How to Pass the Texas Life Agent Exam on the First Try (2026)

The Texas Life Agent exam is 90 questions in 120 minutes, administered by Pearson VUE under exam code InsTX-Life01 (a Spanish version, InsTX-Life21, is also offered). Of those 90 questions, 80 are scored and 10 are unscored pretest questions that Pearson VUE is testing for future use. You cannot tell the scored questions from the pretest ones, so every question gets your full attention.

The exam fee is $39 per attempt, paid to Pearson VUE when you schedule. Passing requires a scaled score of 70, not a raw count of correct answers and not a flat percentage. Pearson VUE equates multiple exam forms to a common scale, so 70 does not mean "70% correct" on every form; it means your performance, against that form's difficulty, clears the standard the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) has set.

The 80 scored questions split into two content outlines: a 50-question general knowledge section covering life insurance product knowledge, terms and concepts, and a 30-question Texas state-specific section covering Texas statutes and rules. That 50/30 split is the single most important fact about how to study for this exam, because the state portion is more than a third of your score and candidates consistently under-prepare for it.

Pearson VUE publishes the content outline that the exam is built from, effective 2026-09-01, broken into sections with a stated number of scored questions each.

General knowledge (50 scored)	Questions
I. Types of policies	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

Texas state specific (30 scored)	Questions
I. Texas statutes and rules common to life and health insurance	20
II. Texas statutes and rules pertinent to life insurance only	10

Three sections carry 15 or 20 questions each: types of policies, riders/provisions/options/exclusions, and the Texas statutes common to life and health. Together those three sections are 50 of the 80 scored questions, well over half the exam. A study plan that spends equal time on all nine chapters of this course is spending too little time on those three and too much on the smaller ones.

The general knowledge outline is, section for section and weight for weight, the life half of the Texas General Lines Life & Health exam outline. That matters for one reason: if you have seen a General Lines L&H study guide, its life-insurance chapters apply here directly, but its health-insurance chapters, and its larger, longer exam structure, do not. This course was built for the Life Agent exam specifically, not adapted on the fly from a different one.

For the permanent Texas Life Agent license, there is no required pre-licensing education. You study on your own, from whatever materials you choose, and sit the exam when you are ready. TDI does not mandate a course or a minimum number of study hours before you can register.

The one exception is narrow and does not apply to most candidates: a separate temporary-license pathway under Texas Insurance Code §§ 4001.151-156 requires a 40-hour course, but only for applicants using that specific route, typically someone stepping in to run a licensed agency temporarily. If you are preparing for the standard permanent Life Agent license, that requirement does not apply to you, and you do not need to budget time or money for a course to sit this exam.

Pearson VUE publishes monthly pass-rate reports for every Texas insurance exam. Across July, August and September 2026, the Life Agent exam (English) graded between 1,693 and 1,733 first-time candidates a month, and between 935 and 1,076 repeat candidates a month, roughly 1,700 first-time candidates and 1,000 repeaters every month, about 20,000 first-time candidates a year.

Month	First-time graded	First-time passed	First-time pass rate	Repeater pass rate
2026-07	1,693	766	45%	36%
2026-08	1,706	779	46%	38%
2026-09	1,733	781	45%	36%

Read plainly: a first-time candidate has a 45-46% chance of passing, and a candidate who has already failed once passes at an even lower 36-38% on the retake. That second number is the one worth sitting with. Repeaters are not a random sample who simply got unlucky the first time; on this exam they pass at a noticeably worse rate than first-timers do, which says the gap in their preparation did not close between attempts.

Set against the other two main Texas agent exams in the same three months, the Life Agent exam is the hardest of the three to pass on the first try: General Lines Life & Health ran 54-55% first-time, and General Lines Property & Casualty ran 58-61% first-time. The Life Agent exam is not a lighter version of either of those two. It is the one with the lowest first-time pass rate of the three, and it deserves more respect going in than its single line of authority might suggest.

The LanePrep Texas Life Agent course is nine audio chapters, built directly from the outline above, each with its own quiz.

Week 1, General Knowledge (Chapters 1-4, 36 of the 50 general questions)

• Days 1-2: Chapter 1, Life Insurance Basics, Risk & Contract Concepts (free)
• Days 3-4: Chapter 2, Types of Life Insurance Policies (the single largest section at 15 questions; give it the extra day)
• Day 5: Chapter 3, Annuities
• Days 6-7: Chapter 4, Policy Riders, Provisions, Options & Exclusions (also 15 questions)

Week 2, Application, Retirement & Group Concepts (Chapters 5-6)

• Days 8-9: Chapter 5, The Application, Underwriting & Policy Delivery
• Days 10-11: Chapter 6, Retirement Plans, Group Life, Taxes & Suitability

Week 3, Texas Law and Exam Day (Chapters 7-9, 30 of the 80 scored questions)

• Days 12-14: Chapter 7, Texas Insurance Law Common to Life & Health Agents (20 questions, the single largest chapter in the whole course; this is not a chapter to rush)
• Days 15-16: Chapter 8, Texas Life Insurance Law
• Day 17: Chapter 9, Exam Day: Pearson VUE, Scoring & Strategy, then a timed run through every chapter quiz in one sitting
• Days 18-19: Re-drill the questions you missed, re-listen to your weakest chapter (for most candidates, that is Chapter 7), and rest the day before

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. That short loop is where the retention comes from; listening alone feels productive but does not test what actually stuck, and this is the exam where that gap shows up in the repeater pass rate above. Chapters 1 and 9 are free at /tx/life/preview, full audio and the chapter quiz, no signup.

Treating the Texas law portion as an afterthought. The state-specific outline is 30 of 80 scored questions, more than a third of the exam, and it covers dense material: entire-contract and incontestability rules, misstatement of age, grace periods, beneficiary designation and assignment, replacement and the 30-day right of return, rebating, and the powers of the Commissioner, among others. Candidates who spend most of their study time on product knowledge because it feels more familiar, and treat Texas law as a quick final read-through, are the ones showing up in the 36-38% repeater numbers above.

Confusing the required policy provisions with each other. The exam tests specific, separately numbered provisions, not a general sense of "what a life policy usually includes." Knowing that a grace period exists is not the same as knowing which provision governs incontestability versus which governs reinstatement versus which caps how long an insurer has to settle a claim. Study each required provision as its own fact, not as a blur of "standard policy language."

Misreading "except" and "not" questions. A meaningful share of exam questions ask which answer is the one that does not fit, or which statement is false. Under time pressure it is easy to read the question stem on autopilot, find a true statement among the choices, and mark it, when the question asked for the opposite. Slow down on any stem containing "except," "not," or "false," and reread it once before answering.

Assuming the General Lines Life & Health numbers apply here. If you have talked to someone who holds a General Lines L&H license, or read older material built for that exam, you may have heard its higher first-time pass rate, its different question count, time limit and fee. None of those figures apply to the Life Agent exam. This exam is 90 questions, 120 minutes, $39, and a 45-46% first-time pass rate, the lowest of the three main Texas agent exams. Walking in expecting the easier, more familiar numbers from a different exam is itself a preparation gap.

If you do not pass, Pearson VUE's retake wait for this exam is 24 hours, the same rule that applies to the General Lines exams under the same handbook. You can realistically be back in a seat the next day, but a same-day or next-day retake only makes sense if you have identified and closed a specific gap, not simply re-sat the same material hoping for a different scaled score.

Once you pass, you have 12 months from your exam date to file your TDI license application; after that window the exam no longer counts and you would need to pass it again. Do not let paperwork slip for a year after doing the hard part.

The required costs around the exam itself are the $39 exam fee, the $50 TDI application fee, and about $41 for fingerprints, roughly $130 in total to go from unlicensed to licensed. Once licensed, Texas requires 24 hours of continuing education every 2 years, including 3 hours of ethics, to keep the license active. For the full fee breakdown and what a retake adds to that total, see how much a Texas Life Agent license costs.

Exam structure, fees and the content outline come from Pearson VUE's Texas candidate handbook (publication 124400) and the Life-General and Life Agent state-specific content outlines effective 2026-09-01 (publication 124401). Pass rates come from Pearson VUE's monthly Texas insurance exam pass-rate reports for July, August and September 2026. Read October 2026.