No License Expiration Date, No Problem? Not Exactly…

Why You’re Still Spending More Time Than You Should to Manage Producer Licensing in Perpetual License States

Managing insurance producer licenses largely consists of keeping every producer’s resident state license in good standing. After all, if a producer’s resident license lapses or becomes invalid, this has a ripple effect on every nonresident state in which that producer also holds a license.

If you’re primarily dealing with resident states that offer perpetual licensing, it might seem like you’ve got nothing to worry about. Perpetual licenses mean there’s no expiration date, so you’re all good until the end of time, right? 

Not so fast! 

You know nothing in insurance can be that simple. While perpetual license states do relieve producers and the agencies they work with from a lot of the paperwork burden of submitting renewals on a regular basis, it’s not quite “set it and forget it” either. 

In this article, we’ll elaborate on:

• The types of compliance concerns you still need to deal with for producers with resident licenses in perpetual license states;
• Why you’re still spending more time than you should trying to stay on top of them, and;
• Most importantly, what you can do about it. 

What are perpetual producer license states? 

Just like it sounds, a perpetual license state is one in which a producer’s license doesn’t expire. While most of the 50 U.S. states and the U.S. territories grant insurance producer licenses that expire on a regular schedule, a handful of states keep a producer’s license active in perpetuity as long as the producer meets other requirements: namely, completing continuing education credits on time. 

We’ve previously written about perpetual license states, of which there are only a handful. These include Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, and Florida. You can find detailed state-by-state information for these states, and all the rest, in our Compliance Library. 

Renewing a producer license in a perpetual license state 

Don’t let the idea of a perpetual license fool you: Producers still have to take action to keep their licenses in good standing, even if it’s less of a burden than in other states. Michigan, for example, renews producer licenses on the first day of the producer’s birth month every two years. 

The biggest difference between a perpetual license state and all other states, is the absence of renewal applications and fees. Producers who hold their resident license in a perpetual license state just have to submit proof that they’ve met the state’s continuing education requirements (and maybe a few other housekeeping items) to keep their licenses valid.     

Nonresident licenses and perpetual license states 

If you’re a producer – or someone who manages producer licensing – in a perpetual license state, this task may be manageable to perform by hand, assuming you’re only dealing with producers with resident licenses in that state and nothing else. It’s not that we think anyone loves keeping track of producers’ licenses on a spreadsheet or anything, but it’s technically doable if the only thing you’ve got to track is each producer’s CE in one state. 

Things become a lot more complicated when you’re managing a producer force in a perpetual licensing state that also has nonresident licenses in other states. In this case, you’ve still got to make sure continuing education credits are submitted to the resident state on time, plus you’ve got to submit proof of the valid resident license to all states the producer holds a nonresident license in. It’s also commonplace that a producer has to affirm to their nonresident license states that they haven’t had any change in their background information – like a new felony conviction or administrative action, for example.  

The “ease” of keeping producers licensed in a perpetual license state soon becomes an administrative and operational burden when every nonresident state license still depends on someone submitting the right information by each state’s deadline. 

Compliance challenges in perpetual license states 

If you’re managing a large number of producers whose resident state happens to be a perpetual license state, it’s true that you won’t have as much of a headache as someone managing the same number of producers whose resident state requires re-licensing every couple of years. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy! 

The more producers you’ve got to manage licenses for, the more work it becomes. And the growth is exponential when each producer holds more than one license type in their resident and nonresident states. It’s also important to keep in mind the ripple effect that missing something as “simple” as submitting a producer’s proof of continuing education credits to the resident state can have across every other state that producer’s licensed in. 

A seemingly small misstep can bring that producer’s ability to write business to a grinding halt across multiple states, and it might be even harder to get nonresident licenses back in good standing if there’s been a lapse in the resident state. 

With all of this in mind, maybe it’s time to ditch the misconception that managing producer licenses in perpetual license states isn’t worth streamlining and automating. 

Manual license management inhibits future growth

As another point in the argument for greater efficiency now, even if you’re only currently worried about resident licenses in perpetual licensing states, think about whether your agency plans to expand, grow, acquire, or get acquired in the future. 

The longer you do things the way you’ve always done them, the deeper a hole you’re going to be digging yourself out of, if and when the time comes that you need to implement more modern methods. 

​​“Luckily we got onto AgentSync very quickly. I never had to experience the pain and struggles of trying to manage licensing compliance manually for an entity so big. Leadership saw what I was doing for Michigan and knew right away that I’d need a solution to take on more.”

Max Morelli, Compliance Manager, Evertree 

Read more about how Evertree invested in producer licensing management before hitting a breaking point in their AgentSync success story.   

Automated compliance management with integrated CE 

Whether you’re managing producers who’re exclusively licensed in perpetual license states or ones who’re licensed across the entire U.S., AgentSync offers solutions that can take the manual effort, stress, cost, and risk out of the process. 

With AgentSync Manage, managing producer licenses goes from a job that takes days or weeks and is rife with the potential for costly errors to one that takes just a few clicks and is powered by up-to-the-day accurate data from the industry’s source of truth. 

Of particular interest to those who’re concerned with the continuing education requirements necessary to maintain all licenses, including perpetual resident licenses, is AgentSync Learn: A continuing education data layer powered by WebCE that ensures every renewal is CE-compliant. 

With the combination of AgentSync Manage and Learn, your agency can wrangle renewals more quickly and cost-effectively than you can imagine. Free your team from tedious, manual license renewal tracking and empower them to do more impactful work while increasing your confidence in producer compliance across the board. 

Learn more about AgentSync Manage and AgentSync Learn, and contact us today to see them in action for yourself.