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

Tennessee does not issue a single Life & Health exam. To hold both lines of authority you sit two separate Pearson VUE exams: the Life Agent exam and the Accident and Health Agent exam. Each delivers 68 scored questions (50 general-knowledge items plus 18 Tennessee-specific items) and 9 unscored pretest questions (5 general-knowledge, 4 state-specific) mixed in without being labeled — 77 items in total per sitting. There is no way to tell a pretest question from a scored one, so the practical move is to answer every item as if it counts.

Passing is a scaled score of 70, not a raw percentage and not a fixed count of correct answers. Each exam costs $55 per attempt at a physical test center, and the general-knowledge and Tennessee-specific content are sat together in one sitting and scored together: there is no separate passing mark for the state-law portion.

Both exams are administered by Pearson VUE. Because the two lines are tested separately, a candidate who wants both has to pass both — there is no combined exam and no discount for sitting two test-center sessions back to back. You have 1 hour 45 minutes (105 minutes) on the clock for each exam.

Tennessee offers a second way to sit both exams: OnVUE, Pearson VUE's online-proctored option, sold as an $80 bundle covering one attempt at the Life Agent exam and one attempt at the Accident and Health Agent exam. That is $30 cheaper than $55 + $55 = $110 for two separate test-center sittings. The trade-off is that OnVUE covers exactly one attempt per line — if you fail an exam you took through OnVUE, the retake has to happen at a physical test center, not online. There is no discounted single-line OnVUE option either: a candidate who only needs one line still pays $55 at a test center.

If you prefer an in-person seat, Tennessee exams can be taken at any Pearson VUE test center nationally, not only inside the state, and at select Pearson VUE centers on U.S. military installations worldwide. Testing is in English; candidates who need extra time as English-language learners can request 1.5× time with a letter from an instructor or employer — no other accommodation of that kind is offered.

Tennessee does not currently require a pre-licensing course before either exam, and it is worth knowing why: this is a repeal, not a provision that was never written. Tenn. Code Ann. §56-6-106 used to require a pre-licensing course of study as a condition of licensure. Public Chapter 57 of 2023 (Senate Bill 1369), signed by Governor Bill Lee on March 21, 2023, deleted subdivision (a)(3) of §56-6-106 — the subsection that held the course-of-study requirement — amended §56-6-105, and rewrote the exam and pre-licensing exemption rules in §56-6-109.

The current Pearson VUE candidate handbook's “General Resident Producer Licensing Requirements” section reflects the repeal directly: it lists only three conditions the commissioner must be satisfied of before approving a license — being at least 18 years old, Tennessee residency, and being competent, trustworthy, financially responsible and of good business reputation. No prelicensing-hours condition appears for any line of authority, including Life and Accident and Health.

Skipping a mandated course does not mean skipping preparation. See the pass rates below.

The NAIC compiles first-time, English-language pass rates for state producer exams. For Tennessee in 2025: Life Producer — 71% (6,728 first-time candidates, 4,787 passed); Accident and Health Producer — 64% (4,273 first-time candidates, 2,749 passed).

Read plainly, those are solid pass rates — most first-time Life candidates clear the bar, and a clear majority of Accident and Health candidates do too. But solid is not automatic: nearly three in ten first-time Life candidates did not pass in 2025, and well over a third of Accident and Health candidates did not. Treat 71% and 64% as evidence that focused preparation works, not as a reason to walk in without it — especially on the Accident and Health side, where the margin is noticeably thinner.

Tennessee does not publish a separate pass rate for repeat candidates, so there is no second-attempt figure to lean on. Since each exam is $55 per attempt ($80 if you book the OnVUE bundle) and failing either one delays the rest of the application, the cheapest strategy is to prepare so the first sitting of each exam is the only one. The full cost breakdown shows exactly what a retake adds to the total.

Pearson VUE's content outline #124301, effective October 7, 2026, lists exactly how the 68 scored questions on each exam split across content sections. Each line is published as two separately labeled documents — General Knowledge and Tennessee Specific — even though both are sat together in the same exam. Life Agent, General Knowledge (50 scored):

• Types of Policies: 15 items
• Policy Riders, Provisions, Options, and Exclusions: 15 items
• Completing the Application, Underwriting, and Delivering the Policies: 12 items
• Retirement and Other Insurance Concepts: 8 items

Life Agent, Tennessee Specific (18 scored):

• Tennessee Laws and Departmental Rules Common to Life, Accident and Health, Property and Casualty Insurance: 14 items
• Tennessee Laws and Departmental Rules Pertinent to Life Insurance Only: 4 items

Accident and Health Agent, General Knowledge (50 scored):

• Types of Policies: 16 items
• Policy Provisions, Clauses, and Riders: 15 items
• Social Insurance: 6 items
• Other Insurance Concepts: 5 items
• Field Underwriting Procedures: 8 items

Accident and Health Agent, Tennessee Specific (18 scored):

• Tennessee Laws and Departmental Rules Common to Life, Accident and Health, Property and Casualty Insurance: 14 items
• Tennessee Laws and Departmental Rules Pertinent to Accident and Health Insurance Only: 4 items

Read all four lists together and one section does double duty: Tennessee Laws and Departmental Rules Common to Life, Accident and Health, Property and Casualty Insurance is 14 of 68 items on the Life exam and 14 of 68 on the Accident and Health exam — the identical section, tested on both. Study it once and it counts twice. Add each exam's own line-specific law section (4 items) and 18 of each exam's 68 scored items — more than a quarter — are Tennessee law rather than generic policy knowledge. On the general-knowledge side, Types of Policies and Policy Riders, Provisions, Options and Exclusions carry the most weight on the Life exam (15 each), and Types of Policies plus Policy Provisions, Clauses and Riders carry the most weight on the Accident and Health exam (16 and 15).

The section common to both exams (14 of 68 items each) draws on Tenn. Code Ann. Title 56, Chapter 6 (“Licensing of Producers and Solicitors”), §§56-6-101 through 56-6-126: the Commissioner's powers — hearings and judicial review (§56-6-112), investigations (§56-6-120), regulatory authority (§§56-6-107 through 112), penalties (§56-6-112(e), §56-2-305); definitions — insurance producer and business entity (§56-6-102), limited lines producer (§§56-6-102, 110), unauthorized insurer (§56-6-114), compensation and referrals (§§56-6-113, 125), fiduciary duties (§56-6-116), domestic and foreign companies (§56-1-102); license requirements (§§56-6-103, 104, 105, Dept. Rule 0780-1-56, §§56-6-106, 112, 121), agency appointments and termination (§§56-6-115, 117), resident and nonresident licensing (§§56-6-106, 108), the exam and pre-licensing exemption rules as rewritten by Public Chapter 57 of 2023 (§56-6-109), temporary licenses (§56-6-111), and license renewal (§56-6-107); license suspension and revocation (§§56-6-112, 56-1-109, 36-5-706); unfair trade practices — false advertising, defamation, boycotting or coercion, unfair discrimination, rebating, unfair claims settlement (§56-6-125, §§56-8-104, 105, Dept. Rule 0780-01-05); and the Life and Health Guaranty Association (§§56-12-201 through 220).

The Life-only section (4 items, Chapter 8 of your course) covers required provisions (§§56-7-2305, 2307, 2308), definitions and disclosure and general rules (Dept. Rule 0780-1-40-.02 through -.05), replacement (Dept. Rule 0780-1-24-.02 through -.05 and §56-8-104), annuity suitability (Dept. Rule 0780-01-58-.14(2) and 0780-01-86), and military sales practices (Dept. Rule 0780-1-89) — the one genuinely new item in the outline effective October 7, 2026.

The Accident and Health-only section (4 items, folded into Chapter 6) covers required provisions (§§56-26-108, 129), cancellation and renewal (§§56-26-109, 125, 126), group policies (§§56-26-127, 202, §56-7-2301, 2360, 2602), blanket, franchise, school and school-accident insurance (§§56-7-2323 through 2325), Medicare supplement (Dept. Rule 0780-1-58 series, §56-26-132, §56-7-1453), long-term care (§§56-42-101 through 105, 107 through 111, Dept. Rule 0780-1-61), mandated coverages (§§56-7-1002, 1003, 2301-2368, 2601-2606), external review (§§56-61-113, 116), and ACA-related topics — exchanges and the marketplace, taxes, penalties and subsidies, essential health benefits including mental health parity, pediatric services and preventive services, employer notification, and the fee charged when no commission is paid (§56-6-125(b)).

This material is conceptual, not visual — you do not need a diagram to understand what separates a decreasing term rider from a waiver of premium, you need a clear explanation you can hear more than once. The LanePrep Tennessee course is nine audio chapters built directly from the #124301 outlines above, each with its own quiz, organized so the chapters for each exam line up with that exam's item counts.

Week 1 — Life Agent exam (Chapters 1, 2, 3, 7 and 8)

• 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 5-6: Chapter 3 — Life: Completing the Application, Underwriting and Delivering the Policies; Retirement and Other Insurance Concepts (20 items)
• Day 7: Chapter 7 — Tennessee Laws and Departmental Rules Common to Life, Accident and Health, Property and Casualty Insurance (14 items), then Chapter 8 — Tennessee Laws and Departmental Rules Pertinent to Life Insurance Only (4 items)

Those five chapters cover all 68 items on the Life Agent exam (15+15+20+14+4).

Week 2 — Accident and Health Agent exam (Chapters 4, 5 and 6)

• Days 8-9: Chapter 4 — Accident & Health: Types of Policies (16 items)
• Days 10-11: Chapter 5 — Accident & Health: Policy Provisions, Clauses and Riders; Social Insurance (21 items)
• Days 12-14: Chapter 6 — Accident & Health: Other Insurance Concepts, Field Underwriting Procedures, and Tennessee Laws and Departmental Rules Pertinent to Accident and Health Insurance Only (17 items)

Those three chapters, plus Chapter 7 carried over from Week 1, cover all 68 items on the Accident and Health exam (16+21+17+14).

Week 3 — Review and exam day (Chapter 9)

• Days 15-17: Re-drill whichever chapter quizzes flagged the most misses on each line
• Day 18: Chapter 9 — Exam Day: Pearson VUE, Scoring and Strategy, then a timed run through every chapter quiz in one sitting
• Days 19-21: Rest the day before each exam; book the Life Agent exam and the Accident and Health Agent exam on separate days if your schedule allows a review day in between, or sit both a day apart through the OnVUE bundle

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 tell you what actually stuck.

Chapters 1 and 9 are free at /tn/l-and-h/preview — full audio and quiz, no signup. Chapter 9 is the one to start with if you already studied elsewhere and just want to check the format before you book either exam.

If you fail either exam, Tennessee requires a 10-day wait after a first failure before you can retake that exam, and a 30-day wait after any later failure; either way you need at least 24 hours before reserving a retake seat. The $55 fee is charged again for every test-center attempt, with no reduced retake price. An OnVUE sitting cannot be reused for a retake — a failed OnVUE attempt is retaken at a physical test center for another $55.

Because each exam is scored as one sitting — general knowledge and Tennessee-specific content together, no separate pass mark for the state-law portion — there is no way to bank a passing state-law score while you work on the general material, or vice versa. A fail on either exam means the whole 77-item sitting is retaken, pretest questions included.

The practical upshot is the same one the pass-rate numbers already point to: with nearly three in ten first-time Life candidates and more than a third of first-time Accident and Health candidates not passing in 2025, a retake is a live possibility, not an edge case, and it is cheapest to prevent rather than pay for. The cost guide works through exactly what one retake adds to the full license budget.

Exam structure and fees from the Pearson VUE Tennessee Insurance Licensing Candidate Handbook #124300 (10/2026). Question counts and content weighting from Pearson VUE content outline #124301 (effective October 7, 2026). Pass rates from the NAIC 2025 compiled pass-rate report. Read October 2026.