Failed the California Life & Health Exam? Retake Rules, Waiting Periods and Fees (2026)

If you fail the California Life, Accident and Health exam, you can retake it. There is no mandatory waiting period between attempts. The limit is 10 attempts of the same exam type in a 12-month period, set by Insurance Code §1682. After the 10th failure, you are barred from that exam type for 12 months.

A pass is valid for one year (§1676(a)), so you have a year from passing to get the license application done.

Because there is no waiting period, you can book your next attempt as soon as PSI has a seat. Nothing in the rules makes you wait a day, a week or a month.

The cap counts attempts of the same exam type. Ten attempts is a high ceiling. The practical limit is your budget and your preparation, not the rule.

The CDI exam fee is $55 (one fee covers the Life and A&H types combined) and PSI charges a $43 convenience fee when you test at a PSI center or remotely. At the CDI test center in Los Angeles, the convenience fee is $0. So plan on about $98 for a sitting at a PSI center or remote session, and $55 at the CDI Los Angeles site.

If you pass, the result stands for one year. If you do not, nothing carries over except what you learned, so it pays to treat each sitting as the real thing and not as a trial run.

Rescheduling or cancelling is free if you do it at least two business days before the appointment. A late change or a no-show forfeits the fee, which is an expensive way to lose money.

In 2025, 43% of repeat candidates passed the combined exam (2,899 of 6,679), compared with 60% of first-timers. The state data does not say why. What it does say is that the ability to retake immediately is not the same as being ready to.

The A&H-only exam is friendlier on retakes, with a 53% repeat pass rate, but it covers only the health side.

Use the score report. A failing report shows how many questions you answered correctly. Against a 60% raw pass mark (90 of 150), you can see whether you missed by a few questions or by many, and that decides whether you need a tune-up or a rebuild.

Find the weak block before you rebook. Go through the objectives weights in our format guide and be honest about which blocks cost you. Medical expense and senior health products on the health side, and policy types, the individual contract and annuities on the life side, are where the questions are.

Change how you study, not just how long. If you read the material the first time, switch to questions and audio. If you drilled questions, go back to the explanations and learn why each wrong option is wrong. Repeating the same method tends to repeat the same score.

Practise in the exam format. Do topic sets, then a mixed set, then time yourself at about 78 seconds a question. The practice question hub lists them all.

Rebook when the practice scores justify it. There is no rule forcing you to wait, so let your results decide, not the calendar. For more on avoiding a second fail, read how hard the exam really is and how to pass on the first try.

If you want a structured restart, start with the free first chapter.