Tennessee Insurance CE: 24 Hours, Plus an 8-Hour One-Time Course If You Sell Long-Term Care

The baseline 24/3 structure

Tennessee insurance producers must complete 24 hours of continuing education every two-year license term, with at least 3 of those hours in ethics training — matching the common pattern found across a majority of states covered on this site. The license term runs on a birth-month cycle, and CE must be completed on or before the last day of the licensee's birth month every two years.

Ethics hours reset — carryover applies only to general credit

The carryover allowance in Tennessee does not apply to ethics CE credit requirements: excess ethics hours completed beyond the 3-hour minimum count only as general credit toward the next term, not as satisfying the next term's ethics requirement. Producers may carry over a maximum of 12 excess general credit hours to the following license term.

This mirrors the pattern seen in nearly every state on this site with an ethics carve-out: general hours can bank forward within a defined cap, but the ethics-specific portion is a recurring obligation every renewal regardless of accumulated excess.

The long-term care add-on is substantial and easy to overlook

Producers who sell long-term care insurance products in Tennessee face a specific requirement well beyond the standard CE structure: an initial 8-hour, department-approved long-term care training course must be completed before the producer sells any LTC product at all — this is a one-time prerequisite, not a recurring annual or biennial item.

After that initial 8-hour course, producers must then complete 4 hours of CE specifically relating to long-term care during every subsequent licensing renewal period — a recurring add-on layered on top of, not counted within, the standard 24-hour general requirement. A producer who completes their 24 general hours (including ethics) but forgets the LTC-specific 4-hour add-on has not actually satisfied their full obligation if they hold LTC-selling authority.

Renewal timing and consequences

Tennessee licenses cannot be renewed without completing the required continuing education, and the CE completion deadline is on or before the last day of the licensee's birth month every two years — a hard prerequisite to renewal rather than a separate, softer compliance step.

Worked example: a producer adding LTC authority mid-career

A Tennessee producer who has held a life and health license for years decides to add long-term care insurance to her book of business. Before making her first LTC sale, she completes the mandatory one-time 8-hour LTC training course — a substantial single block of coursework, well beyond her routine annual CE pace.

At her next biennial renewal, she budgets for her standard 24 hours (including 3 ethics), plus an additional 4 hours specifically in long-term care topics — a genuinely larger total renewal workload than she had before adding LTC authority, which she plans for well in advance rather than discovering the add-on requirement close to her deadline.

The LTC add-on's practical impact on renewal planning

A Tennessee producer selling long-term care insurance effectively faces a 28-hour renewal workload every two years (24 general hours including 3 ethics, plus 4 LTC-specific hours) rather than the flat 24-hour figure that applies to producers without LTC authority — a meaningful difference worth building into personal CE budgeting from the start of a term rather than discovering only when reviewing course requirements close to a deadline.

The one-time 8-hour initial LTC training is substantial enough that most producers complete it as a dedicated block — often a single full-day seminar or an equivalent set of online modules — rather than trying to fit it in piecemeal alongside their regular CE. Producers considering adding LTC authority mid-career should factor this upfront time commitment into their decision timeline, ideally completing it during a lighter stretch of their existing CE cycle rather than the final weeks before a renewal deadline.

Tennessee's Department of Commerce and Insurance course-search tool allows filtering specifically for LTC-approved courses, both for the one-time 8-hour initial training and the recurring 4-hour renewal training, which is the most reliable way to confirm a specific course actually satisfies this add-on rather than assuming any general long-term-care-themed course automatically qualifies.

Where to verify current LTC course approval status in Tennessee

The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance periodically updates its list of approved long-term care training providers and courses, so a producer relying on a course they completed years ago as their qualifying initial 8-hour training should confirm that course remains recognized under current department records, particularly if a significant amount of time has passed since the original completion.

The bottom line

Tennessee's standard 24-hour, 3-ethics requirement is straightforward on its own, but producers selling long-term care products face a substantial additional obligation — an 8-hour one-time course plus 4 recurring hours every renewal — that should be planned for well before it becomes urgent.

A producer weighing whether to add long-term care authority to their Tennessee license should treat the 8-hour initial course as a genuine part of that business decision's cost, not an afterthought to handle once the decision is already made and clients are already expecting coverage.

Tennessee producers should also confirm whether their specific LTC-selling authority requires the add-on training at all, since some narrower LTC-adjacent products (certain hybrid life/LTC combination policies, for instance) may be classified differently by the state than a standalone long-term care policy, affecting whether the add-on applies.

Tennessee producers should also confirm the specific 8-hour initial course they plan to take is currently listed as department-approved before enrolling, rather than relying on a colleague’s recommendation from several years ago, since approved-provider lists do get updated periodically.