The life and health exam is generally considered more approachable than the P&C exam, and that reputation causes its own problem: candidates under-prepare, then discover that the taxation, annuity, and Medicare sections are genuinely demanding.
This is a plan built around where the difficulty actually lives.
Quick answer: Study 35–55 hours over five weeks. Weight your time toward policy provisions and options, taxation, annuities, Medicare, and state law. Build your own comparison tables. Take three full-length timed practice exams and do not sit until you are consistently above 80%.
Register for the exam before you begin studying. An open-ended plan expands to fill available time; a fixed date creates a schedule.
Five to six weeks out is right for most working candidates.
General section — life insurance, health insurance, annuities, and the principles underlying them. Rewards understanding.
State section — your state's insurance code: licensing, producer duties, replacement rules, free look periods, unfair trade practices, and mandated provisions. Rewards memorization.
Study them differently. Comprehension does not help with a statutory notice period.
Verify your state's question count, time limit, and passing score — they vary. See our state insurance licensing pages and the life and health licensing FAQ.
The instinct is to spend most of your time on policy types — term, whole life, universal life — because that is where courses begin. That is the easiest section on the exam.
For a deeper breakdown, see life insurance exam: hardest topics and most common life insurance exam topics.
Week 1 — Life insurance fundamentals. Contract law, insurable interest, underwriting, and the policy types: term, whole life, universal life, variable life. Build vocabulary using our life and health insurance glossary.
Week 2 — Provisions, options, and riders. The highest-yield week. Standard provisions, then the three option families — dividend, nonforfeiture, settlement — then riders.
Week 3 — Annuities and taxation. Accumulation vs. annuitization, fixed vs. indexed vs. variable, payout options, surrender charges, and the exclusion ratio. Then policy taxation: death benefits, cash value, loans, surrenders, MECs, and the 7-pay test.
Week 4 — Health insurance. Medical expense plan types, disability income definitions and elimination periods, long-term care benefit triggers, Medicare Parts A–D and Medicare Supplement, group health, HSAs, and COBRA continuation.
Week 5 — State law and practice exams. Flashcards for state-specific rules, then three full-length timed exams with thorough review.
See how to study for the life and health exam and the best insurance exam study schedule.
Making the table is the learning. Building these from scratch and reproducing them weekly is the highest-return study activity on this exam.
The three option families. One table, three columns:
Most candidates who miss these know the individual options and attach them to the wrong family under pressure.
Riders — trigger and payout. For each rider, one sentence: what triggers it, and what does it pay?
Medicare Parts A, B, C, D. What each covers, who is eligible, how it is funded, and how Medicare Supplement interacts.
Disability definitions. Own occupation vs. any occupation vs. modified own occupation, plus elimination and benefit periods.
Taxation defaults and exceptions. Death benefit, cash value growth, policy loan, surrender, MEC distribution — the default rule for each and the exception that changes it.
Our flashcard method for insurance terms covers technique.
Question banks build knowledge. Full-length exams build stamina, pacing, and — most importantly — diagnostic data.
Take at least three under real conditions: timed, one sitting, no notes, no phone.
Review twice as long as you test. Go through every miss and every uncertain correct answer. A question you got right by elimination is a question you do not know.
See practice exams: what actually helps.
Move the exam rather than sitting underprepared. Rescheduling costs less than a retake.
See life and health insurance exam pass rate and how hard is the life and health insurance exam.
Full walkthrough: P&C insurance exam: what to expect on test day — the test-day logistics are the same for life and health.
Common First-Attempt Failures
See 8 insurance exam study mistakes that guarantee failure.
In most states, yes. The general content overlaps substantially — contract law, producer duties, underwriting principles, state regulation — so the combined exam costs far less than double the study time, and it doubles what you can sell.
See health insurance vs. life insurance license: which to get first and how to get a health insurance license.
Thirty-five to fifty-five hours over five weeks for the combined life and health exam.
Most candidates say yes. See life and health exam vs. P&C exam.
Policy provisions and options, taxation, and Medicare, in most candidates' experience.
Required in many states, recommended in all. See life and health insurance license courses.
Retake after any required waiting period, using your score report to target weak sections. See what to do if you fail your exam.
Weight your study toward provisions, taxation, annuities, and Medicare, build your own tables, and take real practice exams.
Start with life and health insurance license courses or insurance pre-licensing courses.
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