Bail Agent Licensing Requirements California

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State Approval 172113 & 172114

Established 2007

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Please read the following:

Authorizing Act:

Section 1802 of the California Insurance Code reads, in part:

A bail agent is a person permitted to solicit, negotiate, and effect undertakings of bail on behalf of any surety insurer.

Federal law (Title 18 United States Code Section 1033) prohibits anyone who has been convicted of a felony involving dishonesty or a breach of trust from conducting the business of insurance unless they have obtained the written consent of the Insurance Commissioner. It is a violation of this statute to conduct business of insurance without the Commissioners written consent. If you have been convicted of a felony involving dishonesty or a breach of trust then you must attach a copy of this consent. If you have not obtained this written consent you must do so by filing a

1033 Short Form Application for Written Consent prior to filing your application. To obtain approval to submit insurance licensing forms by mail, send an email request to:

contactsups@insurance.ca.gov or submit a written request to:

300 Capitol Mall, 16th Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814-4313

Eligibility to Apply (Individual Licensee):

· Be at least 18 years of age.

· Be a resident of California.

Application Filing Requirements - Individual:

· Complete a minimum of 20 hours of approved prelicensing classroom study in subjects pertinent to the duties and responsibilities of a bail licensee, including, but not limited to, all laws and regulations related thereto, rights of the accused, and ethics. Bail Education Objectives

· A course completion certificate for a 40-hour power of arrest course certified by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training pursuant to Section 832 of the California Penal Code.

· Take and pass the required examination. To learn more, please review the Candidate Information Bulletin.

· Apply online for a Bail Agent license at Sircon for a two-year license term at a fee of $622. All filing fees submitted are not refundable, whether or not the application is acted upon or the examination taken.

· Submit fingerprint impressions. If the applicant has an active California insurance license or other California bail license they are exempt from this requirement. See fingerprint processing link for fees.

· Attach/Upload the following to the license application:

· A Bond of Bail Agent, form LIC 437-9, in the penal sum of $1,000 executed by a California admitted surety, and signed by the principal.

· A Bail Agent Action Notice, form LIC 437-23, executed by a surety insurer or it's authorized representative.

· Copies of the forms or documents which the bail agent intends to use regularly or frequently in connection with bail transactions.

· A course completion certificate for a 40-hour power of arrest course certified by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training pursuant to Section 832 of the California Penal Code.

· Proof of completion of the PC 832 Power of Arrest Course.

· An Action Notice Statement of Employing Bail Agent Or Permittee Form LIC 438, is required for licensed Bail Agents and Permittees employing or terminating the employment of a natural person to act as a bail agent or permittee.

· A passport type photo of the applicant, not older than six months. A Bail identification card will be issued for all individual licensees. If submitted digitally, a high quality photo of the applicant's face, top of the shoulders and chest, with a white background is acceptable.

License Renewal Requirements:

Courtesy notices sent to the business email address on file. Renewal is due whether or not courtesy notice is received.

· Courtesy notices sent to the business email address on file. Renewal is due whether or not courtesy notice is received.

· Must complete a minimum of 12 hours of approved continuing education classroom study prior to each renewal expiration date.

· No late renewals allowed. Licenses not renewed by the expiration date will be required to submit a new application and all required forms and pay double the filing fee. Late is defined as any license renewal for which the filing fee, continuing education and required documents are not on file by the expiration date of the license.

· A current list of education courses approved for credit can be found here.

· An active bond must be on file

Filing Requirements - Corporation:

· Apply online for a Bail agency license at Sircon for a two year license term per Cal. Ins. Code 1807.7.

· The name of the Corporation must be approved by the Department of Insurance. If it is not approved, an approved alias, or Doing Business As (DBA) name will need to be used in all business. This name can be requested either in advance, or on the application itself through use of the Name Approval Request, form LIC 447-42A.

· Original license fee is $622. All filing fees submitted are not refundable, whether or not the application is acted upon or the examination taken.

· Licenses may be issued to corporations to act as bail agents. Each officer, director, stockholder, and employee must hold an individual bail agent license.

· Business location must be in California.

· Any subsequent change in stockholders for the corporation shall require the prior approval of the department. Changes in stockholders, officers or directors may be submitted on form LIC 437-25.

· Attach/Upload the following to the license application:

· A Bond of Bail Agent, form LIC 437-9, in the penal sum of $1,000 executed by a California admitted surety, and signed by the principal.

· A Bail Agent Action Notice, form LIC 437-23, executed by a surety insurer or it's authorized representative.

· A course completion certificate for a 40-hour power of arrest course certified by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training pursuant to Section 832 of the California Penal Code.

· Copies of the forms or documents which the bail agent intends to use regularly or frequently in connection with bail transactions.

· Action Notice Statement of Employing Bail Agent or Permittee form LIC 438, is required for licensed Bail Agents and Permittees employing or terminating the employment of a natural person to act as a bail agent for the corporation.

License Renewal Requirements:

· License renewal for another two year license term. The license renewal application can be found at Sircon.

· Renewal fee for another two year license term is $188. All filing fees submitted are not refundable, whether or not the application is acted upon or the examination taken.

· Courtesy renewal notices are sent via email, approximately 90 days prior to the license expiration, to the licensee's reported email address with the Department of Insurance. The renewal application is due on the expiration date of the license whether or not a courtesy notice had been received..

· Late license renewals are prohibited. Licenses not renewed by the expiration date will be required to submit a new application and all required forms and pay double filing fee. 'Late' is defined as any license renewal for which the filing fee and required documents are not on file by the expiration date of the license.

· An active bond must be on file.

· An active agent appointment must be on file.

Additional Information California Department of Insurance

To obtain Bail insurance license information, you may visit the FAQ page or call the Producer Licensing Bureau Bail Unit at (916) 492-3035 or email sac.bail@insurance.ca.gov. Please allow 3 business days for a return call.

HOW TO START A PROFITABLE SMALL BUSINESS

Lessons Learned from the Bail Bonds Industry

Opinion Editorial by Rex Venator

Tenacity, Resiliency, Perseverance, Critical Thinking, Originality

There are certain common denominators that I perceive in people who not only break into a new venture but, with ongoing hard work and doggedness, actually make a living at doing what they set out to do because they were willing to work and work hard without unreasonable expectations barring good ole fashioned luck.

There are roughly between 2,000 and 3,000 licensed bail agents in California. There would be many more people getting other people out of jail if it were easy to make a living doing it. The plain fact is that is isn’t easy and can be very difficult to get started and then keep the lights on doing it, but it can be done.

I cannot fathom a guess at how many bounty hunters there are in the Country, because distinctions must be made in terms of those who pose, those who dabble, those who occasionally partake, and those who pay their bills chasing bail jumpers.

Let us briefly delve into what separates the people who half heartedly try versus those who share the millions in bonds being written out of numerous counties just in California to include those who close bail jumper cases for those who are writing the bonds.

Tenacity – People who succeed tend to be tenacious or, “stick firmly to any decision, plan, or opinion without changing or doubting it.”

Resiliency – People who succeed frequently demonstrate the “ability to recover quickly from setbacks.”

Perseverance – People who succeed demonstrate “steady and continued action or belief, usually over a long period and especially despite difficulties or setbacks.”

Critical Thinking – People who succeed react logically to trouble and sort out difficulties largely free of being governed by decisions based on feelings. They rely on “observation, interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation, explanation and meta-cognition.” “Critical thinking clarifies goals, examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, accomplishes actions, and assesses conclusions.”

Originality – People who succeed opt to avoid fads or trends or know how to adjust to fads or trends with the importance being on when to do which one. Their ideas are not cheap knock-offs of someone else’s idea or ideas, but, rather, they shape what the next round of knock-offs will be; thus, their ideas will profit first and the greatest—before the market gets saturated with the products and services that are not original.

I remember spending weeks and months making an in depth study of bail and bounty hunting on that new fangled thing people were talking about: The World Wide Web or Internet.

I worked overtime at my day job to pay for a new computer that I didn’t know how to use.

I remember spending an incalculable amount of hours in a law library reading up on published case cites on bail and bounty hunting.

I spent hours researching and studying numerous disciplines: sales, marketing, desktop publishing, graphics, business law, how to run a small business, and other ways to stand out from my competition.

I remember spending weeks and even months without a single phone call for bounty hunting service, but I didn’t give up. I kept adjusting my fledgling marketing campaign—some things really didn’t work, but at least I tried to find out and then tried again.

It didn’t happen at once or without great effort, but those calls did finally start to come in. My first solo cases left me stumbling through dangerous situations while learning. After a few hundred hours actually bounty hunting, things started to come together and capers got closed.

This led to sponsorship to start my own bail bond company based on a well developed reputation working for bail agents—years into my bounty hunting—where I crashed and burned several times while honing my small business skills in the areas of phone book advertising, telephone salesmanship, accounts payable and receivable and many, many more business disciplines.

Eventually, things started to come together and I could make—SIX YEARS INTO LEARNING BAIL AND BOUNTY HUNTING—tens of thousands of dollars over just a few days in bail bonds alone!

While this was going on—TEN YEARS INTO LEARNING BAIL AND BOUNTY HUNTING—I found myself able to collect $1,000.00 per hour bounty hunting!!!

While this was going on—TWELVE YEARS INTO LEARNING BAIL AND BOUNTY HUNTING—I found myself collecting hundreds of dollars almost daily doing private investigations work for attorneys!!!

The crux of the point is that while I may appear to effortlessly glide through the process of making a living in the bail bonds trades, my work thus far did not occur in a vacuum or without years and thousands upon thousands of hours of intensely hard work that continues to this very moment!

Today, I talk with people and am very up front about how difficult making a living in bail can be and will probably be; nonetheless, I have seen people make it and have myself been tenacious, resilient, and while exercising perseverance, critical thinking and originality to reach the level of bail that I am in today—while still working hard and am still learning new things.

My point is that hundreds or thousands of dollars won’t simply jump into your lap because you want it; indeed, you have to want it and be willing to work for it like no one else; moreover, success may take years or decades and not weeks or months like some seem to expect.

There are perhaps dozens, or hundreds, or even thousands trying to do the same things that dozens, hundreds and thousands are trying to do and at the exact same time. Most will not succeed, but the ones that do will eventually look back—like a rock climber looking down—and say to themselves, “Gee, that was tough, but I did it.”

In closing, if you fail you will continue to fail if you look beyond yourself for who is to blame for your failure, for your success or failure is yours and yours alone in the reality of learning the hard teachings of building a successful business.

This is why I tell people who are getting into bail bonds or bounty hunting “Don’t quit your day job!”

“Whether you think you can, or you think can’t—you’re right.” –Henry Ford

About the Author – Rex Venator owns and operates several small businesses, all running in the Black, including but not limited to the following areas: private investigations, bail bonds, bail law and motion, bail fugitive recovery, bail education, small business consulting, expert bail witness consulting, independent film productions, marketing with search engine optimization, and is a published author.