Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU®)

We’ve made some exciting changes to enhance your CPCU experience!
With the industry’s help, we have made the CPCU designation even more relevant to today’s property-casualty insurance professional. The following changes ensure that the CPCU program continues to provide you with practical, technical, property-casualty knowledge that meets your needs:

• The experience requirement is now two years.
  Institutes’ research shows that students who begin the CPCU program early in their careers are more likely to successfully complete the program. This reduction in the experience requirement from three years to two means that newcomers to the insurance industry who complete the CPCU examination and ethics requirements in two years or less will not have to wait as long to receive the designation.

• Beginning with the January 15 – March 15, 2010, testing window, exams for CPCU 520, 530, and 540 wll consist of objective questions.
  To maintain the rigor and integrity of the CPCU designation, CPCU exams will use the question format that best assesses your knowledge of the material covered within the related course. CPCU 520, 530, and 540 exams will transition from an essay-question format to an objective-question format, giving you the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge on a broader range of course content. With this format, you can receive your grade immediately on finishing the exam and can then progress in your coursework without delay.

Learn more about the CPCU program changes.

The following courses are required to earn the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter designation.

Five foundation courses:

Three courses in either the personal or commercial concentration (courses cannot be combined from each concentration):

Commercial Concentration

Personal Concentration

Program Options: CPCU courses are available as self-study programs via printed textbooks and course guides. Institutes Online instructor-led classes and public classes at third-party providers are also available to CPCU students.

We Recommend CPCU for: Agents/brokers, agency principals, claim representatives, line of business managers and executives, insurance litigators, risk managers, and underwriters

Course Sequence: You can take courses in any sequence according to your background, needs, and interests.

Matriculation Requirement: You must matriculate (register as a candidate) with the AICPCU by submitting a matriculation form and fee. You should submit the matriculation form and fee with the registration for your first CPCU exam. You must sign a statement on the matriculation form agreeing to abide by the AICPCU’s Code of Professional Ethics.

Ethics Requirement: The AICPCU’s Code of Professional Ethics is the standard by which your ethical behavior as a candidate or CPCU designee is measured. You are subject to the Code once you sign the matriculation form, and you continue to be subject to it throughout your candidacy and after receiving the CPCU designation.

Experience Requirement: You must submit a resume showing that you were engaged in acceptable insurance activities for any 24 months (minimum of 17½ hours per week) during the five-year period immediately preceding the conferment of the CPCU designation. See the matriculation form for specific requirements. If you meet all requirements except the experience requirement, the designation will be conferred when you meet it.

When you have completed a substantial portion of the educational requirements for the CPCU designation, we will send you forms to document that you have met the ethics and experience requirements. If you do not receive these forms, contact Customer Service or download them here. After grades are released, we will notify you that you have met all CPCU designation requirements.

The Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter designation program consists of five foundation courses and three courses in either the personal lines or the commercial lines concentration.

Bottom-Line Benefits

• Improve effectiveness by learning to apply property-casualty insurance theory to everyday practice
• Handle complex commercial property and personal loss exposures with advanced technical knowledge
• Increase effectiveness and positively affect overall operations with increased understanding of how different functional areas interact with and relate to each other

Sample Course Materials

• View a PDF of all CPCU 520 chapters
• View a PDF of a CPCU 520 chapter excerpt

Promotional Materials

• View the CPCU program flyer

Additional Course Resources

• Learn about instructor-led CPCU courses
• Find a public CPCU class
• Learn about SMART Study Aids
• View CPCU waiver information
• Institute Academic Credit Request Form
• Learn more about the CPCU program changes

Additional Knowledge Solutions

• See all the Institutes’ offerings
• View the Institutes’ full catalog

E-mail: customerservice@cpcuiia.org

Phone: (800) 644-2101

Fax: (610) 640-9576

Customer Service hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. eastern time.