Illinois conditions a surplus line producer’s licence on a $20,000 surety bond delivered to the Director of Insurance — security for the surplus line tax you collect on business placed with non-admitted insurers. Ours is $200 flat, and the price you see is the checkout price. The application collects no credit information, and most applications approve instantly.
















A licence bond with a fixed penal sum and a fixed price is about the simplest thing in surety. Here is the entire process:
Business details and an effective date. That is the application — no financials, no credit section, no follow-up scavenger hunt.
Licence bonds like this are among the thousands of bond types that issue right after purchase. The application collects no credit information, and most applications approve instantly.
Your executed bond and power of attorney arrive by email, ready to deliver with your surplus line producer licence application or renewal. Wet-ink original mailed on request.
Surplus line is the market of last resort. When a risk cannot be placed with an insurer admitted in Illinois, a specially licensed producer may export it to a non-admitted (surplus line) insurer — after a diligent effort to place it in the admitted market, and with a notice to the policyholder that the insurer is not licensed here and not backed by the state guaranty fund. That licence is separate from, and additional to, an ordinary insurance producer licence.
It also comes with a tax bill. A surplus line producer collects the surplus line tax on the premium it exports, files reports with the Director of Insurance, and remits the tax along with the Fire Marshal tax. Because the producer is holding public money it collected from a client, the licence is conditioned on a $20,000 bond running to the People of the State of Illinois and delivered to the Director, historically written as security for the producer paying the tax, interest and penalties over.
Illinois also routes surplus line placements through the Surplus Line Association of Illinois, the stamping office that reviews and records exported business — so between the Association’s filings, the tax reports and the bond, the state can see the market and recover if a producer keeps money it collected. It is not insurance for you — if the surety pays a claim, you repay the surety. The bond must stay in force while the licence is live, so we track the expiry and notify you well ahead of renewal.
These are the actual issuing fields — no credit section, because this application does not collect credit information.
Start the application →$200 flat, no credit section, bond often issued in the same sitting. Free until issued.