How Many Questions Are on the North Carolina Life & Health Exam? Format, Time Limit and Passing Score (2026)

A North Carolina Life & Health license takes two separate exams, both delivered by Pearson VUE. There is no combined Life & Health exam; a candidate who wants both lines sits both.

General insurance content and North Carolina content appear in one sitting and are scored together. Both exams are given in English.

Each exam has 55 scored questions. Up to five more are unscored pretest questions: items the testing vendor is trying out for future exams. They look like the scored questions and you cannot tell which is which, so treat every question as if it counts.

The practical lesson is simple. Do not spend extra time on a strange question hoping it is a pretest item.

The passing standard is a scaled score of 70 on a 0-100 scale. It is not a percentage of questions answered correctly and it is not a raw count. A scaled score converts your performance onto a common scale so that versions of the exam with slightly different difficulty are held to the same standard.

So you cannot work out in your head how many you can miss. Aim to be solid in every section instead of gambling on a target count.

The content outline for the Life Agent exam (Pearson VUE outline effective 2026-03-02) divides the 55 scored items like this:

• I. Types of Individual Life Insurance: 17 items
• II. Annuities: 5 items
• III. Life Insurance Policy Provisions, Options and Riders: 11 items
• IV. Other Life Topics: 8 items
• V. North Carolina Statutes and Regulations Pertinent to Life: 14 items

The largest block is policy types, but the North Carolina law section is the second largest and the one generic books cover worst.

The Accident and Health or Sickness Agent exam also has 55 scored items:

• I. Accident and Health Insurance Policies: 22 items, made up of disability income (7), basic medical (2), major medical (6), comprehensive (1), hospital indemnity (1) and managed care (5)
• II. Accident and Health Insurance Policy Provisions: 11 items
• III. Other Accident and Health Topics: 8 items
• IV. North Carolina Statutes and Regulations Pertinent to A&H: 14 items

Within the first section, disability income and major medical are the two largest named parts, so they deserve the most study time.

Pace yourself against the 75 minutes by checking the clock at a few fixed points rather than after every question, and come back to any question you are unsure of if time allows. Prepare by section: a practice set on one outline section at a time shows you exactly where your score would fall short.

For the real-world difficulty behind the numbers, see how hard the exam is, and for what happens after a miss, read the retake rules.

Try the North Carolina Life & Health course preview to hear how each outline section is taught, then work through the topic sets in the free practice question hub.