Maryland Insurance CE: Line-Specific Hours, a No-Carryover Rule, and a 25-Year Discount

24 hours, with a hard cap on how much ethics counts

Maryland requires producers to complete 24 hours of continuing education every two-year license term, including 3 hours specifically in ethics. Maryland adds an unusual constraint most states don't have: no more than 3 hours of ethics coursework can be applied toward the requirement at all — ethics credits earned in excess of that 3-hour minimum will not be applied to the overall continuing education requirement as general credit either.

This is stricter than the more common pattern (where excess ethics simply downgrades to general credit) — in Maryland, taking a 6-hour ethics course instead of a 3-hour one doesn't give a producer any extra credit toward their remaining 21 general hours. The additional 3 hours are effectively wasted for CE-credit purposes, even though the knowledge itself obviously isn't wasted.

Multi-line producers need 6 hours specifically per line

For producers holding multiple lines of authority — specifically called out for Life/Health and Property/Casualty combinations — Maryland requires students to take approved courses in the line of authority in which they are licensed, with multiline producers needing to complete 6 hours in each line rather than treating the full 24-hour total as fully interchangeable across lines.

This line-specific allocation requirement is similar in spirit to Virginia's 8-hours-per-line rule for multi-licensed producers, though Maryland's specific figure (6 hours) and its explicit naming of the Life/Health and Property/Casualty combination make it worth checking directly rather than assuming the same number applies as in a neighboring state.

No carryover, and a strict course-repeat spacing rule

Maryland does not allow any carryover of excess hours between renewal terms — every two-year cycle starts fresh, similar to Washington's structure. Courses may not be taken more than once in a single reporting period, and if a producer does take the same course during two consecutive renewal periods (which is allowed, unlike some states), there must be at least 6 months between the two completion dates.

Producers must also complete their CE credits at least 15 days prior to the license expiration date, a shorter buffer than Michigan's 45 days but still a real requirement to build into renewal planning.

Given Maryland's stricter category boundaries, producers should plan their course selection early enough in the term that the 15-day pre-deadline buffer doesn't become a source of pressure to accept whatever course happens to be available.

The 25-year experience tier: an 8-hour total

Producers who have been licensed continuously for 25 years or more need to complete only 8 hours of CE every license term — a substantial reduction from the standard 24-hour requirement — though the same 3 hours of that reduced total must still be in ethics, meaning the 25-year tier leaves only 5 hours of general/line-specific coursework rather than the standard 21.

This 25-year milestone is later than Georgia's 20-year mark and considerably later than the 6-year mark used in a few other states, underscoring how much the specific experience-tier threshold varies state by state even where the general concept (experienced producers owe less) is shared.

Worked example: a dual-licensed producer under the standard tier

A Maryland producer holding both Life/Health and Property/Casualty authority, licensed for 12 years (well under the 25-year reduced tier), plans her 24-hour requirement as: exactly 3 hours of ethics (no more, since additional ethics hours wouldn't count toward her general total anyway), 6 hours specific to Life/Health, 6 hours specific to Property/Casualty, and the remaining 9 hours from any approved coursework in either line.

She schedules everything to finish at least 15 days before her birth-month expiration date, and avoids repeating any course she took in her prior renewal period unless at least 6 months has passed since that prior completion.

Non-resident reciprocity, and a steeper reinstatement fee

Non-resident Maryland producers are exempt from the 24-hour, line-specific structure described above only when their home state is reciprocal with Maryland for the specific license type and line of authority held — a non-resident whose home state isn't reciprocal for their particular combination must complete Maryland's CE requirements directly, the same way a resident would.

Maryland's non-resident renewal fee is $69 per application, and the state's reinstatement structure charges non-residents more than residents for the same one-year grace period: $169 to reinstate a lapsed non-resident license versus $100 for a lapsed resident license — a cost difference worth knowing before assuming reinstatement costs the same regardless of residency status.

What Maryland's ethics courses actually cover

Maryland's ethics requirement isn't a generic module — the state's approved course content specifically must cover producer fiduciary responsibilities, unfair trade and claims practices, rebates and inducements, and disclosure obligations, with case studies tied to real insurance-industry situations rather than abstract ethics theory. Maryland courts have also recognized a heightened 'special relationship' duty of care for producers who maintain a long-term, trusted relationship with a client — a legal backdrop that helps explain why Maryland's ethics-hour cap described above is treated so strictly rather than as a flexible general-credit category.

The separate annuity and long-term care training tracks

Maryland's annuity training requirement works alongside the line-specific structure described above rather than folding into it: a producer must complete a one-time 4-hour annuity course before selling any annuity product at all, and a life-licensed producer who hasn't completed it cannot lawfully sell annuities regardless of how current their general CE otherwise is. The long-term care track layers similarly — a one-time 8-hour initial course, then 4 hours every 24 months after — though completing either the 8-hour initial or a 4-hour refresher also satisfies a separate 2-hour biennial LTC requirement that would otherwise apply on its own.

The bottom line

Maryland's strict category boundaries — where excess ethics hours don't convert to general credit, and multi-line producers need specific per-line allocations — make Maryland's CE requirement more structured than its 24-hour headline figure suggests, rewarding producers who plan deliberately rather than accumulating hours loosely across categories.