Ohio Insurance Continuing Education

Resident Requirements

For Ohio residents to renew their insurance license, it's required for them to meet the state's continuing education (CE) requirements. Every biennial period, Ohio residents are required to complete the relevant CE hours before their license renews. Producers are required to complete at least 24 hours of insurance CE every two years, with a minimum of three credit hours dedicated to ethics courses. 

Producers may take courses that are approved for any line of authority, regardless of which lines of authority their license covers. However, producers whose license includes multiple lines of authority do not need to complete more than 24 hours of continuing education in a licensing period.

Title producers must only complete 10 hours of CE in the two-year period, and surety bail producers must complete 14 hours of CE. Adjusters, title agents, and service representatives do not face CE requirements. 

Rules for Non-Residents

In some cases, non-residents may be exempt from Ohio insurance continuing education requirements.

Any non-resident producer who is licensed and in compliance with their home state's CE hour requirements is considered to be compliant with Ohio's insurance CE requirements. Non-resident producers who are not in compliance with their home state's CE requirements must meet Ohio CE requirements to renew an Ohio license. 

Non-resident producers from states without long-term care or annuity CE requirements must complete those training courses in Ohio. 

Carryover of Excess CE

In the state of Ohio, up to 12 excess CE hours may be carried over to the next license renewal period. These carryover credits are considered 'general' credits. As a result, ethics CE hours must be completed every term, as they do not carry over. 

Insurance License Term Renewal Requirements

Ohio insurance licenses are up for renewal every two years based on the date initially issued. Licenses are set to expire on the last day of the producer's birth month. For example, a producer born in September who is first licensed in December 2018 will be up for their first renewal on September 30th, 2020.

Ohio requires all continuing education hours to be submitted to the state and approved before the producer may renew their license. Producers must apply for renewal. The process is not automatic. Producers can apply for renewal prior to the renewal date. 

Rules for Taking the Exam

All producers must take tests for CE courses as closed-book exams. No outside information is permitted during the testing period. Ohio requires exams to be passed with a minimum score of 70% or the course does not count for CE credit. However, failed exams may be retaken an unlimited number of times until passed. Ohio does not mandate that any CE exam be monitored. 

Rules for Repeating a Course

A producer may only take a given class for credit once during any specific licensing period. Once a license renewal has occurred, licensees may retake courses from previous licensing periods for credit towards their next licensing renewal. This does not apply to CE credits that have been rolled over from previous periods. 

Credit for Instructors

Instructors of CE courses are still held to CE requirements for their own licenses. Any instructor of a CE course receives twice the number of CE hours as students in a course they teach. However, credit for teaching a course can only be received once during each renewal period, and teaching a course multiple times does not lead to additional credits.

Reporting Rules

Ohio insurance continuing education course providers are required to submit all completed CE hours on behalf of students. Producers are not required to submit their own hours. Course providers have up to 15 days to submit proof of course completion, so producers should confirm that hours have been posted successfully before applying for license renewal. Producers can confirm their CE hour status on the National Association of Insurance Commissioners website.

While producers do not need to submit their own hours, they should still maintain their own records of course completion. The state of Ohio recommends that all insurance producers retain copies of their course completion certificates for at least three years as a precaution in case of a license audit. 

Insurance CE Requirement Exemptions

There are three groups that are exempt from Ohio's CE requirements. These groups are:

• Any non-resident producer in compliance with their home state's CE requirements
• Any producer holding a license with only a limited line of authority
• Any producer to whom the State Director of Insurance has granted inactive license status

All other producers in Ohio must complete the state CE requirements in order to renew their license. 

Ohio Annuity Insurance Requirements

Agents holding a Life or Variable Annuity line of authority who plan to sell, solicit or negotiate annuity products must complete a one-time 4-hour course related to annuity. Annuity course credits count towards the agents 24-hour CE requirement. Ohio approved Annuity training courses are approved under the “Annuity Best Interest 4” course category type. The Annuity Best Interest 4 training course must be completed prior to selling, soliciting or negotiating any annuity product.

Resident agents who completed an annuity course prior to February 14, 2021, may complete either a new four-hour Best Interest training course or an additional one-time one-hour Annuity Best Interest - 1 training course within six months of the effective date of the rule.

Ohio Long-Term Care Training Requirements

Producers who wish to sell long-term care (LTC) policies must complete two training requirements. First, long-term care producers must complete an eight-hour training course covering long-term care. For every renewal period afterward, the producer must also complete a four-hour CE course dedicated to long-term care. The four hours of LTC CE biennially do not count towards the overall 24-hour CE requirement for license renewal.

This federally mandated set of training courses covers the following topics:

• The function and purpose of long-term care insurance
• Long-term care services and area providers 
• Qualified partnerships, their function, and how they interact with other private and public forms of long-term care coverage

All producers must meet these long-term care training requirements if they wish to sell LTC products. This includes producers who are otherwise exempt from CE requirements, as per federal law. However, if a producer is exempt due to out-of-state licensure, they may complete the equivalent course in their home state for credit in Ohio.