- AZ P&C stands for the Arizona Examination for Property and Casualty Insurance Producer, tested by PSI as Series 13-34.
- The exam has 150 scored questions, up to 10 unscored pilot items, and a 2 hour 30 minute limit.
- Passing requires 70%, and the exam fee is $59 per attempt.
- Arizona skips mandatory prelicensing education but requires electronic fingerprinting for resident applicants.
What the AZ P&C Acronym Actually Means
AZ P&C stands for the Arizona Examination for Property and Casualty Insurance Producer. It is the licensing test that anyone who wants to sell property and casualty insurance products in Arizona - homeowners policies, auto policies, commercial liability coverage, and more - must pass before the state will issue a producer license. The acronym gets tossed around loosely, and other unrelated credentials sometimes share the same three letters, so it's worth being precise: on this site, and in this article, AZ P&C refers only to this Arizona licensing exam, not to any national designation or unrelated certification that happens to use similar shorthand.
If you're just starting to research the exam, our companion pieces on what AZ P&C is and the meaning behind the acronym go deeper into the terminology, while this article focuses specifically on unpacking the name and connecting it to the exam's real structure.
Who Governs and Administers the Exam
The exam is governed by the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions (DIFI), the state regulator responsible for setting licensing rules for insurance producers. DIFI does not personally proctor the test, however. Actual test delivery is handled by PSI, the testing vendor that runs the exam under the internal code Series 13-34. If you ever see "Series 13-34" referenced in scheduling materials or a candidate handbook, that is simply PSI's internal name for the AZ P&C exam - same test, same content, same passing standard.
This two-party structure - a state regulator setting the rules and a third-party vendor delivering the test - is standard for insurance licensing nationwide, but it's worth understanding clearly for Arizona specifically because it explains why registration, scheduling, and score reporting all happen through PSI rather than through DIFI directly.
What the AZ P&C Exam Actually Covers
The content outline effective June 1, 2026 breaks the exam into 13 domains. Each domain carries a fixed weight, meaning some topics are worth far more of your score than others. Understanding these weights is the single most useful thing you can do before you open a study guide, because it tells you exactly where your study hours should go.
| Domain | Weight |
|---|---|
| 1. Insurance Regulation | 5% |
| 2. Federal Laws and Regulations | 2% |
| 3. General Insurance Concepts | 11% |
| 4. Property and Casualty Insurance Basics | 19% |
| 5. Dwelling Policy Concepts | 8% |
| 6. Homeowners Policy Concepts | 11% |
| 7. Personal Automobile Policy | 11% |
| 8. Commercial Automobile Policy | 4% |
| 9. Commercial Property Policies | 9% |
| 10. Commercial General Liability | 9% |
| 11. Businessowners Policy | 5% |
| 12. Other Types of P&C Insurance | 3% |
| 13. Workers' Compensation Laws | 3% |
Notice that four domains - Property and Casualty Insurance Basics, General Insurance Concepts, Homeowners Policy Concepts, and Personal Automobile Policy - together account for more than half of the entire exam. That's not a coincidence you can ignore; it's a roadmap.
Domain 4: Property and Casualty Insurance Basics (19%)
This is the largest single domain on the exam and covers the foundational vocabulary and mechanics that every other domain builds on.
- Policy structure, declarations, insuring agreements, and endorsements
- Underwriting basics, risk classification, and premium calculation concepts
- Claims handling fundamentals and the basics of loss settlement
Domain 6 & 7: Homeowners and Personal Auto (11% each)
Combined, these two domains make up nearly a quarter of the exam. Expect detailed scenario questions about coverage forms, exclusions, and how specific perils are treated.
- Homeowners policy forms and covered perils
- Personal auto liability, medical payments, and physical damage coverage
- Common endorsements and how they modify base coverage
For a full breakdown of every domain with topic-level detail, see the AZ P&C Exam Domains Guide covering all 13 content areas. If you want a distilled, single-page version of the highest-yield facts across all domains, the AZ P&C Cheat Sheet is built for last-week review.
Exam Format, Fee, and Registration Mechanics
Beyond content, the mechanics of the exam matter just as much for planning your prep. Here's what candidates are actually working with:
- Question count: 150 scored multiple-choice questions, plus 5 to 10 unscored experimental items mixed in without being flagged.
- Time limit: 2 hours and 30 minutes to complete the full exam.
- Passing score: 70% correct on the scored items.
- Format: Closed-book, meaning no reference materials, notes, or outside resources are permitted during the test.
- Fee: $59 per attempt.
- Delivery options: A physical PSI test center or live online proctoring, giving candidates flexibility on where and how they sit for the exam.
Because the unscored experimental questions are indistinguishable from scored ones, don't waste mental energy trying to guess which questions "don't count." Treat every question on screen as if it affects your score, because roughly 96 to 97% of them do.
For a full cost breakdown including what the $59 fee does and doesn't include, read the AZ P&C Certification Cost breakdown. And if you're mapping out exactly what 70% means in terms of correct answers, the AZ P&C Passing Score guide walks through the math.
Key Takeaway
Since the exam is closed-book, memorization of policy structures and coverage triggers matters more here than it would on an open-reference exam. Build your study plan around recall, not just recognition.
Who Uses This License in the Real World
The AZ P&C license isn't an academic credential - it's an operational requirement for anyone actively producing (selling, soliciting, or negotiating) property and casualty insurance in Arizona. That includes independent agents working across multiple carriers, captive agents tied to a single insurer, brokers placing commercial risk, and staff at agencies who need authority to bind or quote P&C policies. Insurance agencies, regional and national carriers, and brokerages hiring for Arizona-based producer roles routinely list this license as a hard requirement before a candidate can be assigned book of business or start writing policies.
If you're evaluating whether pursuing this license makes career sense for you, the ROI analysis on whether AZ P&C is worth it and the AZ P&C Salary Guide both dig into the earnings side, while AZ P&C Jobs looks at where licensed producers actually get hired.
Retake Rules and Prelicensing Reality
Two structural details separate Arizona's approach from many other states, and both affect how you should plan your first attempt:
- No mandatory prelicensing education. Arizona does not require candidates to complete a state-approved prelicensing course before sitting for the exam. That freedom is a double-edged sword - it saves time and money, but it also means there's no built-in curriculum forcing you through the material. Self-directed study becomes essential.
- Electronic fingerprinting is required. Resident applicants must complete electronic fingerprinting as part of the licensing process, separate from the exam itself. Build this into your timeline early since it's a processing step, not something you can rush the day before you need your license active.
- Retake limits. Candidates may attempt the exam up to four times within a 12-month period. After a fourth failure, there is a mandatory one-year wait before trying again.
That four-attempt ceiling is exactly why a rushed, under-prepared first attempt is a bad trade. Burning two or three attempts guessing at Commercial General Liability or Workers' Compensation Laws questions eats into a limited window. For the full eligibility picture - residency, fingerprinting, and everything else DIFI expects - see the AZ P&C Requirements guide, and for scheduling specifics and how testing windows are structured, check the AZ P&C Exam Dates guide.
Preparing Around the Domain Weights
Rather than studying domains in the order they're listed, build your schedule around their point value. A practical way to sequence six weeks of preparation:
Foundation Domains
- Property and Casualty Insurance Basics (19%) - policy structure, underwriting, claims
- General Insurance Concepts (11%) - risk management and insurance fundamentals
Personal Lines
- Homeowners Policy Concepts (11%) and Dwelling Policy Concepts (8%)
- Personal Automobile Policy (11%)
Commercial Lines
- Commercial Property Policies (9%), Commercial General Liability (9%)
- Businessowners Policy (5%) and Commercial Automobile Policy (4%)
Regulatory & Review
- Insurance Regulation (5%), Federal Laws and Regulations (2%), Workers' Compensation Laws (3%)
- Full-length timed practice exams under 2.5-hour conditions
This sequencing works because the personal and commercial lines domains all reuse vocabulary and concepts introduced in Domain 4 and Domain 3 - studying those first makes every later domain faster to absorb. A more detailed week-by-week plan, including how to structure practice testing, is available in the AZ P&C Study Guide for passing on your first attempt. If you want a realistic sense of how challenging the exam feels compared to its stated pass standard, read How Hard Is the AZ P&C Exam, and for context on outcomes across attempts, see the AZ P&C Pass Rate data breakdown.
Whatever schedule you follow, timed practice under real exam conditions matters more than passive review once you're past the first pass through the material. Running full-length questions on our AZ P&C practice test platform is the fastest way to find out which domains are actually weak versus which ones just feel unfamiliar on first read. Revisiting practice questions repeatedly across all 13 domains, rather than drilling one domain to exhaustion, mirrors how the real 150-question exam mixes topics.
Frequently Asked Questions
AZ P&C stands for the Arizona Examination for Property and Casualty Insurance Producer, the state licensing exam administered by PSI (as Series 13-34) under the authority of the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions.
It's a licensing exam. Passing it is a legal requirement to sell property and casualty insurance in Arizona, not an optional resume credential. See our detailed explainer on what AZ P&C certification involves for more on this distinction.
No. Arizona does not require prelicensing education. Resident applicants do need to complete electronic fingerprinting as part of the overall licensing process, separate from exam eligibility itself.
Candidates can attempt the exam up to four times within a 12-month period. After a fourth failed attempt, there is a mandatory one-year waiting period before you can try again.
Start with Property and Casualty Insurance Basics, since it's the largest domain at 19% and its concepts underpin every other domain, including Homeowners, Personal Auto, and Commercial Property Policies.