California Insurance CE – Updated Online Delivery Standards

The California Office of Administrative Law recently updated their Prelicensing and Continuing Education Regulations for insurance professionals. The new amendments will take effect on February 19, 2015 and specifically make changes to the way online materials may be delivered to producers seeking continuing education credit towards their insurance license.

Every year more states are jumping on the bandwagon and adopting the guidelines set forth by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) back in 2005. California is the newest to join in this move toward a more uniform national standard for online training materials. In the state of California, online continuing education courses are no longer subject to the standards set for the general umbrella of non-contact training. Instead they are specifically identified as internet courses which are subject to rules that go beyond that of general non-contact materials. Per California insurance CE regulations: An online continuing education course is a non-contact course that the student takes and completes over the Internet.

Producers should expect to see the following changes when completing their training in California as providers are now responsible for taking reasonable measures to:

• prevent student access to the online examination prior to review of the online course materials;
• prevent students from alternately accessing the online course materials and online course examinations;
• prevent students from downloading any online course examination
• provide review questions at the end of each section/chapter in any course approved for more than 2 credit hours
• prevent access to the final exam until each quiz review is answered with at least a 70% passing rate
• provide final online course examinations which do not replicate section/chapter questions found in the review.

To read more about these regulations here is the link to the notice delivered to all providers regarding these changes: https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0200-industry/0120-notices/upload/NoticeEdRegs.pdf

If you want to get crazy and see the law itself, here is the link to view the California Code of Regulations, Section 2186 that governs all Prelicenseing and Continuing Education regulation: http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0200-industry/0050-renew-license/0300-cont-education/upload/Sections2186to2188-9CCR.pdf

While these changes will create a more cumbersome experience while completing your training online, don’t be fooled by providers who are skirting the rules or claiming that these new rules don’t apply to them. Not only may they be subject to penalties, fines and rescission for such violations, but the credit they issue you may not be approved by the state.

Tips for producers:

• Know the rules that govern your continuing education
• Only take training from reputable providers who can demonstrate they understand your requirements and are following the state regulations
• Know what to expect when completing your continuing education training and report suspicious practices to the Department of Insurance