Illinois Insurance License Lookup API — Bulk NPN Verification (NAIC SBS)

Verify Illinois insurance producer and agency license status in bulk. Paste a list of NPNs or upload a spreadsheet and this actor queries the NAIC State Based Systems API to return active status, license type, lines of authority, expiration date, and address for every producer — at $0.005 per record, no proxy required.

Who uses this? Carrier compliance teams, MGAs, and insurance agencies who need to verify that their appointed producers and agencies hold an active Illinois insurance license. Common use cases: producer appointment audits, pre-appointment license checks, E&O compliance reviews, and ongoing license expiration monitoring. This actor automates what would otherwise be a manual lookup on the Illinois insurance department website or NAIC website.

Part of a 24-state portfolio. Separate actors exist for every NAIC SBS state — IL, IA, WI, NC, MO, TN, WV, CT, and more. Run each state actor independently and join results on the npn field to build a cross-state producer compliance report. Search the Apify Store for "NAIC SBS" to find all states.

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⚠️ Use NPN Lookup for Reliable License Verification — Not Name Search

The NAIC SBS API returns at most 25 results per name query — a hard server-side cap with no pagination. Searching by last name for a common insurance agent name ("Smith", "Johnson", "Williams") will silently truncate at 25 results and you will miss producers. The output dataset will not indicate that results were truncated — you will simply receive the first 25 alphabetical matches with no warning.

Truncation check: If a name search returns exactly 25 results, assume the cap was hit and the list is incomplete. You cannot tell from the output alone whether your specific producer is in those 25. For any common name, switch to NPN lookup.

The correct workflow for bulk producer license verification:

1. Export your appointed producer list from your AMS as a CSV or Excel file
2. Publish it to a shareable URL (Google Sheets, Dropbox, etc.) or copy the NPN column
3. Paste the URL into NPN Spreadsheet URL — or paste NPNs directly into NPN List
4. Run — you get back one record per license with no truncation risk. Most producers have one license; producers holding multiple license types (e.g., Insurance Producer and Staff Adjuster) will appear on multiple rows.

What is an NPN? A National Producer Number (NPN) is the unique ID assigned to every licensed insurance producer and agency by the NIPR (National Insurance Producer Registry). You can find it on a producer's license certificate, in your AMS, or by searching nipr.com. NPNs do not change when a producer moves states or updates their name — making them the most reliable key for license verification.

Name search is useful for one-off spot checks on a specific insurance agent whose name is uncommon enough to return fewer than 25 total results. For any common name or bulk verification, always use the NPN path.

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How to Look Up Illinois Insurance Producer Licenses

Paste NPNs Directly (Fastest — No File Hosting Required)

Open your Excel or CSV producer list, select the NPN column, and paste it straight into the NPN List field. That's it — the actor strips the column header and any non-numeric characters automatically, so you don't need to clean anything first.

Paste one NPN per line or comma-separated — whichever is easier to copy from your spreadsheet. Results are deduplicated by license number automatically.

Can't upload an Excel file directly? Apify's run form doesn't support file attachments — but for most users, copying and pasting the NPN column is faster than publishing a file to a URL anyway. If you have hundreds of NPNs or run this on a schedule, the Spreadsheet URL path below avoids the copy-paste step entirely.

Run time and cost: 100 NPNs ≈ 60 seconds, ~$0.50. 500 NPNs ≈ 5 minutes, ~$2.50.

Link to a Spreadsheet URL (Best for Large Lists or Scheduled Runs)

Paste a public download URL in the NPN Spreadsheet URL field and the actor downloads and parses your producer list automatically. Supported formats: .csv, .xlsx, .xls.

The actor auto-detects any column named NPN, National Producer Number, or Producer NPN (case-insensitive). If no matching header is found, it assumes the first column contains NPNs.

Getting a shareable URL for your producer list:

• Google Sheets: File → Share → Publish to web → select Comma-separated values (.csv) → Publish. Copy the generated URL.
• Dropbox: Get a share link, then change ?dl=0 to ?dl=1 at the end to force a direct download.
• Any other host: Paste any publicly accessible direct download URL.

NPNs from the file are merged with any NPNs typed in the NPN List field — duplicates are removed automatically.

The actor processes all queries sequentially with a 500 ms delay between requests. Each query retries up to 3 times on transient failures — this applies to every run, not just large ones. If a query fails after all retries, a sentinel record with "status": "QUERY FAILED" is written to the dataset so nothing silently falls through your audit. To review failed queries, open your run in the Apify Console and click the Log tab — search for [ERROR] lines.

One-Off Search by Name

Fill in Last Name (and optionally First Name) to look up a single insurance agent or producer by name. The 25-result cap applies — for any producer whose name is common enough to appear in more than 25 records in this state, use the NPN instead. The output will not warn you if results were truncated; if the name is at all common, always verify with an NPN lookup.

One-Off Lookup by State License Number

If you have a state license number but not the NPN — common for older appointed producers whose AMS only stored the license number — fill in the License Number field under the One-Off Search section. The actor queries the NAIC API directly by license number and returns the matching record including the NPN, which you can then use for future bulk lookups.

Other Run Options

Field	Default	Description
Active Licenses Only	On	Returns only producers with an Active license status. Excludes Expired, Inactive, Cancelled, Terminated, and Surrendered licenses. Recommended for appointment audits and compliance checks. Turn off to retrieve full license history. Note: NOT FOUND and QUERY FAILED sentinel records are always returned regardless of this setting — they are verification outcomes, not license statuses.
Entity Type	Individual	Choose Individual (producers), Business / Agency (agency licensees), or Both. Both checks every NPN as an individual and as an agency in a single run — use it when your list mixes producers and agencies, or when you're unsure which an NPN is. Individuals and agencies share the same NPN, so no separate list is needed. Both makes two lookups per NPN, so it can cost up to 2× per NPN (you are only charged for records actually returned).
State	IL	Pre-configured for Illinois. Each state in this portfolio has its own actor — find other states on the Apify Store.

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Understanding Your Illinois License Verification Results

NOT FOUND, NO ACTIVE LICENSE, and QUERY FAILED Records

Three special sentinel records can appear in your results — understanding them is critical before wiring this actor into an appointment or compliance pipeline:

• If an NPN has no license on record in Illinois, the actor writes "status": "NOT FOUND" and "is_active": false. The producer is not currently licensed in this state.
• If an NPN exists but all licenses are expired or terminated (and Active Licenses Only is on), the actor writes "status": "NO ACTIVE LICENSE" and "is_active": false.
• If a query fails after 3 retries (network error, NAIC API timeout), the actor writes "status": "QUERY FAILED" and "is_active": null.

⚠️ QUERY FAILED records are inconclusive — not confirmed inactive. is_active is null on QUERY FAILED records (not false) to signal that the verification was not completed. Do not use a QUERY FAILED result to terminate an appointment, flag a producer as unlicensed, or make any compliance decision. Re-run or verify manually at sbs.naic.org.

All sentinel records include every output field (nulls/empty arrays for unresolvable fields) so your spreadsheet or AMS ingestion doesn't produce column-count mismatches.

Sentinel records are charged at the same rate as normal records ($0.005 each) — you are paying for the verification, not just confirmed results. A NOT FOUND result is an auditable confirmation that the producer is not licensed in Illinois.

Unknown or New Status Values

The status field reflects exactly what the NAIC API returns. Known values include: Active, Inactive, Cancelled, Expired, Terminated, Surrendered, Revoked, Withdrawn, NOT FOUND, NO ACTIVE LICENSE, QUERY FAILED. NAIC may introduce additional status strings over time. Always use is_active — not status — for compliance filtering. is_active is derived solely from the exact string "Active" and is reliable regardless of what status values appear.

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Output Data: License Status, Lines of Authority, and Producer Details

Each row in the Dataset is one license record. A producer with multiple active license types (e.g., Insurance Producer and Staff Adjuster) will produce multiple rows — group by npn when aggregating.

Field	Example	Notes
npn	"1234567"	National Producer Number — the primary key for joining results across states. Note: on rare business entity records, the NAIC API returns an empty NPN; the actor outputs null in this case. Use license_number as the fallback join key for BUS records.
license_number	"79467"	State-assigned license number. May differ from the NPN depending on the state. Always use npn as the join key against your AMS — never license_number.
name	"Mary Ann Johnson"	Title-cased full name, First Last order for individuals; full entity name for businesses
first_name	"Mary"	First word of given name. Always null for Business/Agency records.
middle_name	"Ann"	Middle name or initial if present; null otherwise. Always null for Business/Agency records.
last_name	"Johnson"	Surname for individual records. For Business/Agency records, contains the full entity name (same as name) — first_name will be null. When aggregating BUS results, use name rather than last_name to avoid confusion.
license_type	"Insurance Producer"	License class — e.g. Insurance Producer, Adjuster, Corporation, Surplus Lines Business Entity
license_type_code	"PRO"	Short code for license class. Known values: PRO (Insurance Producer), ADJ (Adjuster), COR (Corporation), SBE (Surplus Lines Business Entity), PRT (Partnership), PAD (Public Adjuster), LIH (Life and Health). Additional values may exist.
status	"Active"	License status. Known values: Active, Inactive, Cancelled, Expired, Terminated, Surrendered, Revoked, Withdrawn, NOT FOUND, NO ACTIVE LICENSE, QUERY FAILED. Additional values may exist.
is_active	true	Use this field for compliance filtering — not status. true only when status is exactly "Active". false for any other confirmed status (Expired, Inactive, Cancelled, NOT FOUND, etc.). null for QUERY FAILED — check was inconclusive, not that the producer is inactive.
lines_of_authority	[{"loa": "Life", "effective_date": "2010-06-01"}]	Array of LOA objects. Each has loa (string) and effective_date (ISO date or null). Empty array if no lines of authority are assigned. Note for Business/Agency records: agencies receive individual lines of authority (e.g., Casualty, Property) just like individual producers — not a generic license class label. Note for Adjuster records: adjuster licenses (ADJ, PAD) never carry LOA data — an empty array is correct.
period_start_date	"2026-04-01"	Start of the current license period (ISO 8601) — the most recent renewal date, not the producer's original license issue date. The NAIC SBS API does not return the original issue date. Do not use this field to determine how long a producer has been licensed.
expiration_date	"2027-03-31"	License expiration date (ISO 8601) — use this for license expiration monitoring
residency	"Resident"	Resident or Non-Resident. Derived from the NAIC API's residency flag — if the API returns an empty or unrecognised value, this field defaults to Non-Resident.
designated_home_state	"Florida"	Home state for non-resident licensees, when returned by the API. Present for some adjuster records; null for most producer records.
business_phone	"609-555-0100"	Formatted as XXX-XXX-XXXX
address_city	"Charlotte"	Title-cased city parsed from source
address_state	"TN"	Producer's home state, not the search jurisdiction. Non-resident producers are licensed in this state but live elsewhere — their address_state will be a different state. Do not filter by address_state to find all producers licensed here. Use is_active and jurisdiction instead.
address_zip	"28262"	5-digit ZIP (or ZIP+4 if available); null if not in source data
address_full	"Charlotte, NC 28262"	Combined city, state, ZIP — ready to paste into your AMS or CRM
address_raw	"CHARLOTTE, NC 28262"	Trimmed source address string — fallback if parsed fields produce unexpected results
dba_name	null	DBA name if the agency has registered one; null for individuals and agencies without a registered DBA
fein	null	Federal EIN if provided by the agency; null for individuals and agencies that haven't supplied one. Note: many agencies on the NAIC SBS API do not provide their FEIN even when one exists.
source_url	"https://sbs.naic.org/..."	Direct link to this producer's record on the official NAIC SBS website. Click to verify any record in one step — no re-searching required. Paste into your audit file or appointment letter as a citable primary-source reference.
scraped_at	"2026-05-27T12:00:00.000Z"	ISO 8601 timestamp of when the record was fetched. Always UTC (indicated by the trailing Z).

Note: Street address is not available from the NAIC SBS API — city, state, and ZIP are the most granular address data returned.

Example: Individual Insurance Producer Record

{
    "npn": "2064443",
    "name": "Jane L Smith",
    "is_active": true,
    "status": "Active",
    "expiration_date": "2027-09-30",
    "license_type": "Insurance Producer",
    "license_type_code": "PRO",
    "lines_of_authority": [
        { "loa": "Accident & Health or Sickness", "effective_date": "2000-04-10" },
        { "loa": "Life", "effective_date": "2000-04-10" },
        { "loa": "Variable Life and Variable Annuity", "effective_date": "2003-12-12" }
    ],
    "period_start_date": "2025-10-01",
    "jurisdiction": "IL",
    "licensee_type": "Individual",
    "residency": "Non-Resident",
    "first_name": "Jane",
    "middle_name": "L",
    "last_name": "Smith",
    "address_full": "Charlotte, NC 28262",
    "address_city": "Charlotte",
    "address_state": "NC",
    "address_zip": "28262",
    "address_raw": "CHARLOTTE, NC 28262",
    "business_phone": "717-526-7448",
    "license_number": "79467",
    "dba_name": null,
    "fein": null,
    "designated_home_state": null,
    "source_url": "https://sbs.naic.org/solar-external-lookup/?jurisdiction=IL&searchType=Licensee&entityType=IND&npn=2064443",
    "scraped_at": "2026-05-27T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Example: Insurance Agency License Record

{
    "npn": "9876543",
    "name": "Acme Insurance Agency LLC",
    "is_active": true,
    "status": "Active",
    "expiration_date": "2027-05-31",
    "license_type": "Insurance Producer",
    "license_type_code": "PRO",
    "lines_of_authority": [
        { "loa": "Casualty", "effective_date": "2015-03-01" },
        { "loa": "Property", "effective_date": "2015-03-01" }
    ],
    "period_start_date": "2015-03-01",
    "jurisdiction": "IL",
    "licensee_type": "Business",
    "residency": "Non-Resident",
    "first_name": null,
    "middle_name": null,
    "last_name": "Acme Insurance Agency LLC",
    "address_full": "New York, NY 10001",
    "address_city": "New York",
    "address_state": "NY",
    "address_zip": "10001",
    "address_raw": "NEW YORK, NY 10001",
    "business_phone": "212-555-0200",
    "license_number": "4321098",
    "dba_name": null,
    "fein": null,
    "designated_home_state": null,
    "source_url": "https://sbs.naic.org/solar-external-lookup/?jurisdiction=IL&searchType=Licensee&entityType=BUS&npn=9876543",
    "scraped_at": "2026-05-27T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Exporting Verification Results to Excel or CSV

After a run completes, click the Export button in the Dataset tab to download your results. Available formats: CSV, Excel, JSON, XML, and more — no additional tools needed.

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Pricing: $0.005 Per License Verification

Pay-per-event at $0.005 per license record returned. Sentinel records (NOT FOUND, NO ACTIVE LICENSE, QUERY FAILED) are charged at the same rate — you are paying for the verification, not just confirmed active licenses. Runs that produce zero output records are never charged. A typical bulk verification run of 100 NPNs costs $0.50.

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Available States: 24-State Insurance License Lookup Portfolio

AL · AK · AR · CT · DC · ID · IL · IA · KS · MO · MT · NH · NJ · NM · NC · ND · OK · OR · RI · SD · TN · VT · WV · WI

Each state has its own dedicated actor. Search the Apify Store for "NAIC SBS" followed by the two-letter state code — for example, "NAIC SBS TN" for Tennessee or "NAIC SBS NC" for North Carolina.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Insurance License Verification

How do I check if an insurance producer is licensed in Illinois? Paste the producer's NPN into the NPN List field and run the actor. The result will show their current license status, license type, lines of authority, and expiration date — sourced directly from the Illinois NAIC SBS database. For multiple producers, use the NPN Spreadsheet URL field to upload your full producer list.

What is an NPN and how do I find it? An NPN (National Producer Number) is the unique identifier assigned to every licensed insurance producer and agency by the NIPR (National Insurance Producer Registry). Find it on a producer's license certificate, in your agency management system (AMS), or by searching nipr.com. NPNs do not change when a producer moves states or updates their name.

How do I verify insurance agency licenses in Illinois? Switch the Entity Type field to "Business / Agency" and paste the agency's NPN. The actor returns the agency's license type, DBA name, and FEIN (when provided). If your list mixes individual producers and agencies — or you're not sure which an NPN is — set Entity Type to Both and the actor checks each NPN as an individual and as an agency in a single run, so you no longer need to run it twice. Note: the NAIC SBS API returns the agency's license class as its line of authority rather than individual lines (Life, Property, Casualty). To verify specific line authority, look up the individual producers appointed under that agency.

Can I verify producers licensed in multiple states at once? Each state in this portfolio has its own dedicated actor. Run them independently — you can start multiple runs simultaneously from the Apify Console — then join the results on the npn field. For example: download results from the IL and IL actors as two CSV files. In Excel, use =VLOOKUP(A2,IL_results!$A:$Z,MATCH("is_active",IL_results!$1:$1,0),FALSE) where column A contains the NPN column. Any producer with is_active=TRUE in both files is licensed in both states. Search the Apify Store for "NAIC SBS" to find actors for all 24 supported states.

What does "NOT FOUND" mean in my results? The NPN has no license record in Illinois — the producer is not currently licensed in this state. This is a confirmed compliance check result, not an error. NOT FOUND still counts toward billing at $0.005 because the verification was completed.

What does "QUERY FAILED" mean and what should I do? The actor could not reach the NAIC API for that NPN after 3 retries — usually a temporary network issue, not a problem with the producer's license. Re-run the actor with just the failed NPNs, or verify them manually at sbs.naic.org. Do not use a QUERY FAILED result to make compliance or appointment decisions.

What does "Cancelled" status mean? Cancelled is a license status returned directly by the NAIC SBS API. Like Inactive, Terminated, and Expired, it indicates the producer no longer holds an active license in this state — is_active will be false. The distinction between Cancelled, Terminated, and Surrendered is made by the state insurance department and reflected as-is from the official NAIC data.

Why does a producer appear on more than one row? A producer can hold more than one license type simultaneously — for example, both an Insurance Producer license and an Adjuster license. The actor returns one row per license (deduplicated by license number). When aggregating results, group by npn rather than counting rows.

Why does my name search return results that don't match what I searched for? The NAIC API performs a prefix match on last name and returns results in alphabetical order, capped at 25. Searching for a business name like "Allstate" returns the first 25 business names that start with that prefix — not just exact matches. For reliable lookups of a specific entity, use the NPN field.

Is this data official and legally defensible? Yes. The data comes directly from the NAIC State Based Systems public lookup — the same database used by state insurance regulators. Each record includes a source_url linking directly to the producer's page on the official NAIC SBS site — click it to verify any record in one step and cite the URL in audits, appointment files, or E&O documentation.

Is there a free alternative? The NAIC SBS website (sbs.naic.org) offers free individual lookups. This actor is for teams that need to verify dozens, hundreds, or thousands of producers in a repeatable, auditable, automated way — the manual website does not support bulk lookup or CSV export.

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Data Source: NAIC State Based Systems (Official Government Data)

NAIC State Based Systems External Lookup — the official state insurance regulator database, maintained by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Public data, no authentication required.