How to Pass the Iowa Life and Health Insurance Exams on the First Try (2026)

Iowa gives you no choice to make before you register, because there is no combined Life and Health exam. The Life exam and the Accident & Health exam are two separate exams, and a candidate who wants both lines sits both. Both are administered by Pearson VUE under contract to the Iowa Insurance Division, which retained Pearson VUE to develop and administer its insurance licensing examination program.

Item	Life	Accident & Health
Exam code	12-IA-01	12-IA-02
Scored items	77	80
Unscored pretest items	10	10
Items administered	87	90
Time limit	2 hours	2 hours
Passing score	Set by the Iowa Insurance Division	Set by the Iowa Insurance Division
Fee per attempt	$44	$44

The passing score is set by the Iowa Insurance Division, not by Pearson VUE. The Candidate Handbook says so in one sentence, "The passing score for the examination is determined by the Iowa Insurance Division," and prints no percentage. Neither Iowa Code Chapter 522B nor the Division's producer licensing rules in IAC 191-10 state a numeric passing standard either, so this guide gives none. Be wary of a pass mark quoted on a third-party exam-prep site: the one we found repeated most often could not be traced to any primary Iowa source. The pretest items are trial questions that do not count toward your result, so answer every item as if it counts.

Both exams can be taken at a Pearson VUE test center or online through OnVUE online proctoring. Online, you use your own computer in a private room while a live proctor watches through your webcam and microphone, and no unscheduled breaks are allowed. A test center does allow unscheduled breaks, but the exam clock keeps running. Read Pearson VUE's OnVUE rules ahead of time so a setup problem does not catch you on exam day.

Pearson VUE's Iowa Insurance Content Outlines, effective January 1, 2026, print the exact number of scored items in every section. Each exam has two parts: 50 items of general knowledge about the line, and a section of Iowa-specific law. Life adds 27 Iowa items for 77 scored in all, and Accident & Health adds 30 for 80.

Life exam: part and section	Items
Life general knowledge	50
I. Types of Policies (whole life, universal, variable and indexed life, term life, annuities, combination plans)	15
II. Policy Riders, Provisions, Options, and Exclusions	15
III. Completing the Application, Underwriting, and Delivering the Policy	12
IV. Retirement and Other Insurance Concepts	8
Iowa-specific law	27
I. Iowa laws, rules, and regulations common to all lines (Division powers, licensing, unfair and deceptive practices, the Iowa Insurance Fraud Act, producer responsibilities, the Guaranty Association, definitions)	15
II. Iowa laws, rules, and regulations pertinent to Life insurance only (policy replacement, disclosure and solicitation, group life insurance, individual life and annuities, suitability)	12

Accident & Health exam: part and section	Items
Accident and Health general knowledge	50
I. Types of Policies (disability income, AD&D, medical expense, Medicare supplement, group, long-term care, other)	16
II. Policy Provisions, Clauses, and Riders	15
III. Social Insurance (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security)	6
IV. Other Insurance Concepts	5
V. Field Underwriting Procedures	8
Iowa-specific law	30
I. Iowa laws, rules, and regulations common to all lines (the same subsections and citations as in the Life outline)	15
II. Iowa laws, rules, and regulations pertinent to Accident and Health insurance only (individual and group health, Medicare supplement, long-term care, the HAWK-I and HIPIOWA special programs, the Affordable Care Act, the No Surprises Act)	15

On each exam, 15 of the Iowa items cover laws common to all lines, and the rest depend on the line: 12 on Life-only law and 15 on Accident and Health-only law. The common-to-all-lines subsection is printed identically, with the same citations, in both outlines. It is not one shared section: a candidate who sits both exams meets this material on each, 15 items on Life and another 15 on Accident & Health, so 30 scored items across the two sittings. Learn it once, and expect it twice.

Every sub-topic in the Iowa sections carries its own citation printed in the outline, such as Iowa Code 522B.11 for denial, renewal and termination of licenses, Iowa Code 507B.4(3)(a)(1)-(10) for misrepresentation, Iowa Code 507E.1 through .7 for the Iowa Insurance Fraud Act and IAC 191-16.21 through .29 for life insurance replacement. Do not treat Iowa law as a short add-on at the end of your study plan.

LanePrep groups the scored items into eight content chapters plus an exam-day chapter. Chapter 1 covers the 15 common-to-all-lines items, which count on each exam. Chapters 2 to 5 cover the rest of the Life exam (15, 15, 20 and 12 items), and Chapters 6 to 8 cover the rest of the Accident & Health exam (31, 19 and 15 items). That grouping is our own arrangement of Pearson VUE's sections, not the outline's.

Iowa does not require a pre-licensing course to sit for the Life or Accident & Health producer exam. The state's statute and rules never ask for one. Iowa Code 522B.4 requires a written examination on the lines of authority applied for, the duties and responsibilities of an insurance producer, and Iowa insurance laws and regulations. Iowa Code 522B.5 then lists what must be true before an application is approved: the applicant is at least 18, has no disqualifying act under 522B.11, has paid the $50 license fee, has passed the required examinations and has "the requisite character and competence." No education requirement of any kind appears in that list.

The Division's producer licensing rules (IAC 191-10.4) repeat the same list almost word for word, and neither Iowa Code Chapter 522B nor IAC Chapter 191-10 mentions pre-licensing education at all. There is no approved-course list, no classroom-hour minimum and no exemption list to decode. The only education in those sources is continuing education after you are licensed. Pearson VUE's Candidate Handbook describes the whole path in three steps: make a reservation and pay the examination fee, take the exam, and apply for a license. There is no course step in that sequence.

Fingerprints are a separate question, and they are required. An initial resident producer license requires a fingerprint-based state and national criminal history check. The Division's fingerprinting page names Fieldprint as the vendor, and the prints are taken after you submit your NIPR application, not before the exam: the application confirmation contains the Fieldprint code you need to schedule an appointment. A licensed resident producer who renews on time is not fingerprinted again.

No requirement also means no classroom pacing you through the outline above. A course built directly from Pearson VUE's own outlines, in the same proportions the exams use, is the fastest way to replace the structure a pre-licensing class would have given you.

NAIC's compiled pass-rate data for English-language, first-time Iowa candidates shows the two exams moving in opposite directions between 2024 and 2025.

Exam	2024	2025
Life	58.4%	60.1%
Accident & Health	59.3%	54.1%

Each row combines in-person and online candidates. NAIC's 2024 workbook labels the second exam Health and its 2025 workbook labels it Accident & Health; it is the same exam under a new row label.

The Life pass rate rose 1.7 points, from 58.4 to 60.1 percent, while the Accident & Health pass rate fell 5.2 points, from 59.3 to 54.1 percent. Behind those rates are real numbers of candidates: NAIC counts 2,210 first-time Life candidates in 2024 and 2,447 in 2025, and 1,761 first-time Accident & Health candidates in 2024 and 1,692 in 2025. NAIC does not publish repeat-taker rates, so these figures describe first attempts only. Either way, a large share of first-time candidates do not pass on a given attempt. That is the baseline a real study plan has to beat.

The Candidate Handbook's rule for a retake is a wait of 24 hours before you make the reservation; reservations for reexamination are not made at the test center itself. There is no fee waiver for a retake, and the Handbook states no cap on the number of retakes.

Every attempt is a new fee, $44 for whichever exam you retake, and a retake is the whole exam again, not just the part you missed. Because Life and Accident & Health are separate exams, retaking one repeats only that exam's fee. To change or cancel an appointment without forfeiting the fee, do it at least 48 hours before the exam. Exam fees are non-refundable and non-transferable except under that change-or-cancel policy.

The LanePrep Iowa Life and Health course is nine audio chapters built from the two exams' outlines, each with its own quiz. The item counts below are LanePrep's chapter weights: how many scored items on an exam each chapter covers. The Life exam draws on Chapters 1 to 5 (15, 15, 15, 20 and 12 items, 77 in all), and the Accident & Health exam draws on Chapters 1 and 6 to 8 (15, 31, 19 and 15 items, 80 in all). Chapter 9 covers exam day and carries no scored items. The plan below is for a candidate sitting both exams.

Week 1, Iowa Law (Chapters 1, 5 and 8)

• Days 1-3: Chapter 1, Iowa Insurance Regulation and Law Common to All Lines (15 items on each exam, free)
• Days 4-5: Chapter 5, Iowa Life Insurance Law (12 items on the Life exam)
• Days 6-7: Chapter 8, Iowa Accident and Health Insurance Law (15 items on the Accident & Health exam)

Week 2, Life Insurance (Chapters 2-4, 50 items together)

• Days 8-9: Chapter 2, Life Policy Types (15 items)
• Days 10-11: Chapter 3, Life Provisions, Riders, Options and Exclusions (15 items)
• Days 12-14: Chapter 4, Life Applications, Underwriting, Delivery and Retirement Concepts (20 items)

Week 3, Accident and Health and Exam Day (Chapters 6, 7 and 9)

• Days 15-17: Chapter 6, Accident and Health Policy Types and Provisions (31 items)
• Days 18-19: Chapter 7, Social Insurance, Other Concepts and Field Underwriting (19 items)
• Day 20: Chapter 9, Exam Day (free), then a timed run through every chapter quiz in one sitting
• Day 21: Re-drill the questions you missed and re-listen to your weakest chapter
• Day 22: Rest the day before your exam

Take the chapter quiz right after each listen and write down which questions you missed. Two days later, before starting the next chapter, answer those same questions again cold. If you are testing on one line only, drop the chapters for the line you are not testing (Chapters 2-5 are Life, Chapters 6-8 are Accident and Health) and keep Chapter 1, since its 15 common-to-all-lines items appear on each exam. Chapters 1 and 9 are free at /ia/l-and-h/preview, full audio and the chapter quiz, no signup. The full course is at /ia/l-and-h.

Mixing up the 10-day free look, the 30-day replacement window and the 15-day annuity case. Under IAC 191-15.9, the owner of an individual life insurance policy or annuity has a free look of 10 days after receipt. If the transaction involved a replacement, the length is set by IAC Chapter 191-16 instead: the replacing insurer must give the owner notice of the right to return the policy or contract within 30 days of delivery for an unconditional full refund of all premiums or considerations paid (IAC 191-16.26(1)(d)). Iowa's replacement window is the longer one, the opposite of the assumption that a replacement gets the shorter window. A third length applies in one narrow case: when the Buyer's Guide or disclosure document was not provided at or before application, an annuity applicant gets a free look of no less than 15 days to return the contract without penalty (IAC 191-15.64(3)). Learn all three numbers and which situation each belongs to; the outline puts replacement (IAC 191-16.21 through .29) in the Life-only section of Iowa law.

Assuming a fixed renewal date or a carry-forward of CE credits. A producer license runs for 3 years, and the term is tied to the licensee's own birth month rather than to a fixed calendar renewal date (IAC 191-10.6(1)). Continuing education is 36 credits in each 3-year CE term, in courses approved by the Division, 3 of them in ethics (IAC 191-11.3(1)). Credits earned beyond the requirement do not carry over to the next term (IAC 191-11.3(3)). A producer may instead satisfy the whole requirement by retaking and passing the licensing exam for each qualification held (IAC 191-11.3(7)).

Thinking a lapsed license always means sitting the exam again. Iowa Code 522B.6(4) lets a producer who allows the license to lapse have the same license reinstated, within 12 months from the due date of the renewal fee, "without the necessity of passing a written examination," on payment of a reinstatement fee in addition to the required renewal fee. The reinstatement fee is $100 (IAC 191-10.26(5)) and the renewal fee is $50, so $150 in all. If a resident producer did not complete continuing education before the license expired, the Division's own page says the producer can either complete the required CE or take and pass the appropriate exams, so a new exam is an option inside the 12 months, not a requirement. Once a license has been expired for more than 12 months, passing the exam is no longer optional.

Flattening the guaranty association limits. The Iowa Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association Act (Iowa Code Chapter 508C) does not use one figure. Under Iowa Code 508C.3(5)(a), life insurance death benefits are covered up to $300,000, with no more than $100,000 of net cash surrender and withdrawal value; annuity benefits up to $250,000 in present value, including net cash surrender and withdrawal value, and $250,000 per payee of a structured settlement annuity; and health insurance in tiers: $100,000 for other health insurance benefits, $300,000 for disability income protection or long-term care insurance, and $500,000 for health benefit plans. On top of the tiers, the same subsection caps the life and annuity categories together at $350,000 per life (health benefit plans excluded) and limits one owner of multiple nongroup life policies to $5,000,000 in total, however many people are insured.

Expecting a combined Life and Health exam. Iowa has none. Life (12-IA-01) and Accident & Health (12-IA-02) are separate exams, each with its own full-weight Iowa law section, so a candidate who wants both lines pays two $44 fees and sits both exams. Because the 15 items on laws common to all lines are printed in both outlines, you will see that material again on the second exam. Budget your study time and your fees for two exams from the start.

Passing is the halfway point, not the finish line.

Bring two forms of current signature ID. The primary ID must be government-issued, with your photo and signature: a driver's license (including a U.S. Department of State one), a learner's permit (a plastic card with photo), a national, state or country ID card, a passport or passport card, a military or military dependent ID, or an Alien Registration card (Green Card). The secondary ID must bear a valid signature: a U.S. Social Security card or any item from the primary list. The name on your identification must exactly match the name on your registration, and identification must be in English. To change or cancel an appointment without forfeiting the fee, do it at least 48 hours ahead.

Both exams are given in English only. The one language accommodation is a pre-approved English as a Second Language request, which extends the time limit to 1.5 times the usual length (a 2-hour exam becomes 3 hours) and requires a letter from an instructor or employer.

You must apply for your license within 90 days of passing. Under IAC 191-10.4(4), examination results are valid for 90 days after the date of the test, and failing to apply for licensure within 90 days of passing voids them. The Candidate Handbook repeats the rule: the application process must be completed within 90 days of passing the examination. A passing result that sits unused past that point means sitting the exam again.

Resident applicants are fingerprinted through Fieldprint after the NIPR application is submitted, as part of the criminal history check for an initial resident license. The state license fee is $50 for a 3-year term (Iowa Code 522B.5; IAC 191-10.26(3)). With the $44 exam fee, that is $94 in exam and license fees for a first-attempt pass on one line, or $138 for both, before the separate fingerprinting charge. After you are licensed, renewal comes every 3 years for $50, with 36 credits of continuing education, 3 of them in ethics. For the full cost breakdown, including what a retake adds and where LanePrep fits into the budget, read our companion guide, How Much Does an Iowa Life and Health Insurance License Cost?

Exam structure, fees and the content outline come from Pearson VUE's Iowa Insurance Licensing Candidate Handbook and Iowa Insurance Content Outlines, the Iowa Insurance Division's producer licensing and fingerprinting pages, Iowa Code 507B.4, 507E, 508C.3, 522B.4, 522B.5, 522B.6 and 522B.11, IAC 191-10.4, 191-10.6, 191-10.26, 191-11.3, 191-15.9, 191-15.64 and 191-16, and NAIC compiled pass-rate data for 2024 and 2025. Read October 2026.