If you’re thinking about becoming an insurance agent in Georgia, the first step you’ll need to take in order to kickstart your career is to obtain a Georgia insurance license.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of how to become an insurance agent in Georgia, as well as what to do once you get licensed.

Georgia Insurance License

In order to get your Georgia insurance license, you’ll need to complete the following six steps:

1. Figure Out Which Insurance License You’ll Need
2. Complete a Pre-Licensing Education Course
3. Pass the Relevant Georgia Insurance License Exam(s)
4. Complete a Citizenship Affidavit
5. Submit Your Insurance License Application
6. Complete a Fingerprint and Background Check

Below we have explored each step in more detail.

Step 1: Decide Which Insurance Licenses You Need

The first step will be deciding what type of insurance policies you’ll want to sell — at least at the start of your career.

This is because the type of insurance policies you’re hoping to sell will dictate the type of license you’ll need. For example, you’d need a Property & Casualty (P&C) license to be able to sell auto, home, or business insurance.

Here’s a list of all the different types of insurance agent licenses that are available in the state of Georgia:

• Credit
• Life, Accident and Sickness
• Personal Lines
• Property and Casualty
• Travel, Travel Baggage, Title
• Variable Products

While there are a large number of different licenses to choose from, the vast majority of insurance agents will either obtain a Property and Casualty (P&C) or Life and Health license.

In fact, many agents actually opt to go for both of these licenses as it allows them to offer clients a much wider range of the most common insurance products.

However, if you already know you want to specialize in one particular type of policy, you’ll of course only have to focus on the specific license that’s relevant to this insurance type.

It’s worth noting at this point that if you’re looking to work as an insurance adjuster, you’ll need to obtain a separate license — which you can find more information about in our Georgia Adjuster License overview.

Step 2: Complete a Georgia Pre-Licensing Education Course

The next step you’ll want to take toward becoming a licensed insurance agent in Georgia is completing a pre-licensing education course.

This is a legal requirement in Georgia, and is designed to equip you with the foundational knowledge necessary for both the insurance license exam and a successful career in insurance.

The amount of educational training required will depend on the insurance license type — or “class” — in question.

For example, if you are seeking a credit insurance license, the requirement will be minimal (i.e., just 5 hours of self-study.).

On the other hand, more comprehensive licenses (e.g., Property and Casualty, Life, Accident, and Sickness, etc.) will require a more extensive 40-hour pre-licensing course.

Due to the sheer number of pre-licensing education courses available, it’s normal to feel a little overwhelmed when deciding which one is right for you. To avoid this, we typically recommend making a decision based on the following factors:

• The course’s flexibility (e.g., does it allow flexible learning, does it require completing within a short time-window, etc.)
• The course’s price: This one is obvious; our only tip here is to not go too low, as from our experience you tend to get what you pay for when it comes to these
• The course’s reputation: How reliable is each provider? The last thing you want is insufficient and/or incomplete resources before your exam

If you want more information before getting started, you can also have a look at our in-depth overview of the five best pre-license education courses in 2024.

Step 3: Pass the Relevant Georgia Insurance License Exam(s)

After completing your pre-licensing education course, you will need to take (and pass) the relevant Georgia insurance license exam.

We say ‘relevant’ because this will depend on the line you wish to specialize in; for example, if you’re planning to become a life and health insurance agent, you will need to pass the Life, Accident, and Sickness Agent exam — which has 125 scored questions plus 10 pretest questions.

You will have 2 hours and 30 minutes to complete this exam, with the timer starting the moment you look at the first question.

Keep in mind that if you haven’t completed the exam within the allotted time, the examination unit will automatically turn off.

All insurance licensing exams in Georgia are administered by Pearson VUE and require a passing score of 70%. Exam fees are uniformly set at $63, regardless of the exam taken.

Keep in mind that you can sit for more than one exam at a time (e.g., if you want to apply for both a P&C and a life and health insurance license).

Even so, we recommend avoiding this route; this is because passing your exam is hard enough as is, and there is arguably little to gain and a lot to lose with the added risk of confusing separate line material.

We found that the best approach is to study for one at a time, averaging between two to six weeks of study time per exam — depending on whether you are studying full time or part-time, as well as on how comfortable you are at taking proctored exams.

You should also note that Georgia law does not set a limit on the number of times a candidate may attempt any given exam. Having said that, candidates are required to wait 24 hours before scheduling a reexamination.

For more information, you can have a look at our Georgia Insurance License Exam guide.

Step 4: Complete the Citizenship Affidavit

After successfully passing your exam, you will need to complete a Citizenship Affidavit form (GID-276-EN), which attests to your United States citizenship or lawful presence within the country.

This form, along with a copy of a secure and verifiable identification document, must be submitted together with your application to the NIPR or Sircon.

Remember that the citizenship affidavit needs to be notarized in order to be accepted.

Note: Your application cannot be processed until the Citizenship Affidavit is uploaded as an attachment with your application at the NIPR Warehouse or Sircon portal.

Step 5: Submit Your Insurance License Application

With your citizenship affidavit ready and notarized, you’ll be ready to actually apply for your license.

This process is completed online, and you can submit your application through either the Sircon or NIPR websites.

To apply through NIPR:

• You will need to visit www.nipr.com
• Select “Apply for a New License”
• Follow the provided step-by-step instructions to complete your application

To apply through Sircon:

• You will need to visit www.sircon.com/georgia
• Choose “Apply for a License” to reach the License Applications page
• Select “New Insurance License”
• Follow the provided step-by-step instructions to complete your application

In both cases, you will be required to pay a filing fee of $100 and a processing fee of $20 for each license you are applying for.

Remember to make sure all the information you provide is accurate in order to avoid any delays with the processing of your application.

Step 6: Complete a Fingerprinting And Background Check

As part of the licensing process, your fingerprints will be used for a background investigation in order to assess your suitability for obtaining an insurance license.

Specifically, all new insurance agent applicants will be required to register with the state’s approved vendor, Fieldprint, in order to complete this process.

You will need to visit the Fieldprint website and register for this service. Once registered, you will receive a registration approval email, which you will need to bring with you to the fingerprinting site.

It’s important to note that you won’t be able to schedule a fingerprinting appointment until after your license application has been submitted.

This ensures that your application details are on file and ready to be cross-referenced with the background check results.

Note: Any misdemeanors or felonies may affect the outcome of your licensing efforts. If you’re worried about this, you can contact the Georgia Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire by phone or email for more guidance on this topic.

Step 7: Application Review

And that’s it! After satisfying all the other requirements and submitting a license application to the Georgia Commissioner of Insurance and Safety all that’s left to do is wait.

If everything on your application has been filled out correctly, your license should be issued within 14 business days — which is the amount of time it typically takes for a license application and background check to be reviewed.

It’s important to be aware that the issuance of your insurance license can take a bit longer than this if there are any items from your background check that need to be looked over. However, the state will likely get in touch with you to give some context if they run into any issues.

In any case, the state will send you an email regarding the status of your license once this review has been completed, so keep an eye out for that!

After Getting Your Georgia Insurance License

Once you’ve passed all your exams and your licensing application has been approved, you’ll be a qualified insurance agent in Georgia.

At this point, there are four main steps that we recommend new insurance agents to take:

1. Obtain Any Relevant Securities Licenses: If you’re planning on selling advanced life insurance products, you’ll need to pass the Securities Industry Essentials (SIE) exam and obtain the relevant securities licenses (e.g., Series 6, 7, and 63).
2. Choose a Means of Selling: You’ll have to decide whether you’d prefer working as a captive agent employed by one insurance company, or running your own business as an independent agent.
3. Develop Your Marketing Approach: To succeed as an insurance agent, you’ll need to adopt a marketing approach that’s effective for you. Finding and sticking to a niche, as well organizing all client appointments for the start of your week, are two great ways to do this.
4. Keep Your License Valid:In Georgia, all licensees are required to complete 24 hours of continuing education every two years in order to keep their licenses valid, with at least three of those hours focusing on ethics. Keep in mind that holders of agent licenses with only travel ticket and/or travel accident classes, temporary agents, and fraternal agents are exempt from continuing education requirements.

Georgia Office of Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire Contact Information

Mailing Address:

2 Martin Luther King, Jr., Drive
West Tower, Suite 702
Atlanta, GA 30334

Note: In Georgia, Pearson VUE is the primary contact for all inquiries about insurance agents and agency licensing as well as continuing education.

Phone: (800) 274-8969

Fax: (404) 657-8542

Email: pvgainsurance@pearson.com

Website: https://oci.georgia.gov/

License Search: Georgia Insurance License Search and Lookup