United States
Hong KongA study plan for the Texas life and health exam
Measure before you study, spend three quarters of your hours on the 100 general questions, take the 30 Texas statute questions as one late block, then sit two full timed papers. Our planning estimate is 40 hours from a standing start, which is ours and not a published figure.
Texas requires no pre-licensing course for this license, which means there is no syllabus anybody is making you follow and no schedule anybody is setting. That freedom is the reason a plan is worth writing down.
- Scored questions
- 130 (100 general, 30 Texas)
- Time
- 150 minutes
- Outline sections
- 13
- Our planning estimate
- 40 hours from a standing start
- Recommended split
- Three quarters general, one quarter Texas
- Current outline effective
- 1 September 2026
The plan in one sentence
Measure, then spend your hours in proportion to the published question counts, then measure again under the clock.
Everything else on this page is detail. If you did only that, you would be preparing better than a large share of the 26,427 first-time candidates who sat this examination in fiscal year 2025, of whom 57.7% passed.
Why the plan starts with a measurement
Because the two portions need different amounts of work from different people, and you cannot know which until you have tried both. Someone who has worked in health insurance for six years needs almost nothing on section 5 and everything on section 10. A career changer needs both. A plan written before that reading is a plan written for a generic candidate who does not exist.
Score the two sides apart, even though the real paper reports one combined scaled score. Our own ten-question diagnostic exists to do exactly this, and it takes four minutes.
The shape of the hours
| Phase | Share of the plan | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Measure | First session | Split diagnostic, cold, before any reading |
| General portion | About three quarters | Nine sections, biggest first, questions after every section |
| Texas statute | About a quarter | Four sections in one continuous block, late |
| Timed papers | Last week | Two full papers on different forms, 130 questions in 150 minutes |
| Wrong answers | Final days | No new material. Explanations only |
The three-quarters figure comes straight from the paper: 100 of the 130 scored questions are general, which is 77% of your result. Most candidates invert it, and the argument in full is in how to split time between general and Texas.
Which plan length
- Four weeks at about ten hours a week, if your evenings are genuinely free and your diagnostic was not alarming
- Eight weeks at about five hours a week, which is the same 40 hours spread over twice the calendar and remembers better for it
- Two weeks only if a date is already booked, and only after a timed paper says you are close
The hours in all three are ours. TDI publishes question counts, time limits, pass rates and mean scaled scores, and nothing whatever about how long to prepare. Neither does Pearson VUE. Anyone quoting an official study-hours figure for this examination is quoting something that does not exist.
The two things that break a plan
Reading instead of answering, and studying a paper that is no longer set.
The first is comfortable. A chapter read is a chapter that felt understood, and on a recognition examination that feeling is worth very little. Put questions after every section, not at the end of the plan.
The content outline changed on 1 September 2026. Material written for the previous outline describes a paper Texas no longer sets. Before you spend 40 hours on anything, find the date it was written and compare it with that one.
An opinion about how these plans are usually written
Most study plans for this examination are organized in outline order, which puts thirteen sections in front of you as thirteen equal-looking chapters. They are not equal. Section 5 is 16 questions and section 13 is 3, and a plan that gives them a chapter each has quietly told you to spend the same effort on both.
The concession is that our own plan is built from published counts and structure, not from evidence about what works. Nobody publishes outcome data by preparation method for this examination, ours included, so treat this as a defensible starting shape and let your own timed scores overrule it.
Common questions
How long should I study for the Texas life and health exam?
Our planning estimate is 40 hours from a standing start, 20 if you already work in insurance. No official figure exists, because neither TDI nor Pearson VUE publishes preparation guidance. Let your timed practice scores decide when to stop rather than an hours total.
What should I study first?
The published content outline, then a cold diagnostic, then the biggest general sections. Sections 5, 1, 2 and 6 cover policy types and provisions for both lines and carry more than half the general portion between them, so they earn the first hours.
When should I study the Texas law portion?
Late, and in one continuous block of about a quarter of your hours. Statute fades faster than concepts do, so front-loading it means relearning it. Section 10 alone is 14 of the 30 Texas questions and deserves most of that block.
Do I need a pre-licensing course in Texas?
No. Texas requires no pre-licensing education for a General Lines life, accident and health agent license. TDI lists three steps: take the examination, get fingerprinted, and apply. Many course providers imply a requirement that does not exist for this license.
How many practice papers should I sit?
At least two full papers on different forms, timed at 130 questions in 150 minutes, in the final week. The gap between the two scores is the useful measurement, because a single good result can be a familiar paper rather than a prepared candidate.