$277 for Both Exams: North Carolina Life & Health License Cost 2026

Getting a North Carolina Life, Accident and Health producer license with both lines of authority costs $277 in required state and vendor fees, assuming you pass both Pearson VUE exams on the first attempt: $90 in exam fees ($45 each for the Life exam and the Accident and Health exam) plus $187 to register and apply — $100 in per-line registration fees, $44 in application processing, $38 for fingerprinting and $5 to NIPR.

What used to sit on top of that — a 20-hour pre-licensing course — is gone. Session Law 2025-45 repealed the course requirement effective October 1, 2025. The only cost the state does not set a price on is exam preparation, and skipping it is not free in practice: roughly half of first-time Life candidates and three in five first-time Accident and Health candidates fail.

• Required fees, both lines, first try: $277
• Pre-licensing course: none required since October 1, 2025
• Exam preparation: $0 to several hundred dollars, your choice
• Each retake: another $45, per exam

Five payments make up the $277 figure for a resident candidate taking both exams and applying for both lines of authority on one application.

1. Pearson VUE Exam Fee — $45 per exam

Paid per attempt, per exam. Because Life and Accident and Health are two separate 55-question exams, getting both lines costs two exam fees: $45 + $45 = $90. There is no combined exam and no discount for sitting both.

2. Registration Fee — $50 per line of authority

Set by G.S. §58-33-125, charged per line. One line costs $50; both lines on the same application cost $100.

3. Application Processing Fee — $44

A flat fee charged once per application, regardless of how many lines of authority the application carries.

4. SBI/FBI Fingerprint Fee — $38

Charged on your first North Carolina producer license only, for the state and federal criminal history check.

5. NIPR Transaction Fee — $5

A flat processing fee charged once per application through the National Insurance Producer Registry.

Add the registration, application, fingerprint and NIPR fees together for both lines on one application: $100 + $44 + $38 + $5 = $187. Add the two exam fees: $187 + $90 = $277 for a first-time pass on both.

North Carolina sells this license as two separate exams but lets you file one application for both lines of authority once you have passed them. That distinction is where the real savings sit.

The application processing fee ($44) and the NIPR fee ($5) are flat, charged once per application — not once per line. Only the $50 registration fee scales per line. File one application for both Life and Accident and Health and you pay $100 in registration plus a single $44 and a single $5. File two separate applications instead — say, Life now and Accident and Health months later — and you pay the $44 and the $5 twice: $50 + $44 + $5 = $99 for the first line, then $50 + $44 + $5 = $99 again for the second, or $198 in registration-and-application fees alone versus $187 for doing it once. That gap, plus a second exam fee either way, is the cost of splitting the two lines across separate applications.

The one fee that does not repeat is fingerprinting: it is charged on your first North Carolina license, so if you add a line later you do not pay the $38 again. That partly offsets the cost of going one line at a time, but not enough to make it the cheaper path if you already know you want both lines of authority.

Until October 2025, anyone applying for a North Carolina producer license had to complete a 20-hour pre-licensing course first. Session Law 2025-45 (House Bill 737, signed July 1, 2025) repealed that requirement by striking G.S. §58-33-30(d)(2) and (d)(3); the surviving (d)(1) now says the Commissioner "shall not require" a specific course or amount of instruction. The repeal took effect October 1, 2025, and the Department's Agent Services Division confirmed in a memo dated October 9, 2025 that anyone applying on or after that date does not need pre-licensing education before sitting the exams.

That course used to be a real cost — hours of seat time plus whatever the provider charged for it — and it is simply not part of the budget anymore for anyone applying today. Worth flagging plainly: the Department's own October 2025 candidate guide and PLE chart, and Pearson VUE's North Carolina page, still describe the old 20-hour requirement, and most outside study guides repeat it without a date attached. The statute as amended and the October 9, 2025 Agent Services memo are the current word on it — the course is gone, the exams are not.

Each exam is 55 scored questions with a scaled passing score of 70, and the 2025 first-time pass rates — 51.0% on Life, 60.8% on Accident and Health — mean preparation is the biggest variable in the whole budget, not the smallest.

$0 — the free stack. Pearson VUE's content outline #123415 lists the exact item count for every section of both exams, and the candidate guide explains the format. Together they tell you what is tested, not how it works. Free general-insurance material covers the national concepts reasonably well and the North Carolina-specific law — Chapter 58 licensing and unfair trade practices, the Insurance Information and Privacy Protection Act, replacement under 11 NCAC 12 .0612, the Guaranty Association — poorly or not at all.

$15-$79 — a focused exam-prep course. LanePrep's North Carolina Life & Health course is nine audio chapters built from outline #123415, with chapter quizzes split by exam line and three chapters dedicated to North Carolina statutes and regulations. It costs $79 once or $14.99 per month. Chapters 1 and 9 are free, no signup, so you can judge the format before paying for either.

Full packages. National prep providers sell bundles with video lectures and a textbook at several times the price of a focused course. Make sure any package you buy has been updated for the content outlines in force from March 2026 and reflects the October 2025 repeal — not a program still built around a 20-hour pre-licensing requirement that no longer exists.

Retakes — $45 each, per exam

Every attempt costs $45 again, and failing either exam only costs you that exam's fee — a passed exam does not need retaking. With roughly half of first-time Life candidates and three in five first-time Accident and Health candidates passing, budgeting for one retake is realistic; preparing so you do not need it is cheaper still.

Splitting the two lines across separate applications

As the section above works out, applying for Life and Accident and Health separately instead of together costs an extra $11 in duplicated application-and-NIPR fees ($198 vs $187), on top of a second exam fee you would owe either way. If you know you want both lines, apply for both on the same application once you have passed both exams.

Treating the free stack as sufficient

Pearson VUE's content outline and candidate guide tell you what will be tested; they do not teach the material. A candidate who studies from the outline alone, without a course that actually explains the North Carolina statutes, is studying a syllabus, not a subject.

Two realistic budgets for a resident candidate pursuing both lines of authority on one application.

Pass both exams on the first attempt — $277 to $356

• Life exam fee $45
• Accident and Health exam fee $45
• Registration (both lines) $100
• Application processing $44
• Fingerprint fee $38
• NIPR fee $5
• Preparation: free stack ($0), one month of LanePrep ($14.99) or lifetime access ($79)

One retake — $322 to $401

• Everything above
• A second attempt at the exam you failed: $45
• In practice, more preparation as well — the same preparation produced the first result

The gap between the two scenarios is $45 and however many days it takes to get a new seat — time spent not yet licensed and not yet earning. That is the arithmetic behind spending something on preparation: the most expensive study material is the kind that sends you back to retake an exam you already paid for once.

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

1. Prepare with a focused course built for both exam lines, so neither the Life exam nor the Accident and Health exam becomes the one you retake.
2. Book and pass the Life exam ($45), then the Accident and Health exam ($45), through Pearson VUE.
3. File one application for both lines of authority: $100 registration, $44 application processing, $38 fingerprinting and $5 to NIPR — $187 total, $277 all in with both exams.

LanePrep covers step 1: nine audio chapters built from Pearson VUE content outline #123415, chapter quizzes split by exam line, and dedicated chapters for North Carolina's statutes and regulations, for $14.99 per month or $79 once. Chapters 1 and 9 are free. For the exams themselves — format, weights and the week-by-week plan — read how to pass the North Carolina Life & Health exam on your first try.