Is the North Carolina Life & Health Exam Hard? Pass Rates and Difficulty (2026)

The North Carolina Life, Accident & Health exams are moderately hard, and the Life exam is the harder of the two. In 2025, 51.0% of first-time Life candidates passed and 60.8% of first-time Accident & Health candidates passed. Roughly one Life candidate in two fails the first attempt.

That is not a reason to worry, but it is a reason to prepare on purpose. The questions are not tricks. The exams are broad, they mix general insurance knowledge with North Carolina law in a single sitting, and a scaled score of 70 leaves limited room for a weak section.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners compiles first-time pass rates for English-language candidates. For North Carolina they read:

Read it as a range: 51-55% for Life and 61-63% for Accident & Health. Both exams slipped slightly from 2024 to 2025, and in both years the Life exam had the lower pass rate. Roughly 7,700 people a year sit the Life exam for the first time, which tells you that nearly everyone who wants a Life & Health license goes through it.

One limit on these numbers: they cover first-time candidates only. North Carolina does not publish a pass rate for people retaking an exam, so there is no second-attempt figure to lean on.

There is no single killer topic. Difficulty comes from four things stacked together.

• Two exams, not one. The Life Agent exam and the Accident and Health or Sickness Agent exam are separate. There is no combined Life & Health exam, so a candidate who wants both lines sits both, each with its own 75-minute limit and its own $45 fee.
• A fixed scaled score. Each exam has 55 scored questions and up to five unscored pretest questions, and you need a scaled score of 70 on a 0-100 scale. That is not a count of right answers, and the pretest items are not marked, so you cannot tally your result while you test.
• State law in the same sitting. General content and North Carolina content are scored together. On the Life exam, 14 of the 55 scored items cover North Carolina statutes and regulations; on the Accident & Health exam it is also 14 of the 55. Licensing, the Commissioner, unfair trade practices, privacy under Article 39, replacement and rebating all live there.
• Breadth on the health side. The Accident & Health exam gives 22 items to policy types: disability income, basic medical, major medical, comprehensive, hospital indemnity and managed care. Many candidates know one of these well and the rest only loosely.

The state does not publish data on who fails, so nobody can honestly give you a profile. What the shape of the exam suggests:

• Candidates who skip the state-law section. Fourteen items on each exam come from North Carolina statutes, and a general national text covers them thinly.
• Candidates who memorise terms without applying them. Many questions describe a client and ask which provision, option or policy fits. Knowing a definition is not the same as spotting it in a scenario.
• Candidates who treat the second exam as an afterthought. Passing Life does not carry over; Accident & Health has its own outline and its own passing standard.
• Candidates who do not study at all. Pre-licensing education is no longer required, so no classroom stands between you and the exam. Preparation is now entirely your own choice, and the pass rates show what happens to a large share of first attempts.

A plan that matches the exam outline works better than reading everything once.

1. Weight your time by the outline. For Life that means types of individual life insurance (17 items) first, then North Carolina law (14), policy provisions and riders (11), other life topics (8) and annuities (5). For Accident & Health it means policy types (22), then North Carolina law (14), then provisions (11) and other topics (8).
2. Listen first, then test. Audio lessons are a good way to put terms in your head on a commute; then answer practice questions to see whether you can apply them.
3. Review every miss. Read the explanation, not just the letter. The same few ideas, such as grace periods, renewability, replacement and rebating, come back in different clothes.
4. Do state law last and again. Take the North Carolina questions in the final days so they stay fresh.

Our pass-first-try guide turns this into a schedule, and the format guide lays out the sections in detail.

Start with a topic you expect to be weak. The North Carolina Life & Health course preview lets you hear a lesson and try questions before you decide anything, and the free practice question hub lists every topic set. If you want the money side of the plan, the license cost guide shows what each attempt costs.