A combined life and health insurance exam usually contains between 130 and 165 multiple-choice questions. If your state splits the two subjects into separate tests, each one typically runs 55 to 100 questions. Every state writes its own exam, so the precise count depends on where you’re getting licensed, but the ranges are consistent nationwide.
Combined Exams: 130 to 165 Questions
States that offer a single combined life and health test generally land in the 130-to-165 range. Florida’s combined exam has 150 scored questions plus 15 unscored pretest items, totaling 165. California and New York each use 150 questions. The count you see when you sit down is the count for your state’s version, and it will fall inside that band unless your jurisdiction is an outlier.
Separate Life or Health Exams: 55 to 100 Questions
Many states license life and health as two distinct lines of authority, with a separate exam for each. Those tests are shorter, usually somewhere between 55 and 100 questions apiece. Taking both back-to-back in a split-exam state generally adds up to fewer total questions than a single combined exam in another state, though the subject matter covered is comparable.
Pretest Questions You Don’t Know Are Pretest Questions
Part of every exam is made up of unscored “pretest” or “experimental” items the testing provider is evaluating for future use. These typically add 5 to 15 extra questions on top of the scored ones. You aren’t told which questions are unscored, so treat every one as if it counts. Testing providers confirm that the time needed for pretest questions is already built into the overall time limit.
How Long You Have to Answer Them
Time limits scale with question count. Combined life and health exams generally allow between two and a half and three hours. Separate life-only or health-only exams typically give you about 105 minutes to two hours. Most prepared candidates finish with time to spare, but scenario-based questions can drain the clock if you let them.
Most testing platforms let you flag questions and return to them before submitting. Use that feature. If a question is chewing through your time, mark it and move on. Fresh eyes after the easier questions often make the hard ones click.
What the Questions Cover
Although each state writes its own outline, the subject areas overlap heavily because the underlying insurance products and federal regulations are the same everywhere. Four broad categories account for the bulk of the questions.
Life Insurance
Questions in this section test how life insurance products work: the differences between term, whole, universal, and variable life; premium structure; cash value growth; and how death benefits are paid. Underwriting basics, risk classification, and common riders such as accidental death benefit and waiver of premium appear frequently. Taxation is a staple, including the income-tax treatment of death benefits, policy loans, and surrenders. Beneficiary designations round out the section.
Health Insurance
Health questions cover individual and group plans, managed care models, and government programs. You should know how HMOs, PPOs, EPOs, and POS plans differ, along with cost-sharing mechanics like deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance. Federal law drives a significant chunk here. The Affordable Care Act requires non-grandfathered plans in the individual and small group markets to cover essential health benefits in ten categories, including hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health services, prescription drugs, and preventive care.1Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Information on Essential Health Benefits (EHB) Benchmark Plans Health savings accounts, flexible spending accounts, disability income insurance, long-term care insurance, Medicare and Medicaid eligibility, and coordination of benefits all show up.
Policy Provisions
This section focuses on standard clauses inside life and health contracts. For life, know the incontestability period (typically two years, after which the insurer generally cannot void the policy for misstatements on the application), grace periods, reinstatement requirements, and misstatement-of-age adjustments. Assignment provisions and the difference between revocable and irrevocable beneficiaries come up often. On the health side, expect questions about coordination of benefits, renewability provisions (guaranteed renewable versus non-cancelable), and how pre-existing condition clauses have been affected by federal law. These questions tend to be scenario-based, so memorizing definitions alone won’t cut it.
Regulations and Ethics
A meaningful percentage of every exam is devoted to regulatory compliance: licensing requirements, continuing education obligations, and ethical sales practices. You need to recognize prohibited conduct, particularly misrepresentation, rebating, and twisting. Twisting is when an agent persuades a client to replace an existing policy with one from a different carrier that offers similar or worse benefits. Churning is the same tactic using a policy from the same carrier. Both are serious violations. Privacy regulations are tested, with HIPAA appearing on virtually every state’s exam outline.2Pearson VUE. Florida Insurance Examination Content Outlines Effective January 1, 2026 Anti-money laundering rules, fraud prevention, and the role of state guaranty associations also appear.
Passing Score
Most states require a score of 70% to pass, though a handful set the bar slightly higher. Because exams include unscored pretest questions, your percentage is calculated only on the scored items. On a test with 150 scored questions and a 70% threshold, you need at least 105 correct answers.
Some states report results as a scaled score rather than a raw percentage. Scaled scoring converts your number of correct answers onto a standardized scale so candidates who take different versions of the exam are held to the same standard. A passing threshold expressed as 70 on a 0-to-100 scale represents the difficulty-adjusted equivalent of the minimum competency level, not a simple 70-out-of-100 count.
Scores are usually shown on screen immediately after you submit. Most testing providers also give you a breakdown by subject category, which is invaluable if you need to retake.
How Often People Pass on the First Try
The exam is harder than many candidates expect. Nationally published data from 2021 shows first-attempt pass rates of roughly 62% for the life exam, 63% for the health exam, and 65% for the combined life and health exam. About one in three test-takers fails on the first try. Most failures come from underestimating the regulatory and policy-provisions sections, which together can account for a third or more of the questions.
If You Have to Retake It
Failing doesn’t end your path to licensure, but retake rules vary by state. Most states allow you to retake the exam after a short waiting period, commonly 24 to 72 hours for your first couple of failures. After repeated failures, the waiting periods can escalate significantly. Some states impose a 90-day wait after two or three failures, and a 180-day wait after four or more. You pay the full exam fee for every retake. A few states also cap the number of attempts within a given window or require additional pre-licensing education hours after a certain number of failures.
Before your retake, use the score report to diagnose exactly where you fell short. Spreading study time evenly across every topic is one of the most common mistakes candidates make after a failure. Focus on the weak spots the report identifies.