How to Pass the South Carolina Life & Health Exam on the First Try (2026)

South Carolina does not force every Life, Accident and Health candidate through one exam. You can sit one combined exam that covers both lines of authority, or two separate single-line exams — whichever path gets you the license you need.

The combined exam, Pearson VUE's InsSC-LAH03 (South Carolina Life, Accident and Health Insurance Producer), has 130 scored items (100 general + 30 South Carolina-specific) plus 10 unscored pretest items mixed in without being labeled — 140 items in total — in 150 minutes (2.5 hours), for $59. The two single-line exams — InsSC-Life01 (Life) and InsSC-AH02 (Accident and Health) — each have 75 scored items (50 general + 25 South Carolina-specific) plus the same 10 pretest items, 85 items total, in 120 minutes, also for $59 per attempt.

Every version is delivered by Pearson VUE, at a physical test center or through Pearson VUE's online-proctored remote-testing option — your choice, at no difference in fee.

The passing score is a scaled score of 70 on a 0-100 scale, set by the South Carolina Department of Insurance (SCDOI) and independently confirmed in S.C. Code Regs. 69-23's own "seventy (70) points" language. Scored and pretest items are mixed together without being labeled, so treat every question on the screen as if it counts.

A candidate who wants both lines of authority can sit the combined InsSC-LAH03 exam once for $59, or sit the two single-line exams separately for $59 each — $118 total. The combined exam is exactly half the price of the two-exam path, and it is also one appointment instead of two.

If you only need one line — say, you sell life insurance but never accident and health business — sit only that line's single-line exam. There is no advantage to paying for the combined exam, or studying content you will never be tested on, if you do not plan to hold both lines.

One rule to know before you choose: on the combined exam there is no partial credit. Per Pearson VUE's own candidate handbook, "For you to be licensed you must pass the complete exam, you cannot be licensed for either single line unless you pass the complete exam." Passing the Life half and failing the Accident and Health half means failing the whole combined attempt — there is no fallback credit for the half you got right.

Neither line requires a pre-licensing course. S.C. Code § 38-43-100 conditions licensure on the applicant passing "an examination" testing "knowledge of the individual concerning the lines of authority for which application is made, the duties and responsibilities of an insurance producer, and the insurance laws and regulations of this State," plus a nonrefundable examination fee — no course-of-study or classroom-hour clause appears anywhere in the section.

South Carolina used to have one. Section 38-43-105, historically the state's pre-licensing-education section, was repealed by 2008 Act No. 326, Section 16, effective June 16, 2008, and no longer appears in the current code at all — the section numbering on the official code page jumps straight from 38-43-102 to 38-43-106.

Regulation 69-23 requires only that "an applicant for licensure as a resident producer shall stand a written examination," with exemptions tied to professional designations or existing out-of-state licenses — no pre-licensing coursework clause. SCDOI's own Producer page and Pearson VUE's own candidate handbook both describe the path to licensure as exam-then-apply, with no classroom-hour prerequisite mentioned for Life, Accident and Health.

NAIC compiles first-time, English-language pass rates by state and exam. Across the two most recently compiled years:

• Combined exam (InsSC-LAH03, reported as "Life, Accident and Health Insurance Producer"): 64.6% in 2024 (299 of 463 candidates) and 56.3% in 2025 (1,960 of 3,481) — roughly 56-65 percent across the two years.
• Life (InsSC-Life01): 59.5% in 2024 (262 of 440) and 55.8% in 2025 (1,293 of 2,318) — roughly 56-60 percent.
• Accident and Health (InsSC-AH02): 51.2% in 2024 (66 of 129) and 51.9% in 2025 (392 of 755) — roughly 51-52 percent.

Read plainly: on the Accident and Health exam, roughly half of first-time candidates do not pass; on Life and on the combined exam the miss rate runs from about one in three to nearly half, depending on the year. This is not a formality to walk into unprepared.

One honest caveat belongs here. The candidate counts behind these rates differ by a wide margin between the two compiled years on every single row — far more than a normal year-to-year swing — and NAIC's own compiled workbooks do not explain why. LanePrep could not confirm from the documents available whether one year's count was undercounted or the other year reflects some other change in how the exams were classified. Treat the pass-rate ranges above, read across both years, as the honest picture — and do not read the jump in candidate counts itself as a real trend in how many people are testing.

Pearson VUE's content outline for the combined exam lists 12 sections across two portions — a General Knowledge portion and a South Carolina Specific portion — that together total exactly 130 scored items:

General Knowledge (100 scored items):

• I. Life: Types of Policies — 15 items (11.5%)
• II. Life: Policy Riders, Provisions, Options, and Exclusions — 15 items (11.5%)
• III. Life: Completing the Application, Underwriting, and Delivering the Policy — 12 items (9.2%)
• IV. Life: Retirement and Other Insurance Concepts — 8 items (6.2%)
• V. Accident & Sickness: Types of Policies — 16 items (12.3%)
• VI. Accident & Sickness: Policy Provisions, Clauses, and Riders — 15 items (11.5%)
• VII. Social Insurance — 6 items (4.6%)
• VIII. Accident and Sickness: Other Insurance Concepts — 5 items (3.8%)
• IX. Accident and Sickness: Field Underwriting Procedures — 8 items (6.2%)

South Carolina Specific (30 scored items — see the next section):

• I. South Carolina Laws and Regulations Pertinent to All Lines — 18 items (13.8%)
• II. South Carolina Laws and Regulations Pertinent to Life Insurance — 6 items (4.6%)
• III. South Carolina Laws and Regulations Pertinent to Accident & Health Insurance — 6 items (4.6%)

Four sections carry 15 items or more: Accident & Sickness: Types of Policies (16), Life: Types of Policies and Life: Policy Riders, Provisions, Options, and Exclusions (15 each), and Accident & Sickness: Policy Provisions, Clauses, and Riders (15). Add South Carolina Laws and Regulations Pertinent to All Lines (18 items, the single heaviest section on the whole exam) and those five sections alone cover 79 of the 130 scored items — well over half the exam — so that is where a study plan should spend the most time. Social Insurance and Accident and Sickness: Other Insurance Concepts, at 6 and 5 items, matter for completeness but will not decide a pass or fail on their own.

Unlike the nine general-knowledge sections, South Carolina law sits in its own block: 30 of the 130 scored items, split across three sections that each cite specific Code of Laws sections and Regulations directly in the outline text.

I. South Carolina Laws and Regulations Pertinent to All Lines (18 items) covers SCDOI's own powers and duties, general insurance definitions, the nine producer-licensing topics from initial licensure through reinstatement, ten categories of unfair and prohibited trade practices, reporting and fiduciary handling of premiums, the Life and Accident and Health Insurance Guaranty Association, and consumer information privacy — citing Title 38, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 13, 29, 43, 55, 57, and 59, plus Regulation 69-58.

II. South Carolina Laws and Regulations Pertinent to Life Insurance (6 items) covers replacement and conversion of life insurance and group/individual life policy provisions and riders — citing Title 38, Chapters 63 and 65, and Regulation 69-12.1.

III. South Carolina Laws and Regulations Pertinent to Accident & Health Insurance (6 items) covers individual and group accident and health insurance, Medicare supplement standards, and long-term care standards — citing Title 38, Chapter 71, Regulation 69-46, and Regulation 69-44.

None of this is optional reading for the general-knowledge portion plus a quick skim at the end — it is 23 percent of the scored exam on its own, concentrated enough that Chapters 7 and 8 of the LanePrep course are built around these three sections alone.

The LanePrep South Carolina course is nine audio chapters, built directly from the InsSC-LAH03 outline above, each with its own quiz.

Week 1 — Life (Chapters 1-3)

• Days 1-2: Chapter 1 — Life: Types of Policies (15 items)
• Days 3-4: Chapter 2 — Life: Policy Riders, Provisions, Options and Exclusions (15 items)
• Days 5-7: Chapter 3 — Life: Application, Underwriting and Delivery; Retirement and Other Concepts (20 items — give it the extra day)

Week 2 — Accident & Sickness (Chapters 4-6)

• Days 8-9: Chapter 4 — Accident & Sickness: Types of Policies (16 items)
• Days 10-12: Chapter 5 — Accident & Sickness: Provisions, Clauses and Riders; Social Insurance (21 items, the single largest chapter — give it the extra day)
• Days 13-14: Chapter 6 — Accident & Sickness: Other Concepts; Field Underwriting Procedures (13 items)

Week 3 — South Carolina law and exam day (Chapters 7-9)

• Days 15-17: Chapter 7 — South Carolina Laws and Regulations Pertinent to All Lines (18 items, the single heaviest section on the exam)
• Days 18-19: Chapter 8 — South Carolina Laws and Regulations Pertinent to Life Insurance and to Accident & Health Insurance (12 items)
• Day 20: Chapter 9 — Exam Day: Pearson VUE, Scoring and Strategy, then a timed run through every chapter quiz in one sitting
• Day 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 which questions you missed; two days later, before starting the next chapter, answer those same questions again. That short loop is where the retention comes from — listening alone feels productive but does not test what actually stuck. Chapters 1 and 9 are free at /sc/l-and-h/preview — full audio and the chapter quiz, no signup.

If you do not pass, South Carolina requires a 24-hour wait before you can schedule a reexamination. Each exam — combined or single-line — may be taken only six times in a one-year period. Use the wait — re-read your score report, note which sections you missed, and re-listen to the matching chapters before you rebook.

A passed exam result stays valid for one year. Once you pass, you can file your license application 48 hours after your exam, which is how long it takes your result to upload to NIPR.

Passing the exam is one step, not the whole process. For what happens next — fingerprinting, the license application, and what everything costs — see how much a South Carolina Life & Health license costs.

Exam structure, fees and the content outline come from Pearson VUE's South Carolina Insurance Licensing Candidate Handbook and the South Carolina Insurance Supplement — Examination Content Outlines (effective September 15, 2026). Pre-licensing status from S.C. Code § 38-43-100 and S.C. Code Regs. 69-23. Pass rates from the NAIC 2024 and 2025 compiled pass-rate reports. Read October 2026.