepts and tort law applied; the Commercial General Liability forms (occurrence and claims-made, Coverage A/B/C, limits, supplementary payments, conditions); commercial and personal automobile — the Personal Auto Policy in full and Business Auto Coverage, garage coverage, and truckers/motor carrier forms; Pennsylvania auto law in force — the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law (Title 75, Chapter 17): mandatory liability limits, first party benefits, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, limited tort vs. full tort, Act 6 and the 1990-era cancellation/restriction provisions (Title 75 §§1791.1, 1792 and related sections) as PSI tests them; Workers’ Compensation — the Pennsylvania act (Title 77), compulsory coverage, benefits structure, assigned risk; crime, surety, and fidelity as PSI assigns them to the casualty side; umbrella and excess liability; and casualty-side Pennsylvania mandates including cancellation and nonrenewal provisions for casualty lines. |
Three structural facts that shape how you should prepare:
- The common core decides the exam. Sections I and II together are roughly 86 of 150 questions — more than half the test — before you touch a line-specific section, and Section II’s 56-question weight is the largest on the outline. The candidate who treats “common” material as review-week filler is under-studying the majority of the exam.
- Pennsylvania law is a layer, not a section. Regulation (30 questions) is the visible block, but PSI embeds Commonwealth law inside all three other sections — Title 75 inside auto, Pennsylvania cancellation rules inside property and commercial sections, Title 77 inside workers’ compensation, FAIR Plan and mine subsidence inside property. There is no way to “do the Pennsylvania part” in one study block; you meet it everywhere.
- About 68 seconds per question. 150 questions in 170 minutes (Texas allows 160 minutes for 160 questions but scores two parts separately; Pennsylvania’s pace with a single blended score leaves less slack for deliberation). Pacing drills are not optional at this ratio.
Pretest questions. PSI administers a small number of unscored pretest items alongside the scored 150 — per PSI’s current bulletin materials, 5 pretest questions for Series 16-06. They are indistinguishable from scored questions, do not count toward your result, and exist so PSI can evaluate items for future exams. There is no strategy for them other than treating every question as real.
The optional practice examination. PSI also offers candidates an optional, unscored 15-question practice examination (described in the bulletin) to demonstrate question style. It is a format familiarization tool — fifteen questions cannot diagnose readiness for a 150-question blended exam, and PSI does not present its result as a score predictor.
Format and delivery. Multiple choice, computer-delivered. PSI offers testing at its examination centers and — for Pennsylvania insurance exams — remote proctoring options described in the bulletin and at registration; check the current delivery options for Series 16-06 when you book, as PSI adjusts them program by program.
4. The passing standard, explained
You pass Series 16-06 with a score of 70% — at least 105 of the 150 scored questions answered correctly.
PSI reports results using a scaled score, and the passing scaled score for Pennsylvania insurance exams is 70. Two features of PSI’s reporting matter practically:
- Your score report tells you more than pass/fail. PSI’s bulletin states that a candidate who fails receives information showing how close they were to passing and the diagnostic areas of weakness — treat a first-attempt failure report as a study plan written by the exam itself, mapped directly against the outline sections in §3.
- There is one blended score and nothing else. No section must be passed independently; a weak Property Only performance can be offset by strength in the common core and casualty — and the reverse is equally true, which cuts both ways for candidates with lopsided backgrounds.
Pass rates: Neither the Pennsylvania Insurance Department nor PSI publishes an official first-attempt pass rate for Series 16-06 in the bulletin, and this guide does not quote one. Figures on commercial prep sites for “the Pennsylvania insurance exam” are not official statistics (and frequently blend the life, health, and P&C exams). What the structure tells you is the actionable part: a 70% bar on a single blended sitting, with 37% of the weight on the common core and Pennsylvania law layered throughout, rewards broad outline-driven preparation and punishes narrow one-line preparation — a study fact, not a statistic.
5. Fees and registration, step by step
There are three separate money flows — education, exam, license — paid to three different parties at three different times. Conflating them is the most common budgeting error Pennsylvania candidates make.
| Payment | Amount | Paid to | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-licensing education (24 hrs) | Provider-priced | Approved provider | Before licensure (standard path) |
| Exam fee (Series 16-06) | $43 | PSI | At registration, each attempt |
| Fingerprinting | Vendor rate | Commonwealth’s fingerprint vendor | During application |
| Resident producer license application | $55 | Insurance Department, via Sircon | After passing |
PSI’s examination fee for Series 16-06 is $43 per attempt per the current bulletin fee schedule, and the Insurance Department’s resident producer license fee is $55; fingerprinting is charged at the state vendor’s current rate. Fees are nonrefundable once paid under the respective payee’s rules — exact refund and reschedule policies are in §7 and in PSI’s bulletin, which governs in case of any change.
The sequence:
- Complete (or confirm exemption from) the 24 education hours. Choose an Insurance Department–approved provider; your completion must be recorded for the application. If you are claiming an exemption (prior licensure, qualifying designation), confirm it with the Department first — do not assume it.
- Register with PSI and sit the exam. Registration is through PSI’s candidate portal (or by phone) for Series 16-06; your registration information must match the identification you will present at check-in. Pay the $43 fee, choose your testing location/mode, and keep PSI’s scheduling rules in mind (§7) — a missed appointment forfeits the fee.
- Pass, then get fingerprinted. Most new applicants complete fingerprinting through the Commonwealth’s vendor as part of the application process; follow the current Department instructions for enrollment and locations.
- Apply through Sircon. Pennsylvania producer licensing runs on the Sircon platform (used by the Insurance Department for applications and appointments). File the resident producer application, attesting to the background questions and paying the $55 license fee. Exam results are transmitted electronically from PSI — you do not mail a score report — but the Department, not PSI, issues the license, and issuance waits on a complete application including fingerprints and education/exemption status.
- Get appointed before you sell. A Pennsylvania producer license authorizes you to hold yourself out in the licensed lines, but you transact business as the appointed representative of an insurer: your appointments (filed through the licensing system) are what make a given carrier’s products yours to sell. Producers also maintain the license on the Department’s renewal cycle, with continuing education obligations the outline itself tests — see §6.
6. After you pass
- The license application is the next gate, not a victory lap. Passing PSI’s exam does not itself license you. Until the Department issues the license through Sircon — application, fee, fingerprints, education verified — you cannot transact. File promptly: your supporting pieces (education completion, fingerprint results) are fresher and easier to cure if the Department raises a question.
- Appointments authorize selling, carrier by carrier. Expect your agency or carrier partners to file appointments after issuance; if you change carriers or agencies, appointments change with you. Working without the required appointment is a compliance violation, not a technicality.
- Renewal and continuing education. Pennsylvania producer licenses renew on the Department’s biennial cycle, and resident producers owe continuing education — 24 credits per renewal period — to keep the license in force (the exam outline tests this requirement, so you have already studied the framework you will live under). Track your own CE from day one; lapsed licenses arise from calendar failures far more often than from misconduct.
- Keep your record current. Address changes, name changes, and reportable actions (disciplinary, criminal, civil) must be reported to the Department within the timelines PSI’s regulation section tests — 30 days for the standard reporting obligations. The exam’s Regulation section is, in effect, a preview of the compliance life of the license.
- Print and verify. Once issued, verify your license details (lines of authority, expiration) in the Department’s lookup and print a copy for your files; errors are cheap to fix in week one and expensive in year two.
7. Retakes and score validity
- Retakes are permitted; the same $43 fee applies per attempt. Pennsylvania does not publish a candidate-facing cap on attempts in the bulletin materials this guide relies on — but every attempt costs the fee, a fresh appointment, and PSI’s standard scheduling lead time, and the clock matters if your education completion or other application pieces have their own currency periods. Treat the first attempt as the cheap one.
- Reschedule rules are strict. PSI’s policy: you may reschedule or cancel without forfeiting the fee only if you do so within PSI’s stated window before your appointment (PSI’s bulletin states the window and the method — online or by phone to a PSI representative; voicemail and third-party messages do not count as cancellation). Miss the window, arrive late, or arrive without acceptable identification, and the fee is gone. Confirm the current window in the bulletin at registration, since PSI updates these policies.
- Use the diagnostic. A failing score report shows how close you were and where the weakness concentrates by outline area. On a blended exam, the efficient retake plan attacks the weakest weighted sections first — a 10-point gain in the 56-question common core is worth more than the same effort spent on a 32-question section. Rebuild pacing, too: at about 68 seconds per question, many first-attempt failures are partly time failures, and they are the most fixable kind.
- Score validity and application timing. Your passing result is transmitted to the Department electronically and remains available to your application; the bulletin does not give Pennsylvania passing scores a multi-year independent life separate from the application process, so the safe practice — and this guide’s advice — is to apply promptly after passing while every element (exam result, education record, fingerprint currency) is unambiguous. If a long delay separates your pass from your application, confirm with the Department that no element needs refreshing before you file.
8. Test day
- Arrive early — plan on 30 minutes before your appointment. Check-in, identity verification, and security screening precede the exam clock. PSI’s no-show and late policies are unforgiving: late arrival can mean denial of admission and forfeiture of the $43 fee.
- Identification is exact. PSI requires government-issued photo identification whose name matches your registration exactly; secondary/signature requirements follow PSI’s bulletin for Pennsylvania exams. Register under your legal name as printed on the ID — a mismatch between registration and ID is the single most preventable cause of a lost test day across PSI programs.
- Know the room rules. PSI test centers prohibit personal items in the testing room — phones and electronics are out entirely; storage is limited and PSI disclaims responsibility for stored items. Scratch material, if any, is supplied and collected under PSI’s procedures. For remote-proctored delivery (where offered for Series 16-06), expect a room scan, continuous monitoring, and PSI’s remote rules on breaks and materials — read them at booking, because they differ from center rules in ways that surprise candidates.
- During the exam: 150 scored questions in 170 minutes, roughly five pretest questions mixed in unidentified, one question at a time, with the ability to move within the exam per PSI’s interface. Work steadily — at a minute a question, the winning rhythm is decide-and-move, flagging only true coin-flips for a final pass if the interface and clock allow. Do not burn four minutes rescuing one question while four unanswered ones wait.
- Results. PSI provides your result at the conclusion of the exam session under its standard reporting (with the detailed score report following its bulletin process); a passing result is transmitted to the Insurance Department electronically for your Sircon application.
- Exam accommodations. Candidates requiring accommodations under the ADA arrange them through PSI in advance — documentation and approval precede scheduling, so start that process before you pick a date.
9. How to study for it
The outline is the syllabus — PSI publishes the four sections and their weights, and in Pennsylvania those weights carry an unusually clear message. A plan built on them:
- Budget by weight, not by comfort. Section II (Common) is 37% and Section I (Regulation) is 20% — 57% of your score comes from the shared core and Pennsylvania law before line-specific depth. If your study hours don’t roughly match those proportions, your plan is misaligned with the exam no matter how hard it feels.
- Start with Regulation — it is pure Pennsylvania and purely learnable. Licensing rules, the Commissioner’s powers, unfair practices, claims rules, FAIR Plan, assigned risk, mine subsidence, MCARE, the privacy act: this section is statute-shaped, finite, and worth 30 questions. It is also the section generic national material covers worst, because none of it is national.
- Treat the common core as two exams in one. Section II combines concept material (contracts, insurers, agency, legal basics) with full dwelling and homeowners coverage and the commercial package structure. Split your practice accordingly — concept drills and policy drills are different skills, and the section tests both at scale.
- Learn Pennsylvania auto as a statute, not a policy. Title 75’s financial responsibility law — mandatory limits, first party benefits, UM/UIM, limited tort vs. full tort, the Act 6 cancellation framework — is tested as Pennsylvania law with Pennsylvania numbers. National auto material teaches the PAP; Pennsylvania tests the PAP and the Commonwealth’s deviations from it.
- Give casualty its full 22% — including workers’ comp under Title 77. CGL (occurrence vs. claims-made), business auto, umbrella, surety, and Pennsylvania workers’ compensation are the casualty deep end; personal-lines candidates chronically underweight this side, and on a blended single-score exam there is nowhere for that weakness to hide.
- Practice at full length, at full pace. About 68 seconds per question for 150 questions is a performance condition, not a detail. Full generated simulations in outline proportions, on the 2-hour-50-minute clock, are the only practice that measures the thing the exam measures.
- Read every explanation — especially on regulation and common-core questions. Pennsylvania’s exam rewards knowing why a rule exists in the Commonwealth’s scheme (consumer protection, residual markets, compulsory auto), because PSI’s stems present fact patterns, not definitions. Explanations are where that pattern recognition forms.
This program’s Pennsylvania practice bank (9,992 questions, explanations on all of them) is built on this same outline structure — including 1,076 Insurance Regulation questions, 2,019 Common to Property and Casualty questions, and 1,667 questions under Personal Lines and the Pennsylvania policy sections. The Pennsylvania Insurance Exam Prep program page shows the full coverage table — and enrollment is open there.
Reminder: PassProfessor’s program is exam preparation only. It does not satisfy, shorten, or substitute for Pennsylvania’s 24-hour pre-licensing education requirement — complete those hours with an Insurance Department–approved provider as §2 and §5 describe.
10. Frequently asked questions
Is the Pennsylvania P&C exam really one combined test?
Yes. Series 16-06 is a single sitting covering property and casualty together: 150 scored questions, 2 hours 50 minutes, one blended score, 70% to pass. Pennsylvania does not split the producer exam into separately passed property and casualty parts the way Texas does.
How many questions are on the Pennsylvania insurance exam, and how long do I have?
150 scored questions in 2 hours 50 minutes — about 68 seconds per question — plus a small number of unscored pretest questions (5, per PSI’s bulletin materials) mixed in unidentified.
What score do I need to pass Series 16-06?
70% — at least 105 of the 150 scored questions correct, reported by PSI as a scaled score of 70. There are no separate passing scores for the property and casualty portions; the exam produces one result.
Does Pennsylvania require pre-licensing education for a P&C producer license?
Yes — 24 hours with an Insurance Department–approved provider, unless you fall within a defined exemption (certain prior licensure and professional designation categories among them). The requirement attaches to licensure and is confirmed in the application; confirm any exemption with the Department before relying on it. Exam prep — including this program — does not count toward those hours.
How much does it cost to get a Pennsylvania P&C license?
The exam is $43 per attempt to PSI. The resident producer license application is $55 to the Insurance Department via Sircon. Fingerprinting is charged at the state vendor’s current rate, and your 24 hours of pre-licensing education are priced by your chosen approved provider. There is no single “all-in” state fee; budget the four pieces separately.
What is Sircon?
Sircon is the licensing platform Pennsylvania uses for producer applications, appointments, and license management. After you pass the exam, you file your resident producer application there; the Insurance Department — not PSI — issues the license.
Why is the “Common” section so large?
Because PSI structures the exam that way: Common to Property and Casualty Only carries 37% of the outline (56 questions as PSI publishes the count) — the shared concepts, contract and agency law, plus dwelling, homeowners, and commercial package material both lines use. It is the largest section and, combined with Regulation, more than half the exam.
How much Pennsylvania law is on the exam?
A great deal, and it is layered: the 30-question Regulation section is Pennsylvania law outright, and Commonwealth provisions recur inside the other sections — Title 75 auto law (financial responsibility, first party benefits, UM/UIM, limited vs. full tort, Act 6 cancellation rules), Pennsylvania cancellation and nonrenewal provisions, Title 77 workers’ compensation, the FAIR Plan, assigned risk, mine subsidence, and MCARE. National-only preparation leaves all of it on the table.
Can I take the Pennsylvania insurance exam online?
PSI offers remote-proctored delivery for Pennsylvania insurance exams subject to its current program rules; confirm Series 16-06’s delivery options when you register, as PSI adjusts them. Remote rules on room conditions, materials, and breaks differ from test-center rules — read them before exam day.
What happens if I fail?
You retake: same exam, same $43 fee, under PSI’s scheduling rules. Your score report shows how close you were and which outline areas were weakest — on a blended exam, rebuild your study around the weakest weighted sections first, and retrain pacing (about 68 seconds per question) alongside content.
Do I need to be fingerprinted?
For most new resident producer applicants, yes — fingerprint-based state and federal background checks are part of the application, completed through the Commonwealth’s fingerprint vendor following the Insurance Department’s current instructions.
After I pass, can I start selling?
Not until the Department issues your license (application via Sircon, fee, fingerprints, education/exemption verified) and you hold an appointment with the insurer whose products you will sell. The exam is one gate of several — §5 and §6 lay out the full sequence.
Verified questions
Every question in this program is original — written for PassProfessor from the official exam blueprint, never copied from a test bank or another provider’s materials. Before enrollment opened, each answer key was independently verified: reviewers re-answered sampled questions blind, disagreements were settled against the primary sources, and every numeric answer was recomputed from first principles. Questions whose facts could not be confirmed were removed, and the bank passed a text-overlap screen. Practice exams draw a fresh, blueprint-weighted set from the full bank on every attempt, so no two practice exams are the same.
Disclaimer
PassProfessor is an independent exam-preparation provider and is not affiliated with the Pennsylvania Insurance Department, PSI, or any state agency or exam vendor. This guide is general information about the Pennsylvania licensing exam, current as of October 2026; Insurance Department and PSI publications govern if anything here differs from them.