PassProfessor’s Vermont program is part of the expanding PassProfessor catalog. The 9,371-question Vermont practice bank is built and audited, and enrollment opens soon. Join the notify list and we will email you when enrollment opens — then use this guide to plan your path to the exam.
This program is part of the expanding PassProfessor catalog — join the notify list and we’ll email you when enrollment opens.
The Vermont P&C exam, in one paragraph
The Vermont Producer’s Examination for Property and Casualty Insurance (Series 14-31) is the licensing exam for Vermont’s combined property and casualty producer authority, administered by Prometric for the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation (DFR). You will see 155 multiple-choice questions in 2.5 hours: 150 are scored, built from Prometric’s published Vermont content outline, and 5 are unscored experimental questions you cannot identify. You pass with a score of 70% — one final score for the whole combination examination, which must be passed in full. Vermont requires no pre-licensing education and no fingerprint step for this license, so the path is short: pass the exam, wait 48 hours, and apply to DFR through NIPR — within 24 months of your exam date, or the pass expires.
Who can take the Vermont P&C exam?
Vermont’s requirements for a resident insurance producer are set by statute (8 V.S.A. § 4800) and restated in both the Prometric bulletin and DFR’s Producer License guidance. To be licensed as a resident producer, you must:
- Be at least 18 years old.
- Be a resident of Vermont, or actually reside in Vermont or maintain your principal place of business in the state (that residency formulation is the bulletin’s; nonresidents follow the separate route in §5).
- Be deemed by the Commissioner of Financial Regulation to be competent, trustworthy, financially responsible, and of good personal and business reputation. This is a real standard, not boilerplate: the license application — the NAIC Uniform Application reproduced in the bulletin and used in the electronic process — asks detailed background questions about criminal history, administrative proceedings involving any professional license, judgments and debts owed to insurers or insureds, bankruptcies involving funds held for others, tax delinquency, and child-support arrears, and a felony involving dishonesty or breach of trust raises the federal 18 U.S.C. § 1033 written-consent question. Answering “yes” does not automatically end an application, but it must be answered truthfully and documented.
- Pass the licensing examination for the lines you want — Series 14-31 for the combined property and casualty authority.
- Submit a license application and fees — within 24 months of passing, as §6 explains.
Three things Vermont does not require, because candidates from other states often assume otherwise:
- No pre-licensing education. Neither § 4800 nor DFR’s producer requirements impose course hours before the exam, and Prometric’s scheduling flow expressly lets a candidate who used no pre-licensing school or provider select “Not Applicable” from its drop-down list. Study is entirely self-directed — which makes the quality of your preparation the variable you control. One distinction that matters later: the 24 hours of continuing education every two years (8 V.S.A. § 4800a) is a renewal requirement that applies after you are licensed. It is not pre-licensing education, and nothing about it gates the exam.
- No fingerprint step. Vermont’s published producer process — the bulletin, the DFR Producer License page, and the statutory requirements — contains no fingerprinting requirement for producer applicants. The background screening happens through the application’s background questions and the Commissioner’s character determination, not through a fingerprint vendor. If you are used to states that route you to a fingerprint appointment before or after the exam, Vermont is not one of them.
- No sponsorship or appointment before the exam. You do not need an agency or insurer behind you to sit for Series 14-31. Appointment comes later: a licensed producer must be appointed by each insurer for which they act as an agent, and the insurer must file that appointment within 15 days of the agency contract being executed or the first application being submitted, whichever comes first.
Two special cases worth knowing:
- Exam waiver for producers moving to Vermont. If you were previously licensed for the same lines of authority in another state, you are not required to complete pre-licensing education or the examination — provided you are currently licensed in that state, or your application arrives within 90 days of the cancellation of your previous license and the prior state certifies (or its producer-database records show) that you were licensed in good standing for the line requested (8 V.S.A. § 4813i, as summarized in the bulletin).
- Temporary license. The Commissioner may issue a temporary producer license for up to 180 days without an examination, but only in narrow circumstances — for example to the surviving spouse, court-appointed representative, or employee of a deceased or disabled producer, or the designee of a producer who has entered active U.S. military service. It keeps a book of business serviced; it is not an alternative front door for new producers, and it does not remove the exam requirement for the regular license.
Finally, a caution the bulletin itself prints: passing the exam does not guarantee a license. Issuance depends on DFR’s review and approval of your complete application.
The exam, piece by piece
Series 14-31 is a single combined sitting built from Prometric’s Vermont content outline (effective November 3, 2019). There are no separately scored property and casualty portions: the bulletin states that the results of the combination examination are reflected in one final score, and the complete examination must be passed. Vermont also offers separate single-line exams — Producer’s Property (Series 14-41) and Producer’s Casualty (Series 14-42) — for candidates who want only one line; most new producers who intend to sell both take 14-31 once.
Every question is multiple choice with four options, in the three formats the bulletin illustrates: a direct question, an incomplete sentence to complete, and an “all of the following except” question. The full outline, with Prometric’s published weights converted to the scored-question counts the outline itself prints, is:
| Outline section | Weight | Scored questions | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 Insurance Regulation | 10% | 15 | Licensing process and license types, maintenance and duration, disciplinary actions; the Commissioner’s duties and powers; company and producer regulation, including unfair trade practices and unfair claim settlement practices; federal regulation (Fair Credit Reporting Act, federal fraud statutes) |
| 2.0 General Insurance | 9% | 13 | Risk and methods of handling it, elements of insurable risk, insurers and their types and financial status, producers and the rules of agency, and insurance contracts — elements, distinct characteristics, and legal interpretations |
| 3.0 Property and Casualty Insurance Basics | 10% | 15 | Principles and concepts (insurable interest, underwriting, rates, hazards, negligence, liability), policy structure, common policy provisions — and subsection 3.4, Vermont laws, regulations and required provisions |
| 4.0 Dwelling Policy | 5% | 8 | Characteristics and purpose, coverage forms and perils, property coverages A–D and additional living expense, exclusions, conditions, selected endorsements including the Vermont special provisions, and the personal liability supplement |
| 5.0 Homeowners Policy | 17% | 26 | Coverage forms HO-2 through HO-6, definitions, Section I property coverages, Section II liability coverages, perils, exclusions, conditions, and selected endorsements including Vermont forms |
| 6.0 Auto Insurance | 21% | 31 | Vermont laws (financial responsibility, the Vermont Automobile Insurance Plan, uninsured/underinsured motorist law, cancellation and nonrenewal, binders, surcharges), the personal auto policy, and commercial auto |
| 7.0 Commercial Package Policy (CPP) | 8% | 12 | Components of a commercial policy, commercial general liability, commercial property, commercial crime, commercial inland marine, equipment breakdown, and farm coverage |
| 8.0 Businessowners Policy | 6% | 9 | Characteristics and purpose, Section I property, Section II liability, common policy conditions, and selected endorsements |
| 9.0 Workers Compensation Insurance | 7% | 10 | Workers’ compensation laws — including Vermont Workers’ Compensation Law — the workers compensation and employers liability policy, premium computation, and other sources of coverage including the Vermont workers’ compensation administration fund |
| 10.0 Other Coverages and Options | 7% | 11 | Umbrella and excess liability, specialty liability (cyber, professional, E&O, D&O, fiduciary, liquor, employment practices), surplus lines, surety bonds, ocean marine, and the National Flood Insurance Program |
| Total scored | 100% | 150 | Plus 5 unscored experimental questions = 155 on screen |
Four structural facts that shape how you should prepare:
- Auto Insurance alone is 31 questions — more than a fifth of the exam — and its first subsection is Vermont law. The outline grounds the section in Vermont’s Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Laws (Title 23, §§ 800–943): the required liability limits (under § 801, $25,000 for bodily injury to one person, $50,000 for two or more persons, and $10,000 for property damage), required proof of insurance, the Vermont Automobile Insurance Plan and its eligibility and limits, uninsured/underinsured motorist law (§ 941), cancellation and nonrenewal grounds and notice, binders (§ 942), and surcharges. A candidate who knows the personal auto policy cold but not Vermont’s auto statutes is leaving the heaviest single block of the exam half-prepared.
- Homeowners is the second-heaviest section at 26 questions, and it tests Vermont-specific endorsements and special provisions by form number alongside the standard HO program.
- Vermont content is distributed, not contained. Regulation (Section 1.0) is Vermont regulation; subsection 3.4 puts Vermont laws, regulations, and required provisions — the Vermont Property and Casualty Insurance Guaranty Association, cancellation, nonrenewal, and renewal-notice law, consent to rate, loss payment, discrimination, coinsurance, and required provisions — inside the basics section; and Vermont statutes anchor parts of the auto and workers’ compensation sections. There is no single “state law chapter” to cram the night before.
- There is one score, not two. A strong casualty showing can offset a weaker property showing and vice versa — but no section can be ignored, because the weights above mean the two biggest sections alone decide 57 of your 150 scored questions.
Experimental questions. Five of the 155 questions are experimental items Prometric is gathering statistics on for future exams. They are distributed through the exam, they are not identified, they may cover material your study sources did not emphasize, and they do not count for or against your final score. There is no strategy for them beyond the obvious one: answer every question as if it were scored.
The passing standard, explained
You pass with a score of 70%.
Vermont states its standard as a percentage, and the score reporting matches: your result shows whether you passed or failed, your overall percentage score, and the percentage correct for each major section of the exam. That per-section breakdown is the most useful document a failing candidate owns — it tells you exactly which outline sections to rebuild before a retake, and it uses the same section structure your practice should be organized around.
Two consequences follow:
- Practice to a margin, not to the line. A practice average of exactly 70% on untimed quizzes is not a passing position on a 155-question timed exam with five experimental questions mixed in. The safe target is full simulations scored comfortably above 70%, with no outline section left far below the others — because the single combined score draws on all ten sections.
- Results are prompt. At the end of the exam you receive a notice of completion by email, and duplicate score reports can be downloaded or printed later through Prometric’s electronic score-report portal using your exam confirmation number and last name. Keep the confirmation number; you will want the score report for your records and, if you apply by paper, the original report goes to DFR with your application.
A note on pass rates: neither Prometric nor the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation publishes a pass rate for Series 14-31 in its official materials. Figures circulating on commercial prep sites are drawn from secondary compilations, use small Vermont cohorts, and are not the vendor’s or the Department’s numbers — this guide does not quote one, because there is no official one to quote. What the structure tells you is enough: this is a 150-question exam with a 70% standard that routinely passes candidates who prepare against the published outline.
Fees and registration, step by step
Keep the payments separate in your mind — they go to different places at different times, and one of them we deliberately do not number.
| Payment | Amount | Paid to | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exam fee | The current amount is shown in your Prometric account at booking — see the note below | Prometric | When you register and schedule |
| License application fee | $30 | Vermont DFR (through NIPR) | After you pass, when you apply |
| License fee (initial producer license) | $30 | Vermont DFR (through NIPR) | With the application |
Why no exam-fee figure? Because Prometric’s current Vermont bulletin contradicts itself: its two appended registration forms list two different totals for Series 14-31. Rather than print a number we cannot verify, this guide omits it — confirm the fee displayed in your Prometric profile when you schedule, and budget for the fee to apply again in full if you need a retake. Exam fees are non-refundable and non-transferable.
The sequence, in order:
- Create your Prometric profile. Start on Prometric’s Vermont insurance page and create or log in to your account. Prometric warns Vermont candidates to enter their date of birth and Social Security number correctly: inaccurate demographic information can leave you unable to apply for your license after you have passed. Use the name exactly as it appears on your government-issued identification.
- Register and schedule. From your profile, register for Series 14-31, then choose your delivery: “Schedule Test Center” for a Prometric test center (you may test at any Prometric center in the United States), or “Schedule Remotely Proctor” for a remotely proctored exam through ProProctor. During registration you will be asked which pre-licensing school or education provider you used — if you prepared without one, select “Not Applicable”; if yours is not listed, select “Other.” You can also schedule by phone at 800-868-6113 (the bulletin lists 8 a.m.–9 p.m. Eastern, Monday–Friday, for scheduling calls). An exam registration remains valid for 90 calendar days after it is processed; if it expires unused, it expires without further notice.
- Protect the appointment. If you must reschedule or cancel, do so at least 24 hours before your scheduled exam time or you forfeit your exam fee. Missing the appointment, or arriving late and being denied admission, also forfeits the fee.
- Take the exam — test-day rules are in §7. You receive your completion notice by email.
- Wait 48 hours, then apply. DFR requires resident candidates to wait 48 hours after passing before submitting the electronic application, so the exam result can reach the licensing system. Apply through NIPR with the $30 application fee and $30 license fee; DFR notes that a routine application requiring no additional information is generally issued within 48 hours. A paper route also exists — the NAIC Uniform Application, your original passing score report, the required certifications, and the same $30 + $30 in fees to DFR in Montpelier — with a minimum of 10 days allowed for processing.
- Get appointed. Once licensed, you may sell, solicit, or negotiate insurance — but you may act as an insurer’s agent only once that insurer has appointed you. Appointment follows licensure and is arranged with each carrier you will represent.
After you pass
- The 24-month clock. Vermont law is explicit: an applicant must submit an application to the Commissioner within 24 months after the date of examination (8 V.S.A. § 4800). NIPR states the same window from the other side — Vermont exam scores are valid for 2 years. Miss the window and the pass cannot support a license, whatever your score was. In practice, apply in the first week, not the twenty-third month: the 48-hour wait is the only delay the process builds in.
- Passing is not licensure. Your application is reviewed against the character standard and background questions described in §2; DFR issues the license, and the bulletin warns that a passed exam does not guarantee issuance.
- Your license term. Vermont producer licenses run on a common cycle — April 1 to March 31 of odd-numbered years — regardless of when yours was issued, and license fees are not prorated. A license issued late in the cycle renews sooner than one issued early; that is how the state runs it, and it is worth knowing before you are surprised by a first renewal.
- Continuing education starts after licensure. Producers must complete 24 hours of continuing education during each two-year period to renew (8 V.S.A. § 4800a). It has nothing to do with sitting for the exam — but it is the obligation waiting on the other side of it.
- Keep DFR current. After licensing, changes of business, home, or mailing address must be reported to the Department within 30 days (electronically through NIPR or Sircon), and name changes are submitted in writing with supporting documentation.
Retakes and score validity
- If you do not pass, you register again with Prometric and sit again. The bulletin publishes no waiting period and no attempt limit for Vermont insurance exams — scheduling availability and the per-attempt exam fee are the practical constraints. Do not rebook the same preparation and expect a different result: your score information breaks your performance down by major section, and that breakdown is your retake syllabus.
- Each attempt stands on its own registration. A registration is valid for 90 calendar days; exam fees are non-refundable and non-transferable and apply per attempt.
- Score validity, restated: a passing score is usable for 24 months from the examination date (8 V.S.A. § 4800; NIPR lists Vermont exam-score validity as 2 years). There is no benefit to retaking a passed exam — passing is passing, and the clock is already running.
Test day
- Arrive 30 minutes early. The bulletin directs you to report at least 30 minutes before your appointment to sign in, verify identification, and complete security checks. Late arrival can mean denied admission and a forfeited fee.
- Bring the right identification. One valid, government-issued ID (for example a driver’s license, state identification card, or military ID) that contains both a current photo and your signature, and whose name exactly matches the name you registered under — suffixes included. If you cannot produce identification meeting those terms, contact Prometric before the appointment to arrange an alternative; failing to provide appropriate ID at test time is treated as a missed appointment and requires another full exam fee.
- Expect a controlled room. All sessions are monitored by video and audio recording. Unauthorized personal items may not be accessible while testing — outerwear, hats, food and drink, purses, bags and briefcases, notebooks, watches, cell phones, and other electronic or wearable devices are barred from the testing area. You will be asked to empty and turn out your pockets and raise your sleeves, and eyeglasses are visually inspected. Eating, drinking, smoking, and chewing gum are prohibited during the exam, and you must show ID and repeat security checks after any break. Notes, published materials, and other testing aids are strictly prohibited, and communicating, reproducing, or transmitting any part of the test, in any form, is prohibited — that rule is also why legitimate prep never uses real exam content.
- Know the question formats. Four-option multiple choice, in three forms: direct questions, incomplete sentences, and “all of the following except” items. Test center staff cannot answer questions about exam content; if a question is unclear, answer it to the best of your ability and keep moving.
- Remote testing (ProProctor). If you test remotely, you need a computer (tablets are prohibited) with a camera and microphone and an internet connection, plugged into a power source, and you should run Prometric’s system check before scheduling. The testing-area and conduct rules above apply at home exactly as at a center.
- Accommodations. Reasonable testing accommodations are available for candidates with documented disabilities under the ADA, at no additional charge — submit the Testing Accommodation Request Form with professional documentation and allow 30 days’ advance notice. Candidates whose primary language is not English may request ESL authorization for time-and-one-half; do not schedule until the authorization is confirmed, because exams scheduled before approval do not carry the extra time. All Vermont examinations are given in English.
- After the exam. Your notice of completion arrives by email, and duplicate score reports are available through Prometric’s score-report portal with your confirmation number and last name. If something about the content, registration, scheduling, or administration of your exam warrants an appeal, Prometric accepts appeal requests through its contact page and responds by email, with a stated goal of a decision within 20 days.
How to study for this exam
Prometric publishes the syllabus — the outline in §3 is not a summary of the exam, it is the exam’s blueprint, section weights included. A plan built on that structure:
- Start where Vermont is heaviest: Auto. Thirty-one questions, and the section opens with Vermont law — the financial responsibility statute and its 25/50/10 limits, the Automobile Insurance Plan, UM/UIM law, cancellation and nonrenewal rules, binders, surcharges — before it ever reaches the personal auto policy. Learn the Vermont material as law, with its numbers and names attached, then learn the policy forms it governs.
- Treat Homeowners as the second exam inside the exam. Twenty-six questions across forms, both coverage sections, perils, exclusions, conditions, and endorsements — including Vermont’s own special-provisions forms. Learn the HO program comparatively: what changes from form to form, and what Section I covers that Section II does not.
- Do not skim Regulation because it looks administrative. Fifteen questions on licensing, the Commissioner’s powers, company and producer regulation, and unfair practices — and it is the section most directly about the job you are licensing for, including the conduct rules (rebating, misrepresentation, unfair discrimination, controlled business, fiduciary duties) that Vermont tests by name.
- Mine subsection 3.4 deliberately. The Vermont laws subsection inside Basics carries the guaranty association, cancellation and nonrenewal timelines, renewal notice, consent to rate, and loss-payment rules — concrete, dated, numbered material that rewards direct study and punishes vagueness.
- Learn terms inside scenarios. General Insurance (13 questions) and the concepts half of Basics test vocabulary — risk, hazards, valuation, negligence, liability — through fact patterns. Definitions learned inside questions survive to test day; definitions learned off a list often do not.
- Practice at full length, against the clock. One hundred fifty-five questions in 150 minutes is under a minute a question. Full generated practice exams at the real outline weights build pacing and stamina together; short quizzes build only knowledge.
- Read every explanation, including for questions you answered correctly. A right answer reached by a wrong reason is a wrong answer waiting for a different question. Explanations are where scenario judgment actually forms.
- Schedule when the simulations say so — consistent full-exam practice scores comfortably above 70%, with Auto and the Vermont-carrying sections no longer your weakest blocks.
This program’s Vermont practice bank (9,371 questions, including 1,877 in the sections carrying Vermont-specific content and 674 in the dedicated Vermont laws, regulations and required provisions section) is built on this same outline structure. The Vermont Insurance Exam Prep program page shows the full coverage table — and the notify list there will email you when enrollment opens.
Frequently asked questions
How many questions are on the Vermont P&C exam? 155 questions appear on screen in 2.5 hours: 150 scored questions built from Prometric’s Vermont content outline, plus 5 unscored experimental questions mixed in so candidates cannot tell them apart.
What score do I need to pass Series 14-31? 70%. The combination examination produces one final score — property and casualty are not passed separately — and the complete examination must be passed.
Does Vermont require pre-licensing education? No. Vermont imposes no pre-licensing education requirement on producer applicants: the statutory requirements are age 18 or older, the Commissioner’s character standard, passing the examination, and an application with fees. Prometric’s scheduling flow lets candidates who used no pre-licensing provider select “Not Applicable.” The 24 hours of continuing education you may see mentioned is a renewal requirement for people already licensed, not a pre-licensing requirement.
Do I need to be fingerprinted to get a Vermont producer license? No fingerprint step appears in Vermont’s published producer process — not in the Prometric bulletin, not in DFR’s producer requirements, and not in 8 V.S.A. § 4800. Background screening is done through the background questions on the license application and the Commissioner’s review of whether you are competent, trustworthy, and financially responsible.
How much does the Vermont P&C exam cost? The exam fee is paid to Prometric when you register; confirm the current amount in your Prometric account as you book. The license itself, after you pass, costs a $30 application fee plus a $30 license fee paid to DFR through NIPR.
How do I register for the Vermont insurance exam? Create a profile on Prometric’s Vermont insurance page, register for Series 14-31, and choose a test center or a remotely proctored (ProProctor) appointment. You can also schedule by phone at 800-868-6113. Enter your date of birth and Social Security number carefully — errors can block your license application after you pass — and make sure your registration name matches your government ID exactly.
Can I take the Vermont insurance exam online? Yes. Prometric offers Series 14-31 at test centers and remotely through its ProProctor application, which requires a computer with a camera and microphone and a pre-scheduling system check.
What do I do after I pass? Wait 48 hours, then apply for the license through NIPR with the $30 application fee and $30 license fee. Routine applications are generally issued within 48 hours, per DFR. Then arrange appointment with each insurer you will represent — you must be appointed by an insurer before acting as its agent.
How long is my Vermont exam score valid? Two years. Vermont law (8 V.S.A. § 4800) requires your application to be submitted within 24 months of the examination date, and NIPR lists Vermont exam scores as valid for 2 years.
If I fail, how soon can I retake the Vermont exam? The bulletin publishes no waiting period and no attempt limit. You register again with Prometric, pay the exam fee again, and test when an appointment is available. Use the per-section percentages in your score information to rebuild your preparation around the sections that cost you.
Do property and casualty have separate scores or separate sittings? On Series 14-31, no: it is one combined examination with one final score, and the complete examination must be passed. Candidates who want only one line can instead take the separate Producer’s Property (Series 14-41) or Producer’s Casualty (Series 14-42) exams.
What Vermont-specific topics does the exam cover? Vermont insurance regulation and licensing law; the Vermont laws, regulations and required provisions subsection (including the Vermont Property and Casualty Insurance Guaranty Association, cancellation and nonrenewal, renewal notice, and consent to rate); Vermont motor vehicle financial responsibility law, the 25/50/10 liability limits, the Vermont Automobile Insurance Plan, and uninsured/underinsured motorist law; Vermont special-provisions endorsements in the dwelling and homeowners sections; and Vermont workers’ compensation law and the state workers’ compensation administration fund.
I already hold a license in another state. Do I still have to test? Probably not, if you are moving to Vermont: an applicant previously licensed for the same lines in another state is exempt from the examination if currently licensed there, or if the application is received within 90 days of that license’s cancellation with good standing certified or shown in the producer database. Nonresident producers license through NIPR without a Vermont exam, based on their home-state license.
Disclaimer
PassProfessor is an independent exam-preparation provider and is not affiliated with the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation, Prometric, or any state agency or exam vendor. This guide is general information about the Vermont licensing exam, current as of October 2026; DFR and Prometric publications govern if anything here differs from them.