1.3 License Maintenance and Continuing Education

License Term and Renewal Timing

Virginia producer licenses are biennial (2-year). Effective January 1, 2021, the renewal schedule is keyed to the licensee's birth month and the parity of the birth year:

• Born in an odd-numbered year → license renews in odd years, at the end of the birth month.
• Born in an even-numbered year → license renews in even years, at the end of the birth month.

So a producer born in March 1989 renews every odd year by March 31; one born in July 1990 renews every even year by July 31. This birth-year-parity rule is a common exam point — do not answer simply "the last day of the birth month" without the odd/even year tie.

Continuing Education — the Numbers That Matter

The single most-corrected myth about Virginia CE: the requirement is not a flat 24 hours for everyone. It depends on how many license types you hold.

Key CE rules to memorize:

• Ethics: at least 3 hours of ethics every biennium (may include Virginia laws/regulations content).
• No carryover: excess credits do not roll to the next cycle.
• Provider cap: no more than 75% of required credits may come from courses given by insurance companies or agencies — the rest must be from independent providers.
• Timing: CE must be completed on or before the license expiration date.
• Courses must be BOI-approved; you generally cannot earn credit for repeating the identical course within the same cycle.

Exam Trap: There is no special "16-hour first-time renewal Life & Health course" in Virginia. The 16-hour figure is simply the standard CE total for a single license type — not a one-time new-licensee course. Older guides confuse the two.

Worked example

A producer holds only a Life & Health license (one license type). She needs 16 CE hours, including 3 ethics, before her birth-month deadline. Of those 16, at most 12 hours (75%) may come from courses sponsored by her own carrier; she must get at least 4 hours from an independent provider. If she later adds a Property & Casualty license, her requirement jumps to 24 hours, with a minimum of 8 hours tied to each of her two license types.

Lapse, Grace, and Reinstatement

The core exam point: an expired Virginia license that stays lapsed too long forces the producer to retest — CE alone cannot revive it once it terminates, and a producer may not solicit or service business during a lapse.

Reporting Obligations — 30 Days

Virginia producers must notify the BOI in writing within 30 days of any change to:

• Business or residence address
• Legal name
• Email of record
• Administrative actions taken against the license by any other state
• Criminal prosecutions (certain charges/convictions)

Missing the 30-day window is itself a violation that can draw penalties.

Discipline

The SCC, on the Commissioner's recommendation, can impose graduated discipline: a letter of warning, probation, monetary penalty, suspension, or revocation, and may order restitution to harmed consumers. Typical triggers include misrepresentation, failure to disclose material facts, commingling or mishandling premiums, unauthorized transactions (selling without an appointment), CE non-compliance, and fraud or felony convictions. Many of these map directly to the Unfair Trade Practices provisions in Title 38.2 that you will see again later in this guide.

Approved Providers and Tracking Your Hours

CE in Virginia must come from BOI-approved courses and providers, and completions are reported to the state through the BOI's CE tracking vendor rather than self-certified to a renewal form. Practically, this means you should keep certificates of completion and confirm your transcript reflects the hours before your birth-month deadline — a course you took but that was never posted will not protect you in an audit.

You generally cannot earn credit twice for the same course within a single biennium, and only approved subject matter counts (a sales-incentive webinar with no approved content earns zero CE hours, no matter how long it ran).

A Realistic Renewal Timeline

Think of renewal as a sequence, not a single event:

1. Roughly 90 days out — pull your CE transcript and identify any gap (especially the 3 ethics hours).
2. Complete remaining CE from approved providers, respecting the 75% insurer cap.
3. Confirm posting — verify the credits appear on your record.
4. Submit renewal and fee through NIPR or Sircon before the end of your birth month.
5. Keep proof — retain certificates in case of audit.

How This Differs From the National Standard

Many national prep materials quote "24 hours of CE" as if it were universal. In Virginia, 16 hours is the baseline for a producer with a single license type; 24 hours is specifically for multi-line licensees. The other Virginia-specific wrinkles — birth-year parity for the renewal date, the 75% provider cap, and the absence of any special first-renewal course — are exactly the kind of state details the Virginia portion of the exam targets. Master these numbers cold, because they are easy points that distinguish a Virginia-ready candidate from one who only studied the national content.

Exam Tip: If a Virginia CE question offers "24 hours" as the only CE answer, check whether the scenario describes a single-license producer — if so, the correct figure is 16 hours including 3 ethics, and 24 is the distractor.