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

The Pennsylvania Life, Accident & Health exam is moderately hard, and harder than a pass rate in the low 60s might suggest. NAIC compiled data puts the first-time pass rate for the combined Life, Accident and Health exam (Series 16-03) at 61-65% across 2024 and 2025. Most first-time candidates pass, but a large minority does not.

It is not hard because any one idea is difficult. It is hard because the exam is long (150 scored questions in 170 minutes), broad (life insurance and health insurance in one sitting) and because Pennsylvania law is woven through the whole exam instead of sitting in one block you can memorise and set aside.

With focused preparation, most candidates pass. Without it, the numbers below apply to you.

The figures below come from the NAIC compiled pass-rate workbooks for English-language exams and count first-time candidates only.

Year	First-time candidates (16-03)	Pass rate
2024	4,762	64.5%
2025	5,035	61.1% (in person 61.2%, remote 60.9%)

Two things stand out. The rate slipped between the two years, and remote testing made no real difference: in-person and remote candidates passed at almost the same rate in 2025. Repeat-taker pass rates are not published, so we will not quote one.

The separate Life-only exam (16-01) is the harder comparison point: 3,653 first-time candidates in 2024 and 4,586 in 2025, passing at about 55%. Across both exams, roughly 9,600 unique first-time Life and Health candidates sit in Pennsylvania in a year.

Format and time. The exam has 150 scored questions plus 5-10 unscored experimental items, with 170 minutes on the clock. You cannot tell which items are unscored, so every question has to be treated as live.

A strict line. The passing score is 70% correct, a raw percentage. There is no scaling to rescue a weak section.

Breadth. The content outline (Series 16-03) has thirteen sections. Insurance Regulation alone carries 21%, Life, Accident and Health Basics 14%, Life Policy Provisions, Options and Riders 13%, Annuities 9%, and Types of Life Insurance Policies 8%. The health side adds individual A&H provisions, disability income, medical plans, group health, dental and the Medicare, Medigap and long-term care block.

State law everywhere. Pennsylvania-specific law is woven through sections 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12 rather than sitting in one state block. A question about a policy provision, a mandated benefit or a replacement can quietly be a Pennsylvania statute question. National study material that stays generic leaves you exposed on exactly those items.

The published data tells us who struggles at the level of exams, not individuals: Life-only candidates pass noticeably less often than the combined exam, and the combined exam's rate moved down in 2025. Beyond that, the reasons below are our reading of the pattern, not a reported statistic.

• Memorising definitions without applying them. The exam asks what happens in a situation, not what a word means.
• Treating the regulation block as an afterthought. It is the largest section at 21%, and its statutes are the part generic material gets wrong.
• Underestimating the health half. Candidates with life experience often assume the health sections will be easy and lose marks to provisions, mandated benefits and Medigap rules.
• Running short of time or stamina. 170 minutes is long, and fatigue costs marks late in the sitting.

Weight your hours by the outline, not by how comfortable a topic feels. Start with Insurance Regulation (21%), then the life policy sections, then the health and senior sections. Treat the Pennsylvania rules your course covers, such as licensing, replacement and mandated benefits, as questions to answer rather than lists to read.

Listen to the audio lessons on the commute so the vocabulary is automatic, then spend your desk time on questions. Every wrong answer should send you back to the rule it tested.

Our step-by-step plan is in how to pass the Pennsylvania L&H exam on the first try. To see how the course works before you commit, open the free preview, or try the free practice questions. If you do not pass, the retake rules are next.