What Is OR-PC?

Overview: What Is OR-PC?

OR-PC stands for the Oregon Property and Casualty Insurance Producer Exam, officially catalogued as PSI Series 12-04. It is the licensing exam a candidate must pass to become an authorized property and casualty insurance producer in the state of Oregon. The exam is not a voluntary industry credential or a professional certification you add to a resume for prestige - it is the mandatory gateway that determines whether you can legally sell, solicit, or negotiate property and casualty insurance policies in Oregon.

Because several unrelated credentials in other industries also use the abbreviation "OR-PC," it's worth being precise: this article, and every resource on this site, refers exclusively to the Oregon insurance producer exam described above. If you're comparing study materials online, make sure any source you use is speaking to this specific test and not a similarly-named credential from a different field.

For a broader breakdown of what each section of the exam covers, see the OR-PC Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 13 Content Areas, which maps every domain to its weight and typical question style.

Who Governs and Administers the Exam

Two separate organizations oversee the OR-PC process, and understanding their roles helps clarify where to go for what:

• Oregon Division of Financial Regulation (DFR): The state regulatory body that sets licensing rules, approves prelicensing education providers, and issues producer licenses once you pass the exam.
• PSI Services LLC: The third-party testing vendor that builds, schedules, and delivers the exam itself, including both test-center and remote-proctored appointment options.

Exam Format and Structure

The OR-PC exam is a closed-book, computer-based test. There is no ambiguity in the numbers candidates need to plan around:

• 150 scored multiple-choice questions, with PSI reserving the right to add 5 to 10 additional unscored experimental items mixed in unlabeled.
• 160 minutes total testing time.
• 70% required to pass.
• $55 exam fee, paid separately from the license application fee.
• No calculators or reference materials permitted at the workstation.

Because the unscored experimental items are indistinguishable from scored questions, you should treat every question on screen with equal seriousness - there's no reliable way to identify and skip the "practice" items. This also means your pacing needs to account for roughly 150-160 total items even though only 150 count toward your score.

For a deeper look at exactly how the scoring threshold works and what it means for your margin of error, read OR-PC Passing Score 2026: Exactly What You Need to Pass.

The 13 Exam Domains

The OR-PC blueprint is organized into 13 content domains, each weighted by the percentage of the exam it represents. Two domains anchor the bulk of the scoring: Property and Casualty Basics at 14% and Commercial General Liability at 13%. Together with Insurance Regulation and General Insurance Concepts, these four domains make up nearly half the exam.

Notice how the lowest-weighted domain, Federal Laws and Regulations, still carries 2% - meaning roughly three questions on a typical exam. It's tempting to skip small domains entirely, but with 13 domains covering the full 150 scored questions, even the lighter sections add up across a test this long. The complete domains guide breaks down subtopics within each of these 13 areas in more detail.

Licensing Requirements Before You Test

You can't simply register for the OR-PC exam on a whim - Oregon has specific eligibility steps that must be satisfied first:

• Minimum age: Resident candidates generally must be at least 18 years old.
• Prelicensing education: 20 hours of approved coursework per line (property or casualty individually), or 40 hours if pursuing both lines combined.
• Certificate validity: The prelicensing education certificate is valid for one year, so timing your course completion against your exam date matters.
• CPCU waiver: Candidates holding a CPCU designation may qualify for a waiver of the prelicensing education requirement.
• Fingerprinting: Required as part of the background check process for initial applicants.

A full walkthrough of every eligibility rule, including how the CPCU waiver process works in practice, is available in OR-PC Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify.

Fees and Costs

Budgeting for OR-PC involves more than just the exam fee itself. Two separate charges apply:

• $55 - the PSI exam fee, paid when you schedule your test-center or remote-proctored appointment.
• $75 - the license application fee, paid to the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation when you apply for your producer license.

On top of these two mandatory fees, most candidates also pay for their required prelicensing education hours and, optionally, study materials or practice exams. None of these additional costs are fixed by regulation, so they vary by provider. For a complete cost breakdown across every stage of the process, see OR-PC Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown.

Who Hires Licensed Producers

Once you hold an active Oregon property and casualty producer license, you become eligible to work in roles where selling, quoting, or servicing P&C policies is central to the job. This typically includes positions at:

• Independent insurance agencies representing multiple carriers
• Captive agencies tied to a single insurance company brand
• Direct writers and carrier-side sales or service teams
• Commercial lines brokerages handling CGL, CPP, and businessowners accounts

The domain weighting on the exam is a reasonable proxy for what producers actually handle day to day: heavy exposure to general P&C basics and commercial general liability, supplemented by homeowners, personal auto, and workers compensation knowledge. If you're evaluating whether pursuing this license fits your career goals, OR-PC Jobs and Is the OR-PC Certification Worth It? Complete ROI Analysis 2026 both dig into where the license actually gets used and what the return on the effort looks like.

Renewal and Continuing Education

Passing the exam and getting licensed is not a one-time event. Oregon producer licenses operate on a recurring cycle:

• Renewal period: Every two years.
• Continuing education: 24 total CE hours per renewal cycle.
• Ethics requirement: 3 of those hours must be in ethics.
• Oregon-specific requirement: 3 hours must cover Oregon statutes and administrative rules.

This structure means the knowledge tested in Domain 1 (Insurance Regulation) and parts of Domain 2 (Federal Laws and Regulations) doesn't stop mattering once you pass - it resurfaces every renewal cycle through mandated CE topics.

How to Prepare Efficiently

Generic study advice only goes so far with a domain-heavy exam like this one. The more useful approach is to sequence your study time around the actual point values at stake. Since Property and Casualty Basics (14%) and Commercial General Liability (13%) together account for over a quarter of the scored questions, they deserve first priority, followed by Insurance Regulation and General Insurance Concepts at 11% each.

Full-length timed practice tests matter as much as content review, especially given the 160-minute limit and the mix of scored and unscored items. Practicing under realistic time pressure on our practice test platform helps you internalize pacing so the 160-minute clock doesn't become a source of stress on test day. For a structured week-by-week plan built specifically around this domain weighting, see the OR-PC Study Guide 2026: How to Pass on Your First Attempt, and if you want a candid assessment of how demanding the exam actually is relative to your background, How Hard Is the OR-PC Exam? Complete Difficulty Guide 2026 is worth reading before you finalize your timeline.

Frequently Asked Questions