"What is on the insurance exam?" deserves a better answer than a table of contents. Every state builds its exam from a published content outline, and while the exact weightings differ, the shape is remarkably consistent. Below is how our 940-question bank - written against those published outlines and reviewed by working insurance professionals - distributes across the subject areas for each line, which is a fair proxy for where the exam spends its questions.
Life insurance: 276 questions across 22 subject areas
| Subject area | Questions in our bank | Share |
|---|---|---|
| State Insurance Law | 36 | 13% |
| Policy Provisions & Options | 34 | 12% |
| Types of Life Policies | 22 | 8% |
| Beneficiaries & Settlements | 16 | 6% |
| Underwriting & Risk | 16 | 6% |
| Business Uses of Life Insurance | 15 | 5% |
| Taxation of Life Insurance | 14 | 5% |
| Ethics & Regulations | 14 | 5% |
| Annuities | 13 | 5% |
| Group Life Insurance | 12 | 4% |
| General Principles & Contract Law | 12 | 4% |
| Advanced Taxation (1035, MEC, Annuities) | 12 | 4% |
Policy provisions, riders and options is the single heaviest area, and general contract law underpins a large share of the rest - insurable interest, representations versus warranties, the consequences of a contract of adhesion. Notice the state-law block: 36 questions, because every state reserves a meaningful part of its life exam for its own insurance code.
Health insurance: 280 questions across 20 subject areas
| Subject area | Questions in our bank | Share |
|---|---|---|
| State Insurance Law | 40 | 14% |
| Policy Provisions | 32 | 11% |
| Group Health Insurance | 19 | 7% |
| Types of Health Policies | 18 | 6% |
| Medicare & Medicaid | 18 | 6% |
| Disability Income Insurance | 17 | 6% |
| Affordable Care Act | 17 | 6% |
| Managed Care (HMO/PPO/POS) | 14 | 5% |
| Uniform Policy Provisions | 14 | 5% |
| Medical Expense Insurance | 13 | 5% |
| Medicare Supplement & Advantage | 12 | 4% |
| General Principles & Contract Law | 10 | 4% |
Health exams punish imprecision more than life exams do, because so much of the material is defined by numbers and timelines: elimination periods, COBRA continuation windows, Medicare enrolment periods, coordination-of-benefits rules. The distinction between guaranteed renewable and noncancellable - one word apart in effect - reliably appears.
Property & casualty: 384 questions across 37 subject areas
| Subject area | Questions in our bank | Share |
|---|---|---|
| State Insurance Law | 54 | 14% |
| Liability Insurance | 38 | 10% |
| Commercial Insurance | 32 | 8% |
| Auto Insurance | 23 | 6% |
| Homeowners Insurance | 17 | 4% |
| Policy Provisions & Conditions | 16 | 4% |
| Claims Process | 14 | 4% |
| Professional Liability | 13 | 3% |
| Commercial Auto | 11 | 3% |
| Workers Compensation | 11 | 3% |
| Businessowners Policy (BOP) | 10 | 3% |
| Dwelling Policy (DP Forms) | 10 | 3% |
P&C is the broadest of the three lines, which is why its exams are the longest. Liability concepts and commercial lines carry serious weight, and personal auto is guaranteed territory. State law is the largest single block at 54 questions, reflecting how heavily states test their own auto liability minimums, cancellation and non-renewal notice rules, and residual-market mechanisms.
The part every generic study guide gets wrong
Across all three lines, the state-law slice is the most predictable material on the exam and the worst-covered by national courses. Real exams reserve a substantial share of questions for it - roughly a quarter on many two-part exams - which is why a state-specific practice test here reserves about the same proportion. If you prepare with a generic national bank, you are optimising for the easier three-quarters and leaving the most learnable quarter to chance.
How to use a topic breakdown properly
- **Do not study in table order.** Study in weakness order - take a full mock, read the topic breakdown on your results, and start with the lowest bar.
- **Weight your time by exam weight.** An hour on a 15%-weighted area is worth more than an hour on a 2% one.
- **Treat state law as its own subject.** It is the most concrete, most memorisable, and most frequently skipped material on the paper.
- **Drill, then re-test.** Our results pages build a focused quiz from your weakest topics in one click, and every question you miss goes into a mistakes deck that keeps resurfacing until you get it right.
Our topic list follows the published exam content outlines; the question counts are the live composition of the bank at the time of writing and shift as it grows. For your state's exact exam length, time limit and passing score, open your state's practice page. How we verify content: Sources & Updates.