Washington State Insurance School

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQs)

Pre-Licensing Education/Initial Licensing Process
1. Do I need to be hired by an insurance company before I can attend school?
No. You may sit through our insurance classes and sit for your state exams without having a company sponsorship/appointment. However, you can not have your state insurance license issued without having a company appointment/affiliation.
2. How long are my insurance class completion certificates valid?
The class completion certificates we issue you are valid for 12 months from the completion date of your class, as stated at the bottom of each completion certificate. These certificates act as your entrance ticket into the state exam and you have 12 months until they expire. If you have lost or misplaced your original class completion certificates, we can reissue you new originals at a $10-per-certificate charge. If your certificates have expired and you have not passed your exams, you must sit through our
pre-licensing classes again to get new certificates issued.
3. I have taken your insurance classes and passed my state exams but I am still looking for a job. How long do I have before my test pass certificates expire?
Once you pass your Washington state insurance exams, you have 24 months (two years) from the pass dates on your testing certificates to find an insurance company to sponsor and appoint you. If you have lost or misplaced your original test certificates from Pearson Vue, please contact them directly for replacement.

4. Does Slater Insurance School have a job board?
We do not have a job board. Our school is focused on teaching students about the material that will be on their state exams and we do not want other students or companies influencing or recruiting during this learning process. Slater Insurance School has a strict no-recruiting policy, as many employers have spent time and money sending students to our school for exam preparation education. Most students attending our school already have a company that they are hired by or working with. However, we do occasionally see students who take the initiative to attend class before looking for a job. In our office, we have a job folder with company business cards and help-wanted fliers that companies have sent us, and we are happy to give these to students who come to us and ask.

If you are an employer who is hiring, please email, fax or mail us business cards or a job posting and we will gladly give these out to any student looking for employment.

If you are a student who does not yet have a job in the insurance industry, you may come into our office and we will give you business cards and job postings from insurance companies that are hiring. There are many online resources to help you find insurance jobs, such as Monster, Craigslist and Seattle Times. If you have a specific company that you want to work for, we recommend visiting that company's Web site for the most up-to-date job postings.

5. Does Slater Insurance School ever cancel classes?
We do not cancel classes due to inclement weather, such as snow or ice. If you are scheduled for a class and the weather does not permit you to drive to our School safely, please call or email to reschedule your class. If you still wish to attend class however, just arrive to the School as soon as you can. In the rare event that we do have to cancel a class, such as during a power outage, we will notify each registered student for that particular class and will post a message on our office answering machine and Web site's Home Page.

6. Do you ever turn students away because a class reaches capacity?
We have a large classroom so we always accept students into our classes, even walk-in students on the first day of class. Please choose whichever class combination will work best with your schedule. Assume that you will be allowed into class, as no confirmation is sent for those who do register early.

Continuing Education
1. I know there is a 3-hour Ethics requirement to renew my insurance license but do I need to take an actual Ethics course to fulfill this requirement?
No. Many of our continuing education courses have been assigned Ethics content hours, and if you choose courses that, combined, have at least three hours of Ethics content, you do not need to take a separate course. If, however, you do not choose a course(s) with at least three hours of Ethics, then we have two Ethics books to choose from that provide the three hours of credit that are required.
2. It is time for me to renew my insurance license but I can not remember what courses I took for my last renewal.
By state law you are required to keep copies of all continuing education certificates for three years. If you have not done so, you may call or email the Commissioner's office and they can tell you which courses you took. You can also click here to log into your State account to see which insurance license renewal courses you have taken in the past. If you received your credit from Slater Insurance School, we can tell which courses you completed. You may not repeat the same course numbers that you received credit for during your last renewal. Some course numbers do change, so it is not necessarily the course title but the course number that can not be repeated. You will find each course number listed on your continuing education completion certificates.
3. Is it true that I can renew my insurance license online?
You can renew your Washington State insurance license online. A few months before your renewal, you should receive a letter from the Commissioner's office with a temporary password and user name for login to the new insurance database. If you did not receive a letter with this information, please contact the Commissioner's office. You may still mail in your certificates and payment with your renewal notice, but if you are in a hurry or want to pay your renewal fee with a credit card, the online renewal process is fastest and easiest way to do so.
Long-Term Care Certification

1. What is the new requirement for producers in WA. State who want to sell Long-Term Care policies?
Effective January 1st, 2009, all producers who plan to sell Long-Term Care policies in Washington State will need to take the new 8-hour required LTC course. Slater Insurance School has this 8-hour LTC course available electronically, or you can have a paper textbook mailed to you.

If you already have an existing Long-Term Care certification, the state has provided a six-month window in which you will need to complete this new 8-hour course. This means that you will have between January 1st and July 1st, 2009 to complete the new course, otherwise your old certification will become invalid.

If you do not have a Long-Term Care certification, beginning January 1st, 2009, you will need to take the 8-hour LTC course.

After completing the initial 8-hour LTC course, a 4-hour LTC Refresher course is required every two years thereafter. You may order this 8-hour course by itself or as part of your 24 hours of continuing education.

2. What if I just completed the Long-Term Care 6-hour or 4-hour course?
Because this new requirement is state-mandated, you will need to comply with the new certification requirements, even if you have just recently received your certification in 2008. If you have any questions regarding this new requirement, please contact us or the Commissioner's office.

 

ONLINE CLASSROOM TUTORIAL

Agent Pre-License Exam Preparation
Instructional tools on using Slater Insurance School's Online Classroom.

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