$155 + Fingerprints: Alabama Life & Health License Cost 2026

Getting an Alabama Life and Health insurance license costs $155 in required fees before fingerprinting if you take the combined exam and pass on your first attempt: a $75 exam fee and an $80 license application fee. If you take Life and Health as two separate exams instead, the exam cost doubles to $100, bringing that same subtotal to $180. On top of either path, you will pay a fingerprinting fee set by Fieldprint, Alabama's authorized vendor, which ALDOI does not publish a dollar figure for. Check Fieldprint's own site for the current amount before you budget a specific number. There is no pre-licensing course sitting on top of either total; Alabama has not required one since January 1, 2024.

• Combined exam fee: $75
• Two single exams instead: $100 ($50 each)
• License application fee: $80 (covers every line you apply for together)
• Fingerprinting: fee set by Fieldprint, check their site
• Required subtotal before fingerprinting: $155 (combined exam) or $180 (two single exams)
• Pre-licensing course: none required
• Exam preparation: optional, $0 to $79 for a focused course
• Continuing education: 24 hours every 2 years, including 3 ethics hours

1. Exam Fee, $75 Combined or $50 Per Single Exam

Paid to the University of Alabama's CELL program, Alabama's contracted exam administrator, when you register. The combined Life and Health exam is $75; the Life-only and Health-only exams are $50 each, so taking both separately costs $100 total, $25 more than the combined option. The fee is paid again for every attempt and is never refunded, whether you fail, pass, or register for the wrong exam by mistake.

2. License Application Fee, $80

Charged by ALDOI for the Insurance Producer license itself. This is a single flat fee that covers every line of authority you apply for in the same initial application, Life, Health, or both, rather than a separate charge per line. Decide which lines you want before you file; adding one later means a brand new application with its own fees.

3. Fingerprint-Based Background Check

Required for all resident applicants under Ala. Code § 27-7-4.4, and processed solely through Fieldprint. ALDOI's own fingerprinting page explains the process but does not state a dollar figure, so this guide does not either; confirm the current fee directly on Fieldprint's site before you budget it. One timing detail matters more than the amount: fingerprint results are only valid for 30 days, far shorter than your one-year exam certificate, so get fingerprinted after you pass the exam, not before.

4. Appointment Fees

Once you are licensed, each insurer that appoints you pays a $40 filing fee for that appointment and a $25 annual appointment renewal fee after that. These are usually paid by the appointing insurer rather than the producer, but they are costs tied to your license that are worth knowing about if you are negotiating who covers what.

5. NIPR Transaction Fee, $5

A flat $5 fee added on top of every state fee, both at initial licensing and at renewal, charged by the National Insurance Producer Registry rather than ALDOI itself.

Every attempt costs the exam fee again, win or lose: $75 if you retake the combined exam, or $50 for whichever single exam you retake. The $80 license application fee is a one-time cost that a retake does not repeat.

How soon you can retake depends on how many times you have already failed. The first failure carries no waiting period at all, the second requires a 90-day wait, the third has no additional wait of its own, and the fourth and beyond each carry a 180-day wait, with all of these counters resetting after 24 months without a failure. Failing the combined exam carries its waiting period over to both the standalone Life and Health exams, which is worth knowing before you decide which path to register for in the first place. For the full waiting-period table and how to avoid a retake in the first place, see how to pass the Alabama Life and Health exam on the first try.

Alabama has not required a pre-licensing course for the Life or Health line since January 1, 2024, when Act 2023-104 repealed the old 20-classroom-hour-per-line requirement entirely. There is no course fee to budget, no classroom-hour minimum, and no completion certificate to produce before you register for the exam or file your license application.

Once licensed, Alabama requires 24 classroom hours of continuing education every two years, including at least 3 hours of ethics, to keep your license active. Renewal runs on a biennial cycle keyed to your birth year, and unused hours do not carry over from one period to the next, so hours earned beyond the 24-hour minimum in one cycle are simply lost. CE course prices are set by individual providers, not by ALDOI, so this guide does not quote a dollar figure for them; shop CE providers separately as your renewal period approaches.

Renewal itself costs $70 every two years, with a $50 late fee if you file in the month after your birth-month deadline.

Exam preparation is the one cost on this page you fully control.

$0, the free stack. ALDOI publishes the content outline for the Life and Health exam with the question weight of every part, and the University of Alabama's CELL testing page explains the format, fees, and scheduling rules. Together they tell you what is tested, not how the material works or how Alabama law applies to it.

$14.99 to $79, a focused exam-prep course. LanePrep's Alabama Life and Health course is nine audio chapters built from the exam outline, with a chapter quiz after every chapter. It costs $14.99 per month or $79 once as a one-time purchase. Chapters 1 and 9 are free, no signup, so you can judge the format before paying for either option.

Two realistic budgets, both before whatever Fieldprint charges for fingerprinting.

Combined exam, pass on the first attempt: $155, plus fingerprinting

• Exam fee $75
• License application fee $80
• Preparation: free stack ($0), one month of LanePrep ($14.99), or the one-time option ($79)

Two single exams, pass both on the first attempt: $180, plus fingerprinting

• Exam fees $100 ($50 each)
• License application fee $80
• Preparation: free stack ($0), one month of LanePrep ($14.99), or the one-time option ($79)

A retake adds the exam fee again, $75 for the combined exam or $50 for whichever single exam you retake, plus however many days the applicable waiting period adds before you can sit down again.

For most self-directed candidates the cost-optimal path is:

1. Prepare from a course built for this exam's outline specifically, whichever of the three exam options you plan to take.
2. Schedule and pass the exam through the University of Alabama's CELL program.
3. Get fingerprinted through Fieldprint after you pass, and file your ALDOI license application with proof of citizenship.

LanePrep covers step 1: nine audio chapters built from the Alabama Life and Health content outline, each with its own quiz, for $14.99 per month or $79 once. Chapters 1 and 9 are free. For the exam itself, the outline weights, and a study plan, read how to pass the Alabama Life and Health exam on the first try.

Fees come from ALDOI's own Licensing and Renewal Fees, Producer Requirements, and Fingerprinting pages, the University of Alabama CELL insurance-testing program's own candidate information, and Act 2023-104. Read October 2026.