This guide covers the Tennessee Public Adjuster license: Part 9 of Title 56, Chapter 6 as the governing law, the Pearson VUE examination of 50 scored questions in one hour under handbook 124300, the outline effective October 15, 2025 with Tennessee law at 30%, the passing standard set by rule 0780-01-91-.06, fingerprinting, and the bond and errors and omissions filings. It is written from the handbook, the outline, and the rule. PassProfessor’s companion program is in the works.
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Tennessee’s documents are unusually complete for a fifty-question examination: a candidate handbook (Pearson VUE 124300), a four-section outline with question counts as well as weights (124301, effective October 15, 2025), and a rule — 0780-01-91-.06 — that fixes both the examination fee and the passing standard. This guide uses all three, takes the licensing route in TDCI’s order, and gives the Tennessee law section the extended treatment its 30% weight earns. Where the handbook and the rule speak, the guide quotes their substance; where secondary sources add figures neither contains, the guide leaves them out.
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 Tennessee 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, required by Tenn. Code 56-6-903, under Title 56, Chapter 6, Part 9 |
| Regulator | Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI) |
| Examination | Tennessee Public Adjuster examination, administered by Pearson VUE (candidate handbook 124300) |
| Format | 50 scored questions; 1 hour; computer-based |
| Examination fee | $50 per attempt (third-party fee, paid to Pearson VUE; fixed by rule 0780-01-91-.06) |
| Passing standard | 70 — the minimum passing score set by Tennessee rule 0780-01-91-.06, as cited in the guide’s scoring note |
| Content outline | Pearson VUE publication 124301, effective October 15, 2025: Tennessee Laws and Regulations Pertinent to Public Adjusters 30% (15 questions); General Property Insurance Product Knowledge 32% (16); Property and Casualty Terms and Concepts 32% (16); Policy Provisions 6% (3) |
| Pre-licensing course | None required; the path is examination-only |
| Financial responsibility | $50,000 surety bond and $500,000 errors and omissions policy; fingerprint-based background check through IdentoGO; application through NIPR with a $100 fee |
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, required by Tenn. Code 56-6-903, under Title 56, Chapter 6, Part 9. 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.
Regulator. Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI). 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. Tennessee Public Adjuster examination, administered by Pearson VUE (candidate handbook 124300). 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. 50 scored 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.
Examination fee. $50 per attempt (third-party fee, paid to Pearson VUE; fixed by rule 0780-01-91-.06). 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.
Passing standard. 70 — the minimum passing score set by Tennessee rule 0780-01-91-.06, as cited in the guide’s scoring note. 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.
Content outline. Pearson VUE publication 124301, effective October 15, 2025: Tennessee Laws and Regulations Pertinent to Public Adjusters 30% (15 questions); General Property Insurance Product Knowledge 32% (16); Property and Casualty Terms and Concepts 32% (16); Policy Provisions 6% (3). 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.
Pre-licensing course. None required; the path is examination-only. 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.
Financial responsibility. $50,000 surety bond and $500,000 errors and omissions policy; fingerprint-based background check through IdentoGO; application through NIPR with a $100 fee. 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.
The licensing route, step by step
Step 1 — Read Part 9 as the license’s frame
Tenn. Code 56-6-903 makes the license mandatory for the work, and Part 9 of Title 56, Chapter 6 supplies the rest: qualifications, the examination, financial responsibility, the contract with the insured, the fee structure, and the rescission right. Thirty percent of the examination is drawn from this neighbourhood of Tennessee law, which makes Part 9 the single highest-yield reading assignment in this batch.
Step 2 — Register with Pearson VUE
The handbook (124300) governs scheduling: reserve online or by phone at least 24 hours ahead; walk-ins are not accepted. The examination fee is $50 per attempt, fixed by rule 0780-01-91-.06 and nonrefundable. The sitting is 50 scored questions in one hour.
Step 3 — Sit the four-section examination
The outline (124301) allocates 15 questions to Tennessee laws and regulations, 16 to general property product knowledge, 16 to property and casualty terms and concepts, and 3 to policy provisions. Rule 0780-01-91-.06 sets the minimum passing score at 70. Candidates should note what that means in a fifty-question room: the margin between pass and fail is a handful of items, and the law block alone can supply it in either direction.
Step 4 — Fingerprint, file, and apply
The file at TDCI includes the fingerprint-based background check through IdentoGO with the signed Fingerprint Policy and Acknowledgement Form, the $50,000 surety bond, evidence of the $500,000 errors and omissions policy, and the application through NIPR with its $100 fee. The financial-responsibility filings are the long pole of this application; candidates should start the bond and coverage paperwork while they study, not after they pass.
The examination outline in full
| Outline section | Weight / character |
|---|---|
| I. Tennessee Laws and Regulations Pertinent to Public Adjusters | 30% — 15 questions |
| II. General Property Insurance Product Knowledge | 32% — 16 questions |
| III. Property and Casualty Terms and Related Concepts | 32% — 16 questions |
| IV. Policy Provisions | 6% — 3 questions |
I. Tennessee Laws and Regulations Pertinent to Public Adjusters — 30% — 15 questions
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.
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.
II. General Property Insurance Product Knowledge — 32% — 16 questions
General property product knowledge is the survey block: the standard fire policy and its proof of loss, inventory and appraisal machinery, personal and commercial coverage forms, flood, and the additional coverages and exclusions that recur across forms. Items here reward breadth — knowing what each form is for and where its boundaries sit — more than depth in any single form.
A study note on method: product knowledge is best studied form by form with a one-page map per form — who buys it, what perils, what valuation, what signature conditions — because the items test the boundaries between forms more than the interior of any one form. Candidates who study topics instead of forms discover the boundaries only in the score report.
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.
III. Property and Casualty Terms and Related Concepts — 32% — 16 questions
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.
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.
IV. Policy Provisions — 6% — 3 questions
Policy provisions items test the contract machinery: declarations, insuring agreements, definitions, exclusions, conditions, endorsements, cancellation and nonrenewal, assignment, and the standard mortgagee clause. These are the provisions an adjuster quotes back to both sides of a claim, and the items reward candidates who have read an actual policy jacket rather than a summary of one.
A study note on method: provisions are learned by quotation. Candidates should be able to state, in the policy’s own vocabulary, what the appraisal clause does, what the standard mortgagee clause protects, and what assignment requires — because the items quote that vocabulary back and ask what it does, and paraphrase-level knowledge fails precisely there.
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, fifty questions: seventy-two seconds an item, with no section small enough to coast. The passing standard deserves a precise statement, because Tennessee publishes it in an unusual place. The candidate handbook does not headline a passing figure; the standard lives in the Department’s rule, 0780-01-91-.06, which fixes the examination fee and sets the minimum passing score at 70. This guide states the standard with that attribution, and candidates who want to verify it should read the rule rather than any summary of the handbook. Retakes are new sittings through Pearson VUE at the same fee, and the four-section structure makes a failed attempt’s report unusually actionable: the weak block is named, and it is one of only four.
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
Licensure completes when the TDCI file is whole: examination, fingerprints, bond, errors and omissions evidence, application. The two financial filings distinguish Tennessee in the licensee’s first year — the bond premium and the E&O premium are recurring costs of practice, and the $500,000 coverage limit is a professional commitment closer to an attorney’s or accountant’s than to most adjuster licenses in this family. Renewal follows TDCI’s published cycle for the license; licensees should confirm the current renewal and continuing requirements on TDCI’s public adjuster page, which the Department maintains as the license’s home page.
Working under the license
Part 9 governs practice in detail unusual for this family: a tiered fee cap structure, a three-business-day rescission right for the insured, and the contract terms the engagement must carry. A Tennessee public adjuster’s first week of practice is therefore a compliance exercise before it is a claims exercise — the contract form, the fee calculation within the tiers, and the rescission notice are the license in action. The examination’s law block tests exactly this material, and a candidate who studies Part 9 as their future contract law, rather than as examination trivia, will both pass it and use it. Tennessee candidates should also note the discipline the two filings impose on practice economics: the bond and the errors and omissions policy renew whether or not the season produced losses to adjust, so the license carries fixed annual costs that a new licensee’s first-year plan should state in figures, not discover in invoices. That, too, is part of what the financial-responsibility sections of Part 9 are testing — whether the candidate understands the license as a business commitment and not merely a credential.
A preparation plan that respects the outline
The plan writes itself from the outline’s arithmetic: three blocks of roughly a third each, one tail. Divide the hours into thirds — law, product knowledge, terms — and fold provisions into the product block, where its vocabulary lives. The law third should be studied from the Code and the rule directly, in short daily sittings, because fifteen questions of Tennessee-specific law cannot be carried by general adjuster knowledge. In the final week, sit timed fifty-question practices at the one-hour limit; this examination’s pace is learnable and its length is short enough to rehearse whole.
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 Tennessee 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 Tennessee Public Adjuster license? It is the license TDCI issues to the adjuster who represents the insured — the policyholder — in a claim, rather than the insurer. Public Adjuster, required by Tenn. Code 56-6-903, under Title 56, Chapter 6, Part 9. The holder is retained by the insured, for compensation, to document, evaluate, and negotiate the insured’s claim.
Who regulates public adjusters in Tennessee? the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI). 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 Tennessee public adjuster candidates pass? The Tennessee Public Adjuster examination, administered by Pearson VUE. 50 scored questions; 1 hour; computer-based
What is the passing standard? 70 — the minimum passing score set by Tennessee rule 0780-01-91-.06, as cited in the guide’s scoring note
Is there a pre-licensing education requirement? None required; the path is examination-only
What else does licensure require besides the examination? Licensure sits alongside a $50,000 surety bond, $500,000 in errors and omissions coverage, and fingerprinting in the TDCI file. The examination is one input into the application; TDCI issues the license on the completed file, and no candidate may act as a Tennessee 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 plan writes itself from the outline’s arithmetic: three blocks of roughly a third each, one tail.
What happens if I do not pass? You schedule a new sitting with Pearson VUE 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 Tennessee 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 TDCI approves the completed application. Acting as a public adjuster before the license issues is unlicensed practice, however the examination went.
When will the PassProfessor Tennessee 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 TDCI or Pearson VUE? No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI) or Pearson VUE. 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 Tennessee’s adjuster law as TDCI 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 TDCI, 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.