​​The grace period is over for fingerprinting. SCDOI is now beginning to lapse any producer who does not comply with the fingerprinting requirement by their compliance deadline. Also, the SCDOI will be transitioning to a new data recordkeeping system, resulting in the license renewal system being unavailable for several days. Those whose licenses are due by the end of October will be given a slight  extension. See details below.

Regarding fingerprinting
The SC DOI is now beginning to lapse any producer who does not comply with the fingerprinting requirement by their compliance deadline. 

Since the fingerprinting requirement began on January 1, 2017, the DOI has not lapsed a producer’s license if they complied with all requirements except the fingerprinting in order to give producers time to learn about the new law and what was required for compliance. Multiple correspondence was sent to all producers who had not complied giving them a final deadline date before the actual lapse would begin. 

That deadline has now arrived and all producers who were not fingerprinted in 2017 as well as all producers who renewed January – March 2018 but were not fingerprinted have now had their licenses lapsed. Producers with license renewals of April thru June 2018 who have not been fingerprinted will soon have their licenses lapsed as well. 

The SC DOI plans to begin enforcing the fingerprinting requirement deadline on all license renewals without a grace period within the next few month. Please be sure that ALL producers in your office have been fingerprinted if their licenses renewed since 1/1/17, that all producers with upcoming license renewals plan to be fingerprinted by their compliance deadline. 

The fingerprinting requirement is a one-time requirement for producer license renewals, but does apply to all producers who have an active producer license.

For producer licenses renewing this October
The SC Department of Insurance will be transitioning over to the NAIC’s State Based Systems data recordkeeping on October 15, 2017. Due to this transition, both the SC DOI and the NAIC’s license renewal systems will not be functional for producers to renew their licenses for several days.  

However, all producers who compliance period ends in October, will be given until November 15 to renew their license. This extension DOES NOT apply to compliance with continuing education or to be fingerprinted. Both of those requirements must be completed by the end of October for all producers whose compliance period ends in October. The extension only applies to the license renewal and license renewal fee payment. 

Please keep in mind that once the SC DOI transitions over to the NAIC SBS system, producers will not be able to renew their licenses online until all continuing education has been completed and reported to Prometric. Producers should keep this in mind when completing their required CE hours. 

Depending on the CE Sponsor, it often takes 5 to 15 days after the completion of a CE course before hours are reported and posted on Promtric’s website. By law, a sponsor has 30 days to report CE once it is completed by a participant. However, if a producer does not complete all requirements prior to their deadline, their license will lapse,  and they cannot renew their license until the CE is posted on the Prometric website. Please do not wait until the last minute to complete your CE or your license may lapse because you will not be able to renew your license until the CE is posted (up to 30 days later).