United States
Hong KongWhat score do you need to pass the Texas insurance exam?
There is no published passing score. TDI sets it and Pearson reports results as a scaled score rather than a percentage, so no number exists to give you. The 70% quoted across prep sites is not TDI's figure and is not sourced to anyone.
The question assumes a number that has never been published. Every confident answer you have read to it was made up somewhere and copied since.
What is actually published
| Question | Published answer |
|---|---|
| Who sets the passing score? | The Texas Department of Insurance |
| Is a percentage published? | No |
| Is the scaled passing score published? | No |
| How is your result reported? | As a scaled score |
| Mean scaled score, FY2025 | 69.75 |
| Standard deviation | 14.51 |
| First-time pass rate | 57.7%, from 26,427 candidates |
The Department publishes a great deal about how candidates performed and nothing about the threshold they were measured against. That is a design decision, not secrecy.
Why no percentage exists to publish
You do not sit the same form as the candidate beside you. Forms are built to the same content outline from a much larger question pool, and two forms built to identical specifications still differ slightly in difficulty.
If the standard were a flat percentage of questions correct, whoever drew the harder form would need more knowledge to clear the same bar. Equating measures how much harder one form was, and scaling puts every form on one reporting scale so the same scaled score means the same standard. The practical consequence: there is no fixed number of the 130 you must get right, because it moves with the form.
Our cross-check, labeled as ours
TDI's published statistics bracket the standard even though they do not state it. A mean of 69.75, a standard deviation of 14.51, and 57.7 percent passing first time.
A cut at a scaled 70 fits all three: the mean candidate sits essentially on it and slightly more than half clear it. A cut at sixty would put roughly three quarters over the line, which the published pass rate contradicts. That reasoning is ours, TDI has not confirmed it, and a scaled 70 is a position on a scale rather than 70 percent of the questions. Why Texas publishes no percentage pass mark sets the argument out in full.
What to aim at instead
A target of your own, on your own papers, set high enough that a harder form cannot reach you. Ours is 78 percent against our own mock papers. It sits deliberately above where the evidence puts the standard, it is our figure, and it is never a pass mark.
The concession: you would genuinely be better served by a published cut, and scaling exists for fairness across forms rather than for your convenience. Nobody outside the Department can tell you the count. Anyone who does is quoting a number that moves.
Common questions
What score do you need to pass the Texas insurance exam?
No passing score is published. TDI determines it and Pearson reports results on a scaled score rather than as a percentage of questions correct, so there is no published figure to aim at.
Is the pass mark 70%?
That number is not TDI's. It appears on prep sites rather than in TDI's licensing pages, its FY2025 report or Pearson's candidate handbook, and nothing published by either organization states a percentage pass mark for this examination.
How many of the 130 questions do you need right?
There is no fixed number, and it varies with the difficulty of the form you sit. That is the practical result of scaling, and it is why no honest source converts the standard into a count out of 130.
What does the mean scaled score of 69.75 tell you?
That the average first-time candidate lands close to where the standard plausibly sits. Combined with a standard deviation of 14.51 and a 57.7 percent pass rate, it lets you bracket the cut without ever knowing it.