How to Pass the Pennsylvania Property & Casualty Exam on Your First Try (2026)

The Pennsylvania Property and Casualty examination (PSI Series 16-06) is one combined test delivered by PSI Services at its test centers and by remote proctoring. It has 150 scored multiple-choice questions and you get 170 minutes to answer them — about 68 seconds per question, which is tighter than it sounds once you count the questions you flag and come back to.

The passing score is 70% raw, so 105 correct answers out of 150 is a pass. PSI may add 5 to 10 unscored experimental questions to your exam; the time to answer them is built into the 170 minutes, you will not be told which ones they are, and they do not count toward your result. A question that seems to come from nowhere may simply be a trial item. Answer it and move on.

Because the exam covers both the Property content and the Casualty content, a single pass supports an application for both lines of authority. Pennsylvania also offers the two halves on their own — Property and Allied Lines (Series 16-04) and Casualty and Allied Lines (Series 16-05), 100 questions each in 120 minutes at $45 — but the combined exam costs $55, and the PSI bulletin is explicit that it "combines the content of the single-line examinations; you must pass the overall examination." The single-line exams carry almost no volume — 10 to 40 candidates a year — because most candidates who intend to sell both lines take the combined exam once.

For years Pennsylvania required applicants to complete a pre-licensing education course before they could sit the producer exam. Act 142 of 2024 removed that requirement, and the change took effect on April 29, 2025, for every license line including property and casualty. The Pennsylvania Insurance Department's licensing process page states it plainly.

In practice that means you can create a PSI account, pay the $55 and sit the Series 16-06 exam as soon as you are ready. The exam has not become easier; the pass rates below make that clear. What changed is that you now decide how to prepare, instead of paying for a seat-time requirement.

If a study guide or provider still tells you that a pre-licensing course is required before you can take the Pennsylvania property and casualty exam, that information is out of date. The PID licensing process page and Act 142 of 2024 are the primary sources.

The NAIC compiles pass rates for every state's producer exams. For first-time candidates on the English-language Pennsylvania Property and Casualty exam (Series 16-06):

• 2024: 54.0% — 2,248 first-time candidates (886 in person, 1,362 remote)
• 2025: 53.4% — 2,455 first-time candidates (1,500 in person, 955 remote)

Close to half of everyone who walks in for the first time fails. The exam is not a formality, and it is harder than it looks next to the companion Pennsylvania Life & Health exam, which passes 61–65% of first-timers. Pennsylvania does not publish repeat-taker pass rates, so there is no second-attempt figure to quote.

The cheapest path through this exam is to treat the first attempt as the only one. Every retake costs the $55 PSI fee again, plus the days until a new seat and the weeks you are not yet licensed. The full cost breakdown shows what a retake does to the total.

PSI publishes a content outline for Series 16-06. It lists thirteen sections with a percentage weight and an item count for each, out of 150 scored items.

• Insurance Regulation: 20% (30 questions)
• General Insurance Concepts: 8% (12)
• Property and Casualty Insurance Basics: 14% (21)
• Dwelling Policy Concepts: 4% (6)
• Homeowners Policy Concepts: 7% (10–11)
• Personal Automobile Policy: 10% (15)
• Commercial Automobile Policy: 5% (7–8)
• Commercial Property Policies: 7% (10–11)
• Commercial General Liability: 7% (10–11)
• Commercial Crime: 2% (3)
• Businessowners Policy, Property: 3% (4–5)
• Workers' Compensation Insurance: 5% (7–8)
• Other Types of Property and Casualty Insurance: 8% (12)

Read the list as three blocks. Insurance Regulation alone is the largest section at 30 questions. Regulation and P&C Basics together are 34% of the exam, roughly 51 questions. The personal and commercial lines sections — Dwelling, Homeowners, Personal Auto, Commercial Auto, Commercial Property, Commercial General Liability, Commercial Crime and Businessowners — add up to 46%. Workers' Compensation and Other P&C close the outline at 13%.

One feature of the Pennsylvania outline catches candidates who have only studied generic national material: Pennsylvania law is not a separate section. It is woven into Insurance Regulation, P&C Basics and the policy sections — the Unfair Insurance Practices Act (40 P.S. §§1171.1–.11), the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law (75 Pa.C.S. Ch. 17), the Workers' Compensation Act (Title 77), the FAIR Plan (40 P.S. §§1600.101–.103) and the cancellation and nonrenewal rules (40 P.S. §1171.5(a)(9), 31 Pa. Code Ch. 59). Those rules have to be learned alongside the general material, not left for the end.

Most of this material is conceptual. You do not need diagrams to understand how a coinsurance clause works or what makes a cancellation improper; you need a clear explanation you can hear more than once. That is why the LanePrep Pennsylvania course is nine audio chapters, built chapter by chapter from the Series 16-06 outline, each with a quiz. A commute, a walk or a workout becomes study time, and a chapter you missed can be replayed at the same cost as the first listen.

Three weeks of about an hour a day is enough for most working candidates. The course allocates its chapters by exam weight, so the plan below spends the most days where the most questions are.

Week 1 — Core concepts and personal lines (Chapters 1–3)

• Days 1–3: Chapter 1 — General Insurance Concepts & Property and Casualty Basics (33 of the 150 questions map here)
• Days 4–5: Chapter 2 — Dwelling & Homeowners Policy Concepts (16–17 questions)
• Days 6–7: Chapter 3 — Personal Automobile Policy (15 questions), then re-listen to whatever you got wrong on the quizzes

Week 2 — Commercial lines (Chapters 4–6)

• Days 8–10: Chapter 4 — Commercial Property, Businessowners & Commercial Crime (17–19 questions)
• Days 11–12: Chapter 5 — Commercial General Liability & Commercial Automobile (17–19 questions)
• Days 13–14: Chapter 6 — Workers' Compensation & Other P&C Lines (19–20 questions)

Week 3 — Pennsylvania regulation and law, then the exam itself (Chapters 7–9)

• Days 15–17: Chapter 7 — Pennsylvania Insurance Regulation & Producer Law (30 questions, the largest single section — give it the full three days)
• Day 18: Chapter 8 — Pennsylvania P&C Law: the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law and tort option, cancellation and nonrenewal, the FAIR Plan and the Workers' Compensation Act
• Day 19: Chapter 9 — Exam Day, then a timed run through every chapter quiz in one sitting
• Days 20–21: Re-drill the questions you missed, re-listen to the weakest chapter, and rest the day before

Take the chapter quiz after each listen and write down the question numbers you missed. Two days later, before the next chapter, answer those again. That short loop is where most of the retention comes from; listening alone feels productive but does not test whether anything stuck. When the chapters are done, the timed practice exam tells you whether you are at 70% across the whole outline or only in the chapters you like.

Chapters 1 and 9 are free at /pa/p-and-c/preview — the full audio and the quiz, no signup. Chapter 9 is the one to listen to first if you have already studied elsewhere and only want to check the format before you book.

If you fail. There is no limit on the number of attempts, and a retake can be booked for the next day. Use the diagnostic breakdown on your score report to decide how long to wait. If you were close, two focused weeks on the sections you missed is usually enough; if you were far off, go back through the plan above.

Where to test. You can test at a PSI test center or by remote proctoring; in 2025, 1,500 first-timers tested in person and 955 remotely, out of 2,455 total. Pick the one where you will be least distracted.

Language. The exam is offered in English only. Candidates whose primary language is not English can request time and a half with a letter — arrange that before you book, not on the day.

After a pass, the application goes to the Pennsylvania Insurance Department with a $55 application fee and an online service fee of about $12.50, and fingerprints are taken at an IdentoGO center as part of the background check. The full cost breakdown covers every number.

Exam format and fees come from the PSI Candidate Information Booklet (effective January 22, 2026) and the PSI Series 16-06 content outline (in force March 1, 2026); pass rates from the NAIC compiled pass-rate reports for 2024 and 2025. Read October 2026.