Georgia Life & Health Insurance Exam — Study Guide

This chapter covers only the Georgia-specific rules a resident Life, Accident & Sickness licensee must know for the state portion of the licensing examination and for day-to-day practice. It supplements the national chapters on insurance concepts, life insurance, annuities, and health and disability insurance. Nothing here repeats national material; everything here is Georgia.

Georgia insurance law lives in two places, and you must be able to tell them apart:

• Title 33 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (O.C.G.A.) — the Insurance Code, enacted by the General Assembly. It runs from § 33-1-1 through the sixties (Chapter 66 and beyond). The chapters you will be tested on are Chapter 2 (the Commissioner), Chapter 6 (unfair trade practices), Chapter 23 (licensing), Chapter 25 (life insurance), Chapter 28 (annuities), Chapter 29 (accident and sickness), and Chapter 38 (the guaranty association).
• Chapter 120-2 of the Rules and Regulations of the State of Georgia — the regulations adopted by the Commissioner, cited by subject number: 120-2-11 (life and annuity advertising), 120-2-12 (accident and sickness advertising), 120-2-16 (long-term care), 120-2-20 (unfair trade and claims settlement practices), 120-2-24 (replacement of life insurance policies), 120-2-87 (privacy of insurance information), 120-2-94 (suitability in annuity transactions). Exam writers love regulation numbers; learn at least 120-2-24 and 120-2-94.

A note about numbers. Rules that are stable and knowable — whether a regulation exists, what conduct is forbidden, who signs what, what a notice must contain — are stated affirmatively in this chapter. Georgia does have a guaranty association. Georgia does have a life-insurance replacement regulation. Georgia does have an unfair trade practices act and an unfair claims settlement practices statute. Georgia does require a free-look right on individual life policies. None of that is in doubt.

What is always in doubt is the arithmetic: continuing-education hour counts, prelicensing hour counts, license and appointment fees, free-look day counts, filing windows, penalty amounts, and guaranty-association dollar caps. Read the flags below literally. A figure carrying a dated citation was read from that source on that date — that is all the date claims; the source and the day are printed so you can re-open the same page yourself. A figure still carrying a bracketed verify-current flag was not confirmed from a primary source, and you must check it with the Georgia Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner at oci.georgia.gov before you rely on it with a real client. A study guide is a map, not a deed.

1. The Georgia Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner

Georgia's insurance regulator is the Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner, headquartered in Atlanta at the West Tower of the Floyd Building. It is headed by the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire.

The Commissioner is elected — and wears four hats

Two Georgia facts appear on the state exam more reliably than almost anything else:

1. The Commissioner is elected by the voters of Georgia to a four-year term. He or she is not appointed by the Governor. Where the national chapters say "the Commissioner," in Georgia that means a statewide elected constitutional officer, accountable to the electorate rather than to an appointing authority.
2. The same officer holds four titles. Under the 1983 Georgia Constitution the old office of Comptroller General was renamed Commissioner of Insurance, but the officeholder retained the other duties. The one person serves as Insurance Commissioner, Safety Fire Commissioner (the state fire-safety and fire-marshal function), Industrial Loan Commissioner (regulating small consumer loans), and Comptroller General. That is why the agency's name includes "Safety Fire" — an oddity to out-of-state candidates and a standard Georgia exam question.

The Commissioner may appoint deputies, examiners, investigators, and other staff to carry out these functions, and may delegate duties; the office also houses the State Fire Marshal, an Enforcement Division with sworn investigators, and a Consumer Services Division.

Powers and duties

Under Title 33 generally and Chapter 2 in particular, the Commissioner:

• Administers and enforces Title 33 and all regulations issued under it.
• Adopts rules and regulations (the 120-2 series) necessary to carry out the Code — the source of the replacement rule, the suitability rule, and the advertising rules discussed below.
• Licenses and regulates insurers, agents, subagents, counselors, adjusters, public adjusters, surplus lines brokers, and agencies.
• Examines insurers — both financial examinations testing solvency, reserves, and reporting, and market conduct examinations testing behavior: advertising, agent licensing and appointment, underwriting, replacement handling, claims practices, and complaint records. The Commissioner must examine each domestic insurer at least once every five years, and may examine at any time on reasonable cause (O.C.G.A. § 33-2-11; checked 2026-09-05).
• Investigates complaints and possible violations, and may examine the accounts, records, documents, and transactions of any licensee (§ 33-23-36 authorizes inquiry into illegal or improper conduct by licensees).
• Conducts hearings and issues orders, including cease-and-desist orders, and imposes monetary penalties, restitution, and license sanctions. The general penalty is up to $2,000.00 for each act in violation, rising to $5,000.00 for each act the violator knew or reasonably should have known was a violation (O.C.G.A. § 33-2-24; checked 2026-09-05); the unfair trade practices chapter carries its own penalty of not more than $1,000.00 per act, or $5,000.00 per act for a knowing violation (O.C.G.A. § 33-6-8; checked 2026-09-05).
• Reviews policy forms and, where Title 33 requires it, rates.
• Supervises rehabilitation and liquidation of impaired or insolvent insurers, which is the trigger that activates the guaranty association in Section 6 below.
• Refers insurance fraud for prosecution. Insurance fraud is a crime in Georgia, not merely a licensing matter, and a conviction is independently disqualifying. A natural person convicted of insurance fraud is guilty of a felony and shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than two nor more than ten years, or by a fine of not more than $10,000.00, or both (O.C.G.A. § 33-1-9; checked 2026-09-05).

Enforcement and your right to be heard

If the Commissioner proposes to refuse, suspend, or revoke a license, § 33-23-22 governs: the licensee receives written notice of the action and the grounds for it, and is entitled to a hearing before the Commissioner (or a hearing officer), with the right to present evidence and cross-examine. A final order may be appealed to the superior court and onward through the state appellate courts. Two practical points candidates miss:

• The Commissioner may act in lieu of, or in addition to, suspension or revocation — for example, by imposing a fine, ordering restitution, or placing the license on probation.
• Under § 33-23-23, a person whose license has been refused or revoked may not file another application for five years from the effective date of the refusal or revocation — or, where judicial review is sought, five years from the final court order or decree affirming it. A surrender under written consent order has the same effect as a revocation (O.C.G.A. § 33-23-23; checked 2026-09-05). Revocation is not a pause button.

2. Producer Licensing in Georgia

Licensing is governed by O.C.G.A. Title 33, Chapter 23, whose full title tells you Georgia's vocabulary: "Licensing of Agents, Agencies, Subagents, Counselors, and Adjusters."

Georgia's license taxonomy

Many states have replaced "agent" with "producer." Georgia's statute still speaks of the agent. Learn these categories, because the exam distinguishes them:

• Agent — the individual who sells, solicits, or negotiates insurance, holding lines of authority such as Life and Accident & Sickness (the combined credential is commonly called LA&S).
• Subagent / limited subagent — an individual who acts for an agent or agency within a narrower grant of authority. § 33-23-27 provides for a subagent's certificate of authority, and § 33-23-28 defines the scope of a subagent's authority and requires a record of transactions.
• Counselor — a genuinely distinctive Georgia license. A counselor is a person who, for a fee, advises about insurance policies or offers to do so. Counselors must be bonded (§ 33-23-7), and § 33-23-46 governs their compensation and disclosure: the fee arrangement must be disclosed, and the statute restricts collecting both a counseling fee and a commission on the same transaction. If you charge a separate fee for advice, you are in counselor territory — do not drift there on an agent license.
• Adjuster and public adjuster — claims-side licenses, also bonded in the case of adjusters (§ 33-23-6), with a public-adjuster contract standard (§ 33-23-43.1) and standard of conduct (§ 33-23-43.2).
• Agency — business entities are licensed and renewed biennially under § 33-23-3, with ownership restrictions.

§ 33-23-2 states the foundational rule: licenses are issued only to individuals (with the separate agency-licensing scheme for entities). And § 33-23-4 makes the license mandatory and restricts payment or receipt of commissions: you may not pay commission to, or accept commission from, a person not properly licensed for that business. This is the statute behind the most common compliance failure in new agencies — paying a "referral fee" to an unlicensed staffer or a friendly loan officer.

Resident license requirements

Under § 33-23-5, a resident applicant must:

1. Be at least 18 years of age.
2. Be a Georgia resident — actually residing in Georgia for at least a stated portion of the year, or maintaining a principal place of business in Georgia. (Limited exceptions exist for border trade areas and, for adjusters, certain Canadian residents.)
3. Be of good character, with no history of conduct that is a ground for refusal under § 33-23-21.
4. Successfully complete classroom (prelicensing) courses satisfactory to the Commissioner for the lines sought — see below.
5. Pass the required written examination for each line of authority, unless expressly exempt (§ 33-23-10). Exemptions exist for certain applicants previously licensed elsewhere for the same lines.
6. File the application on the Commissioner's form with the required fee (§ 33-23-8), and provide conviction data as required by § 33-23-5.1.

Georgia processes resident applications through Sircon, which is the Office's licensing system of record for residents; nonresidents may use Sircon or NIPR. Applicants must complete fingerprint-based background screening through the GBI's approved vendor, IdentoGO, under OCI service code 2TGJ6B, and must upload supporting documents (including a notarized citizenship affidavit with a copy of acceptable identification) to the application — emailed and mailed documents are not attached to it. The resident agent application costs $120: a $100 license fee plus a $20 processing fee (oci.georgia.gov, "Get a Resident Insurance Agent License"; Georgia Insurance Licensing Candidate Handbook, August 2026, pp. 6, 12; checked 2026-09-05).

Prelicensing education

Unlike some states, Georgia requires prelicensing education — this is an affirmative Georgia rule, not an optional prep course. The requirement is measured in classroom or approved equivalent hours per line of authority, and a candidate seeking both Life and Accident & Sickness completes a combined course covering both. Providers must be approved by the Commissioner, and the course concludes with a provider certification examination that the student must pass before the completion certificate is issued.

Georgia sets the requirement at a minimum of eight (8) hours of instruction per major line of authority: 8 hours for Life, 8 hours for Accident & Sickness, and therefore 16 hours for a candidate taking the combined Life, Accident & Sickness course. The completion has a shelf life — you must pass the licensing examination within 12 months of completing the prelicensing course (Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 120-2-3-.08(1) and r. 120-2-3-.07(4); Georgia Insurance Licensing Candidate Handbook, August 2026, p. 6; checked 2026-09-05).

Trap: a widely repeated figure — carried in earlier printings of this chapter — is 40 hours for the combined Life and Accident & Sickness credential, about 20 hours per line. That number is wrong for Georgia and roughly two and a half times the real requirement. Carry 8 hours per line, 16 hours combined into the exam.

The examination

Georgia contracts its licensing examinations to Pearson VUE, which administers them at test centers across the state and at on-base centers on military installations. Each exam has a general (national) portion and a Georgia state-law portion. Pearson VUE publishes the Georgia Insurance Licensing Candidate Handbook and a separate Georgia Insurance Content Outlines booklet carrying the content outline, question count, time limit, and passing score; those documents, not any study guide, are authoritative.

The current figures:

• Life Agent (exam code 12-GA-01) — 80 scored questions plus 10 unscored pretest questions; 2 hours.
• Accident/Sickness Agent (12-GA-02) — 80 scored plus 10 pretest; 2 hours.
• Life/Accident/Sickness Agent COMBO (12-GA-05) — 125 scored plus 10 pretest; 2.5 hours.
• Passing score: 70% of questions answered correctly, set by the Georgia Insurance Department. Examination fee: $67.
• Retakes: a failed candidate may schedule again after 24 hours, but must wait 14 days to retest after the first and second attempts and 60 days after the third and any later attempt. There is no limit on the number of attempts.

(Georgia Insurance Licensing Candidate Handbook, August 2026, pp. 19, 21; Georgia Insurance Content Outlines, effective October 22, 2024, pp. S1, S2, S4; checked 2026-09-05)

Trap: Georgia's insurance licensing exams are not administered by PSI. Earlier printings of this chapter named PSI as the vendor; the vendor of record is Pearson VUE (candidate support 800-274-8969). If a practice question or a prep site tells you to register with PSI for a Georgia insurance exam, it is out of date.

§ 33-23-9 obliges the Commissioner to make study materials available to applicants — a Georgia-specific courtesy worth knowing.

Appointment: the certificate of authority

A license says you are qualified. A certificate of authority — Georgia's term for what other states call an appointment — says a particular insurer has authorized you to represent it.

Under § 33-23-26, the insurer (not the agent) obtains an agent's certificate of authority for each agent who will sell, solicit, or negotiate its contracts in Georgia. The insurer submits the appointment request to the Commissioner and pays the new-appointment fee of $16.00; terminating a certificate of authority costs $0.00 (Georgia Insurance Licensing Candidate Handbook, August 2026, p. 12; checked 2026-09-05); the insurer is treated as having obtained the certificate upon submission of the request, though for a first-time applicant the certificate is effective only once the license itself issues. § 33-23-27 does the same for subagents.

Termination. When an insurer terminates an agent's certificate of authority, it must notify the Commissioner, in a format prescribed by the Commissioner, within 30 days following the effective date of the termination (O.C.G.A. § 33-23-26; checked 2026-09-05) — and that 30-day duty applies both to a termination for a § 33-23-21 reason and to a termination for any other reason — and must promptly notify the agent of the termination and its effective date; the Commissioner may require proof that the insurer made reasonable efforts to notify the agent. If the termination is for a reason described in § 33-23-21 — the grounds for refusal, suspension, or revocation — or if the insurer knows the agent engaged in such conduct, that must be reported. This is Georgia's "termination for cause" rule: the regulator learns about bad actors even when a carrier quietly ends the relationship.

Other license forms

• Limited licenses (§ 33-23-12) — narrow lines (for example credit insurance and other limited-line products) with reduced qualification requirements.
• Temporary licenses (§ 33-23-13) — issued without examination, for a limited period, in narrow circumstances: chiefly to allow the business of a licensed agent to be serviced and wound up after the agent's death, disability, or entry into military service, so that a surviving spouse, personal representative, or designated employee can protect policyholders and preserve the agency's value. The Commissioner may attach conditions and may revoke it, and the statute is explicit that a temporary license does not authorize the holder to sell, solicit, or negotiate new insurance accounts — it exists to service what is already on the books. It runs six months, renewable from time to time in three-month periods, to a maximum of 15 months from the original issue date, and a licensee is limited to one temporary license per lifetime (O.C.G.A. § 33-23-13; oci.georgia.gov, "Get a Resident Insurance Agent License"; checked 2026-09-05). It is a consumer-protection device, not a shortcut into the business.
• Probationary licenses (§ 33-23-14) — Georgia may issue a license subject to probation, with conditions; note that § 33-23-21 expressly carves probationary licenses out of the ordinary refusal framework, which is why the Commissioner can act on a probationary license quickly.
• Additional licenses (§ 33-23-15) — adding lines of authority to an existing license.
• Nonresident licenses (§ 33-23-16) — Georgia licenses nonresidents on the reciprocity model: a nonresident who holds a license in good standing in a home state that extends like privileges to Georgia residents may obtain a Georgia license without the Georgia examination, on application and payment of the fee, provided the home-state license remains in force. Nonresident counselors have their own provision (§ 33-23-29.1), and nonresident adjusters are handled in § 33-23-29. Nonresidents generally satisfy continuing education through their home state.

Term, renewal, and continuing education

§ 33-23-18 is the renewal statute, and its Georgia signature is the birth month:

• Resident agent, limited subagent, adjuster, and counselor licenses are issued on a biennial basis and expire on the last day of the licensee's birth month, in the applicable renewal year.
• Renewal must be filed on or before that date, and CE must be completed before the renewal is filed. The Commissioner is authorized to set penalties and procedures for late filers. The whole ladder sits in one rule and is worth memorizing: on time, file by the last day of your birth month with CE already complete; within 15 days after, you may file a late renewal with the appropriate late fee; beyond that, the license expires as of the last day of your birth month and reinstatement carries a penalty of $150, in addition to any required renewal and late fees; six or more months after expiration, that $150 penalty and those fees still apply and you must submit electronic fingerprints again; and more than one year after expiration, you must reapply and satisfy all prelicensing requirements from the beginning (Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 120-2-3-.16; Georgia Insurance Licensing Candidate Handbook, August 2026, p. 11; oci.georgia.gov, "Agent Licensing & Renewals"; checked 2026-09-05). [Verify the current late-fee amount — the rule and the Office's licensing pages both name a late fee but neither states its dollar value.]
• Inactive status (§ 33-23-19) — a license may be placed on inactive status; an inactive license can be reinstated within a limited window if CE is satisfied and fees are paid, and can be revoked if the conditions are not met. § 33-23-20 describes the effect of suspension or inactive status: while suspended or inactive you may not transact insurance, and continuing to solicit is itself a violation.