- What Is the DE-PC Certification?
- Who Administers the Exam and How
- Property vs. Casualty: How the Exams Break Down
- The 14 Content Domains You're Tested On
- Registration, Fees, and Scheduling
- Delaware Licensing Requirements Around the Exam
- How Passing (and Retaking) Actually Works
- Continuing Education After You're Licensed
- Who Hires Producers With This License
- Building a Study Plan Around the Domains
- Frequently Asked Questions
- DE-PC is the Delaware Property & Casualty Insurance Producer Exam, administered by Pearson VUE for the Delaware Department of Insurance.
- Property has 102 questions (85 scored) and Casualty has 114 questions (95 scored), each with a 2-hour-15-minute time limit.
- Scheduling both lines the same day costs one $90 fee; Spanish-language versions are available.
- Each exam splits into general-knowledge and Delaware-law portions; you only retake the portion you fail, but must clear both within one year.
What Is the DE-PC Certification?
The DE-PC exam is the Delaware Property & Casualty Insurance Producer Exam - the licensing test the Delaware Department of Insurance requires before someone can sell, solicit, or negotiate property and casualty insurance in the state. It isn't a voluntary professional designation you add after your name; it's a mandatory gatekeeping exam tied directly to a state insurance producer license. If you want to work as a P&C agent, broker, or producer in Delaware, this exam sits between you and that license.
Because "DE-PC" is a common shorthand, people sometimes confuse it with unrelated credentials that share the same letters. For clarity's sake: this article covers only the Delaware Property & Casualty Insurance Producer Exam as defined by the Delaware Department of Insurance and delivered through Pearson VUE. If you're just getting oriented, the companion pieces What Is DE-PC? and DE-PC Meaning cover the same ground from different angles.
Who Administers the Exam and How
The Delaware Department of Insurance sets the licensing rules and content outline; Pearson VUE handles the actual test delivery, scheduling, and scoring logistics. This is a standard arrangement across most states - the regulator owns the requirements, the testing vendor owns the exam-day experience.
The current content outline for both the Property exam and the Casualty exam is dated January 15, 2025, and that's the outline domain weights in this article are pulled from. Question totals and time allowances follow Pearson's current candidate handbook. If a future outline revision changes weighting, always defer to the live handbook and outline rather than older blog posts - including this one.
Property vs. Casualty: How the Exams Break Down
Delaware treats Property and Casualty as two separate exams. Most producers who want a full P&C license end up taking both, though the two are scheduled and scored independently.
| Detail | Property Exam | Casualty Exam |
|---|---|---|
| Total Questions | 102 | 114 |
| Scored Questions | 85 | 95 |
| Pretest (Unscored) Questions | 17 | 19 |
| Time Allowed | 2 hours 15 minutes | 2 hours 15 minutes |
| Domain Count | 7 (Domains 1-7) | 7 (Domains 8-14) |
Notice the gap between total questions and scored questions on both exams. Those extra 17 and 19 items respectively are pretest questions being evaluated for future exam versions - they look identical to scored items on screen, so there's no way to identify and skip them. You should treat every question as if it counts, because functionally it might.
Domain weight percentages are calculated using only the scored-item counts from the official outline, not the pretest items. That's an important detail if you're trying to reverse-engineer "how many questions on Domain X will I see" - the math works off the 85 or 95 scored questions, not the full 102 or 114.
The 14 Content Domains You're Tested On
Domains 1 through 7 belong to the Property exam; Domains 8 through 14 belong to Casualty. Each set mirrors the other structurally - types of policies, terms and concepts, provisions, Delaware statutes split across three sub-domains, and an ethics domain - but the substantive content differs by line. For a full breakdown of every domain with study angles, see DE-PC Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 14 Content Areas.
Domain 1: Types of Policies (25.9%)
The single heaviest domain on the Property exam. Expect deep coverage of homeowners forms, dwelling policies, commercial property forms, and the distinctions between named-peril and open-peril coverage.
- Know which HO forms cover which perils and exclusions
Domain 8: Types of Policies, Bonds, and Related Terms (24.2%)
The Casualty counterpart to Domain 1, and its largest domain. Covers auto, general liability, workers' compensation, and surety/fidelity bonds.
- Be able to distinguish bond types from insurance policies conceptually
Domains 4-6 and 11-13: Delaware Statutes, Rules, and Bulletins
Both exams split Delaware-specific law into three sub-domains: statutes shared across life/health/P&C (Domains 4 and 11), statutes common to both Property and Casualty (Domains 5 and 12), and statutes unique to that one line (Domains 6 and 13). Together these make up a large share of each exam's scored questions.
- Domain 4 (15.3%) and Domain 11 (13.7%) are the biggest law sub-domains on each exam
- Domain 13 (Casualty-only statutes) carries more weight (15.8%) than its Property counterpart Domain 6 (5.9%)
Domain 7 and Domain 14: Insurance Ethics
Ethics is weighted at 14.1% on Property and 12.6% on Casualty - a larger share than most candidates expect. Per the outline, ethics contributes 12 scored questions to each exam's Delaware-law portion, so it isn't a footnote topic.
- Study the Delaware-specific ethical obligations for producers, not generic industry ethics
The remaining domains - Insurance Terms and Related Concepts (17.6% Property / 15.8% Casualty) and Policy Provisions (15.3% Property / 12.6% Casualty) - round out the general-knowledge half of each exam. Together, general knowledge and Delaware law each account for roughly half of the scored questions on both lines.
Key Takeaway
Domains 1 and 8 (types of policies) plus the Delaware statute domains carry the most scored questions on their respective exams. If your study time is limited, prioritize those before touching lower-weight domains like Domain 5, 6, or 12.
Registration, Fees, and Scheduling
Candidates who want to test on both Property and Casualty the same day can do so under one $90 fee - a meaningful convenience if you're pursuing a full P&C license rather than a single line. Spanish-language versions of the exam are also available for candidates who prefer to test in Spanish. For a complete cost breakdown across licensing steps, see DE-PC Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown, and for windows and deadlines around scheduling, check DE-PC Exam Dates 2026: Testing Windows, Deadlines & Scheduling.
Delaware Licensing Requirements Around the Exam
One detail that surprises out-of-state candidates: Delaware does not require prelicensing education before sitting the exam. You can register and test without completing a mandated course first, which is unusual compared to many other states. That doesn't mean the exam is easy without preparation - it means the state leaves the preparation method up to you.
What Delaware does require of resident applicants is state and federal criminal-history reporting as part of the licensure process. This runs alongside the exam rather than replacing it, so passing the DE-PC exam is necessary but not sufficient on its own - the background reporting is a separate track you'll need to complete for the license itself. A full rundown of every eligibility item lives in DE-PC Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify.
How Passing (and Retaking) Actually Works
Each exam - Property and Casualty - is internally divided into two portions: a general-knowledge portion and a Delaware-law portion. This matters enormously for how you handle a retake. If you fail one portion, you only retake that portion, not the entire exam. However, both portions must be passed within one year of each other, so you can't let a passed portion "expire" indefinitely while you delay the other.
This structure changes how you should think about weak areas. If you know Delaware statutes are your soft spot but you're confident on general policy concepts, a partial retake system means a stumble on law questions doesn't force you to re-answer questions you'd already have gotten right on the general-knowledge side. For the exact numeric passing threshold, see DE-PC Passing Score 2026: Exactly What You Need to Pass, and if you want a realistic sense of how demanding the exam is overall, How Hard Is the DE-PC Exam? Complete Difficulty Guide 2026 and DE-PC Pass Rate 2026: What the Data Shows go deeper on that question.
Continuing Education After You're Licensed
Passing the exam and getting licensed isn't the end of the DE-PC story. Resident producers in Delaware complete 24 continuing-education hours per biennium, including 3 ethics hours - a direct echo of how heavily ethics is weighted on the original exam (Domains 7 and 14). If you write flood coverage under the National Flood Insurance Program, you'll also need a 2-hour flood course, which counts within your general-credit requirement rather than as an add-on.
Producers sometimes assume CE is a formality once they're working. In practice, the CE cycle reinforces the same domains tested on exam day - Delaware statute updates and ethics obligations don't stay static, so the biennial requirement is really a maintenance version of the original exam content.
Who Hires Producers With This License
A Delaware P&C producer license opens roles at independent insurance agencies, captive/exclusive agencies tied to a single carrier, brokerages handling commercial accounts, and insurance carriers themselves in sales or account-management functions. Some producers hold both Property and Casualty lines to handle full-service personal and commercial accounts; others specialize in one line depending on their agency's book of business. If you're weighing whether this path fits your career goals, Is the DE-PC Certification Worth It? Complete ROI Analysis 2026 and DE-PC Salary Guide 2026: Complete Earnings Analysis dig into that decision, and DE-PC Jobs looks at the range of roles the license supports.
Building a Study Plan Around the Domains
Generic study techniques - spaced repetition, timed drills, active recall - work fine for this exam, but they only pay off when you point them at the right domains in the right order. Because Domain 1 (Types of Policies, 25.9%) and Domain 8 (Types of Policies, Bonds, and Related Terms, 24.2%) each carry roughly a quarter of their exam's scored questions, they deserve the first and largest block of your study calendar, not an afterthought squeezed in near test day.
Types of Policies (Domains 1 & 8)
- Build policy-comparison charts for HO forms, dwelling forms, auto, GL, and workers' comp
- Drill named-peril vs. open-peril distinctions with practice questions
Terms, Concepts, and Provisions (Domains 2, 3, 9, 10)
- Memorize contract-law fundamentals: offer, acceptance, consideration, utmost good faith
- Work through policy-provision scenario questions for both lines
Delaware Statutes (Domains 4-6 & 11-13)
- Read the current Delaware Department of Insurance bulletins and statutes referenced in the outline
- Separate what's common to both lines from what's Property-only or Casualty-only
Ethics and Full Simulations
- Focus on the 12 scored ethics questions embedded in each state-law portion
- Run full-length timed practice exams matching the 2-hour-15-minute format
For a complete, structured week-by-week plan with more detail on pacing and review cycles, see DE-PC Study Guide 2026: How to Pass on Your First Attempt. And once you've got the domain content down, running full-length practice exams on our practice test platform is the fastest way to find out whether you're actually ready or just familiar with the material. A quick-reference summary of the highest-yield facts is also available in the DE-PC Cheat Sheet 2026: One-Page Review of Must-Know Facts.
Key Takeaway
Spend the majority of your prep time on Domains 1, 8, and the Delaware statute domains (4, 6, 11, 13) - together they represent the largest concentration of scored questions on both exams.
Frequently Asked Questions
It's a licensing exam. Passing the DE-PC Property and/or Casualty exam is a required step toward a Delaware resident property and casualty producer license, not a standalone professional credential you can hold without the license.
Only if you want a full property and casualty producer license covering both lines. Some producers choose to test and license in only one line depending on the type of business they plan to write.
You retake only the failed portion - general knowledge or Delaware law - rather than the whole exam. Both portions still need to be passed within one year of each other.
No. Delaware does not require prelicensing education. You can register directly with Pearson VUE, though resident applicants still complete state and federal criminal-history reporting as part of the licensing process.
Roughly half. Delaware statutes, rules, and bulletins span Domains 4-6 on Property and Domains 11-13 on Casualty, while general policy and contract knowledge fills the remaining domains alongside a dedicated ethics domain on each exam.