Insurance Adjuster License in Delaware

Verified July 2026 · 11 questions still open

Delaware waives its exam if your home state examined you, and if it licensed you on or after 2021-03-01 it asks you for no continuing education at all. Hold the nonresident license, but do not make Delaware your designated home state, because its 12 hours fail the 24-hour bar other states measure against.

$125To get in

$125Every renewal

BiennialRenewal cycle

Flat $125 however many of the seven lines you take, plus a NIPR transaction fee Delaware does not publish. Public adjusters pay the same $125 and post a $20,000 bond, and the one-year apprentice credential is $75.

Getting licensed in Delaware

On your home license: Yes. A current resident license in good standing in your home state gets you a Delaware nonresident license through NIPR, with no criminal history report on that branch. If your home state does not license adjusters at all, Delaware lets you name an existing nonresident adjuster state as your domicile and still file electronically, which is a lighter test than New Mexico or Alabama apply.
Exam: Waived where your home state licensed you for the same lines and examined you, provided you are currently licensed there or apply within 90 days of cancellation. Crop adjusters substitute a CAPP card. Required if your home state, including a designated home state, has no adjuster examination requirement, and required of anyone licensed in no state at all. Property, Casualty and Automobile are separate sittings at Pearson VUE.
Prelicensing: None. Delaware prescribes no course hours for nonresidents.
Fingerprints: Not required of the ordinary nonresident applying on a home state license. Delaware takes a combined state and FBI criminal history report from the Delaware State Police under service code 27S46Z, dated within 90 days and sent straight to the Department, and only on the branch for applicants licensed nowhere. Designation applicants are written into the fingerprint provision at 18 Del. C. 1706(b). Whether the State Police process can be completed from out of state is not published.
Processing time: Not published. The Department states no service level. It accepts only electronic applications, with the paper 2A form reserved for the applicant licensed nowhere.
Designated home state: Yes, and Delaware says so twice. The statute speaks of home states including designated home states at both 1708(a) and 1717(b), and the Department's 2025 nonresident renewal notice counts continuing education credits earned in a designated home state alongside resident state credits. That is friendlier than Florida, whose reciprocity list excludes designation holders, and friendlier than Oklahoma. The one catch is that a designated home state with no adjuster exam does not carry the Delaware exam waiver.

What Delaware costs you to keep

Continuing education: Depends how you qualified It turns on when Delaware licensed you. Licensed on or after 2021-03-01 and Delaware asks for nothing, no hours and no reporting. Licensed before 2021-03-01 and you owe 12 hours per biennium, being 9 general and 3 ethics, with credits accepted from Delaware, your resident state or your designated home state. Half off, to 3 general and 3 ethics, after 25 continuous years or with CPCU, CHFC, CFP, AAI, CLU, CEBS, FLMI, FSPA, CIC or RHU. Delaware runs an hours test rather than a compliance test, so it counts your home state hours but not your home state exemption.
If you fall short: Automatic lapse under 18 Del. C. 1718, with no grace period and no discretionary language. There is no fine and no suspension step. The license simply does not renew.
Renewal clock: Fixed statewide, the last day of February in odd-numbered years. The next nonresident due date is 2027-02-28, so everybody renews in the same twelve weeks.
The point of no return: Renewals are not accepted before 2026-12-01, leaving a usable window of about 90 days. Anything filed after 2027-02-28 is subject to additional fees the Department does not publish. Separately, 18 Del. C. 1708(b) lapses your Delaware license automatically 30 days after your home state license lapses.
Lines of authority: Seven lines under 18 Del. C. 1707(d). Property, Casualty, Automobile, Fidelity and Surety, Marine and Transportation, Crop, and Workers Compensation. They are taken separately and mean separate exam sittings on the branches where an exam applies, but the $125 fee is flat regardless of how many you hold. Workers compensation is a named line here, not an exclusion the way Arizona treats it. Public adjuster and motor vehicle appraiser are separate licenses rather than lines. How the Department maps an undifferentiated single-license home state credential onto the seven is not published.
Storm and catastrophe work: You can file 18 Del. C. 1707(e)(1) requires no catastrophe license and no fee, only written notice to the Commissioner within 10 calendar days of the work, and the statute puts that filing on the adjuster personally rather than the carrier. Nothing has to be declared first, and a single extraordinary loss qualifies, so the channel is always open. You may start the day the assignment lands, provided a carrier sent you. A public adjuster arriving to represent policyholders is outside the exemption and needs the full Chapter 17A license. Where the notice goes and what it must contain is not published.

What to watch in Delaware

Fine to hold, wrong to designate

Delaware sets adjuster continuing education at 12 hours where the accepted bar is 24, so a Delaware transcript walks into any state that measures hours 12 short. Wyoming's published criteria for accepting another state's designated home state license demand 24 hours every 2 years with 3 in ethics, which a Delaware designee fails on its face, and Wyoming's acceptance list omits Delaware exactly as that predicts. The NAIC Chapter 18 list credits Delaware with 24 hours and appears to be simply wrong. Take the nonresident license. Do not call Delaware home.

Walking away without surrendering costs money

If you are done with Delaware you must complete the license surrender form and email it to licensing@delaware.gov. Licensees who fail to renew without surrendering are subject to administrative fees, and the amount is not published. That inverts the usual arrangement, where quietly lapsing is the free option and surrender is the costly one.

Staff adjusters are licensed here

Delaware has no blanket exemption for salaried insurer employees, which puts it in an eleven-state minority. A carrier staff adjuster handling Delaware claims needs a Delaware license. Most fifty-state comparison tables have no column for this and get Delaware wrong as a result.

Your claims designations are not on the reduction list

The half-off continuing education reduction names CPCU, CHFC, CFP, AAI, CLU, CEBS, FLMI, FSPA, CIC and RHU. AIC, SCLA and AINS are absent. It is a producer roster, so the credentials an adjuster actually carries do not buy the reduction. It reaches only the pre-2021 cohort in any case, since everyone licensed later already owes nothing.

What you actually do

Confirm your home state examined you for the lines you want, because the Delaware waiver runs on the examination and not merely on the license. A designated home state with no adjuster exam sends you to Pearson VUE.
Apply through NIPR and pay the flat $125 plus the NIPR transaction fee. One fee covers however many of the seven lines you take.
If your home state does not license adjusters at all, name an existing nonresident adjuster state as your domicile on the electronic application. Only an applicant licensed in no state files the paper 2A form with state and FBI criminal history reports under service code 27S46Z.
Check your own continuing education figure in the State Based Systems transcript viewer rather than assuming, and send corrections to licensing@delaware.gov. If Delaware licensed you on or after 2021-03-01 you owe nothing.
Put 2026-12-01 and 2027-02-28 on the calendar, since Delaware takes no renewal before December 1 and adds fees after February 28. The $125 renewal is paid through NIPR and no paper license is reissued.
If a carrier sends you into Delaware on a catastrophe, begin work immediately and get your own written notice to the Commissioner inside 10 calendar days. Do not wait for the carrier, because the statute puts the obligation on you.
When you are finished with Delaware, file the surrender form rather than letting the license lapse quietly.

Where this comes from

Keep going

The adjuster planner, which asks where you live and ranks your options.
How to choose a designated home state, including the four to avoid.
All three professions we cover, and what we have verified so far.

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