How to Pass the Washington Life & Disability Exam on the First Try (2026)

Washington does not force every Life and Disability 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, PSI's Life and Disability Producer exam, has 150 items in 195 minutes, for $55. The two single-line exams — Life Producer and Disability Producer — each have 100 items in 150 minutes, for $38 per attempt.

Every version is delivered by PSI Services LLC, either at a PSI test center or through PSI's remote online proctoring option — your choice, at no difference in fee. Remote exams do not allow breaks at any point and require a second camera device in addition to your primary testing device, so plan for that if you test from home.

The passing score is 70% correct, stated flatly for every version of the exam. Your exam also contains some non-scored experimental questions used to develop future exams; PSI's bulletin does not print a separate count of how many of the printed 100 or 150 items are scored versus experimental, so answer every question as if it counts.

A candidate who wants both lines of authority can sit the combined exam once for $55, or sit the two single-line exams separately for $38 each — $76 total. The combined exam saves $21, about 28 percent, off the two-exam path, and it is one appointment instead of two.

If you only need one line — say, you sell life insurance but never disability or 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.

Washington has not required a pre-licensing course since July 23, 2023, when HB 1061 took effect and amended RCW 48.17.090 to drop the prior condition that an applicant complete a prelicensure course of study. The Office of the Insurance Commissioner followed with its own rulemaking, WSR 23-21-103, effective November 18, 2023, repealing 21 WAC sections that had implemented the requirement — including the specific rule that used to force a candidate to present a course-completion certificate before being admitted into the exam room.

RCW 48.17.090(2) now conditions license approval on exactly four findings: at least 18 years of age, no disqualifying act, paid fees, and a passed examination for the lines of authority applied for. No education clause appears among them.

One thing worth saying plainly: PSI's own current Candidate Information Bulletin still contains a stale, never-updated (2023) sentence stating that pre-license education is required, plus a fee table that lists a pre-license certificate as required for each of these exams. The bulletin itself does not actually instruct a candidate to bring or present a course certificate anywhere in its check-in or exam-day procedures. The statute and the rule that repealed the underlying requirement control here, not a leftover sentence in a vendor's document — you do not need a pre-licensing course to sit for this exam.

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

• Life and Disability Producer Combo: 58.4% in 2024 (1,832 of 3,139 candidates) and 57.9% in 2025 (1,735 of 2,996) — roughly 58 percent across both years.
• Life Producer: 42.9% in 2024 (881 of 2,056) and 46.0% in 2025 (1,034 of 2,250) — roughly 43-46 percent.
• Disability Producer: 58.6% in 2024 (292 of 498) and 57.2% in 2025 (301 of 526) — roughly 57-59 percent.

Read plainly: on the Life exam, more than half of first-time candidates do not pass; on the combined exam and the Disability exam the miss rate still runs over two in five. This is not a formality to walk into unprepared.

Candidate volume and pass rates both moved only modestly from 2024 to 2025 on every row — a few percentage points either direction, no large swing in how many people tested. Read the ranges above as a reasonably stable two-year picture, not as evidence of a single trend direction.

PSI's content outline for the combined Life and Disability Producer exam lists 13 sections, each with a printed item count that sums to the full 150:

• 1. Federal Laws and Regulations — 2 items
• 2. Washington Laws, Rules, and Regulations — 45 items
• 3. General Insurance Concepts — 10 items
• 4. Life, Accident and Health Insurance Basics — 16 items
• 5. Types of Life Insurance Policies — 12 items
• 6. Life Insurance Policy Provisions, Options, and Riders — 17 items
• 7. Annuities — 9 items
• 8. Individual Accident and Health Insurance Policy Provisions — 10 items
• 9. Disability Income and Related Insurance — 8 items
• 10. Medical Plans — 6 items
• 11. Group Health Insurance — 4 items
• 12. Health Insurance for Senior Citizens and Special Needs Individuals — 5 items
• 13. Federal Tax Considerations for Life and Health Insurance — 6 items

One section dwarfs every other: Washington Laws, Rules, and Regulations carries 45 of the 150 items — 30 percent of the exam, nearly a third, and by far the heaviest section in the outline. After that, the next-heaviest sections are Life Insurance Policy Provisions, Options, and Riders (17), Life, Accident and Health Insurance Basics (16), and Types of Life Insurance Policies (12). Together those four sections account for 90 of the 150 items, 60 percent of the exam, so that is where a study plan should spend the most time. Group Health Insurance and Federal Laws and Regulations, at 4 and 2 items, matter for completeness but will not decide a pass or fail on their own.

Unlike states that split their state-law content into several smaller named sections, Washington folds nearly all of it into one large section — Washington Laws, Rules, and Regulations — citing dozens of specific RCW Title 48 and WAC Title 284 provisions directly inline: the Commissioner's powers, producer licensing and appointments, marketing and unfair-practices rules, and line-specific subsections covering life insurance and disability/accident and health insurance separately.

The licensing law you will use most as a producer sits in RCW 48.17.090, which defines who must be licensed and, since the 2023 amendment, the four conditions for approval described above. The fee schedule for the license application and renewal runs on RCW 48.14.010. Continuing-education requirements run on WAC 284-17-224. This state-law content is tested regardless of which version of the exam — combined, Life only, or Disability only — a candidate sits, since each version draws from the same underlying body of Washington insurance law.

At 30 percent of the combined exam, this is the single section most worth over-preparing. A candidate who is comfortable with the life- and health-insurance product knowledge but has not studied Washington's own licensing, conduct and marketing rules is still at real risk of missing the 70 percent threshold.

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

Week 1 — Washington law and general concepts (Chapters 1-3)

• Days 1-3: Chapter 1 — Washington Insurance Law, Part 1: Licensing, the Insurance Commissioner and Producer Conduct (23 items)
• Days 4-6: Chapter 2 — Washington Insurance Law, Part 2: Life and Disability Policy Rules (22 items) — together Chapters 1 and 2 are the 45-item, 30-percent law block, the heaviest in the outline, so give these two chapters the most repeat listens
• Day 7: Chapter 3 — Federal Laws and Regulations; General Insurance Concepts (12 items)

Week 2 — Life insurance products and annuities (Chapters 4-6)

• Days 8-9: Chapter 4 — Life, Accident and Health Insurance Basics (16 items)
• Days 10-13: Chapter 5 — Types of Life Insurance Policies; Life Insurance Policy Provisions, Options and Riders (29 items, the single heaviest chapter — give it the extra days)
• Day 14: Chapter 6 — Annuities; Federal Tax Considerations for Life and Health Insurance (15 items)

Week 3 — Accident, health, disability and exam day (Chapters 7-9)

• Days 15-17: Chapter 7 — Individual Accident and Health Insurance Policy Provisions; Disability Income and Related Insurance (18 items)
• Days 18-19: Chapter 8 — Medical Plans; Group Health Insurance; Health Insurance for Senior Citizens and Special Needs Individuals (15 items)
• Day 20: Chapter 9 — Exam Day: PSI, 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 /wa/l-and-h/preview — full audio and the chapter quiz, no signup.

PSI delivers the exam at a PSI test center or through PSI's remote online proctoring option — your choice, at no difference in fee. You must cancel or reschedule at least 2 calendar days (48 hours) before your scheduled exam date, or the fee is forfeited. ESL candidates may request time and a half by submitting a letter from their English instructor or sponsoring company on letterhead.

If you do not pass, there is no limit on the number of times you may retake the exam. PSI's bulletin states this flatly. The only practical constraint is a same-day scheduling block: a candidate who tests unsuccessfully on a Wednesday can call Thursday and retest as soon as Friday, space permitting.

Passing is not the end of the clock, either: once you pass, you must submit all license application requirements — application, fees, fingerprint and conviction documentation where applicable — within 180 days of passing, or you must retake the exam.

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 Washington Life & Disability license costs.

Exam structure, fees and the content outline come from PSI's current Washington Candidate Information Bulletin and PSI's Life and Disability Producer, Life Producer and Disability Producer content outlines (effective April 1, 2026). Pre-licensing status from RCW 48.17.090 as amended by HB 1061 and WSR 23-21-103. Pass rates from the NAIC 2024 and 2025 compiled pass-rate reports. Read October 2026.