AVAILABLE COURSES - Illinois Insurance Licensing

ILLINOIS PROPERTY & CASUALTY LICENSING COURSE

This course will prepare you to pass your Illinois Property & Casualty Insurance exam on your first attempt. It includes over 7 hours of Online Video Lecture instruction in two formats. You can download each video in Windows Media Format directly to your computer (sample clip below) and/or stream each lecture video in Flash format directly from our website (sample clip below). Each Video is approximately 25-30 minutes long. With your registration you will be able to stream each video up to 5 times, and view it in downloadable format unlimited times within your 60 days registration period. With your registration you will also have access to our electronic Study Manual with over 700 practice exam questions with answers and rationales. This course also includes 400 additional Illinois exam specific questions in interactive online format. Our online Frequently Asked Questions page lists answers to the most commonly asked questions related to this course.

Effective January 1, 2010 this course is not approved by the Illinois Department of Insurance. However, this course can be used as a supplement to an approved course to assist you in preparing to pass your exam on your first attempt!

Only $99 for 60 days access! Extensions can be purchase for an additional 60 days for only $25 if needed.

• 30 second sample IL P&C flash-video clip
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• 25 second sample IL P&C WMV-video clip
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• 5-6 minute sample course video on our You Tube page
• Click here to learn more about how our programs work
• Click here to see what our students have to say about our courses

IMPORTANT NOTICE

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ILLINOIS INSURANCE EXAM INFORMATION

Illinois Insurance Exam Overview

Exam administration: The Illinois Insurance exams are multiple choice and are given on computer

Number of questions
Illinois Life - Part I - General - 60 questions - 85 minutes, Part II - State - 39 questions - 50 minutes
Illinois Accident & Health - Part I - General - 60 questions - 80 minutes, Part II - State - 47 questions - 55 minutes
Illinois Property - Part I - General - 60 questions - 85 minutes, Part II - State - 37 questions - 50 minutes
Illinois Casualty - Part I - General - 60 questions - 80 minutes, Part II - State - 44 questions - 55 minutes
Passing score required: Each part is separately timed and candidates cannot return to a section once the time has expired. You will also spend an additional 45 minutes on the tutorial, screening questions and survey. The passing score for each part of the exam is 70%.
Exam locations: Insurance exams are given throughout Illinois. You can take any of the Illinois insurance exams with Pearson VUE (www.pearsonvue.com).
Exam dates: The Illinois Insurance exams are administered six days a week at most locations at various times throughout the day.

Common Illinois Insurance Exam Candidate Frequently Asked Questions:

Who Takes the Illinois Insurance Exams?

The type of insurance you would like to sell will determine which Illinois insurance license you will obtain. There are two main insurance licenses in Illinois (Life and Health and Property and Casualty). The Life and Health insurance license will allow you to sell life and health insurance (including annuities). The Property and Casualty insurance license will allow you to sell all other types of insurance (including personal lines and commercial lines). If you are only going to be selling personal lines and NOT commercial lines then you can take the Personal Lines only exam.

Do I need to be certified to take an IL insurance exam?

Yes, you must complete a pre-licensing course prior to taking an Illinois Insurance exam as required by the Illinois Division of Insurance. Here are the required hours that must be completed prior to taking your exam and obtaining your license:

Life - 20 Hours, of which 7.5 hours must be in a classroom setting
Accident & Health - 20 Hours, of which 7.5 hours must be in a classroom setting
Property (Fire) - 20 Hours, of which 7.5 hours must be in a classroom setting
Casualty - 20 Hours, of which 7.5 hours must be in a classroom setting

Our online courses are NOT approved with the IL DOI. However, our course can be used as a supplement in addition to an approved course to assist you in preparing to pass your exam.

Are the Insurance Exams different state to state?

Yes! Be very careful when preparing for your exam to make sure the material you study is Illinois specific. There are many insurance schools out there that offer generic study materials. The course you study MUST be Illinois specific. Our online course was created specifically for the Illinois insurance exams.

What content do the Illinois Insurance tests cover?

The Illinois insurance tests are very broad. You can view and print a detailed outline for each and every exam here (www.pearsonvue.com). All of our course content was created to reflect the most recent copy of the Illinois exam content outlines.

Do I need a sponsor to take an Illinois Insurance exam?

No. You do not need a sponsor. Anyone who meets the minimum licensing requirements can take an insurance exam in Illinois.

How do I schedule my insurance exam?

All insurance exams are scheduled through Pearson VUE at (www.pearsonvue.com).

What should I bring to the test center the day of my Insurance Exam?

You should bring your Key Facts from our Illinois Insurance Licensing course to re-read just prior to going in to take your Illinois insurance exam. This will load your memory for the test. You cannot take anything into the test room with you other than what the proctor provides you. You will be able to leave your personal belongings in a locker in the testing center waiting room. They will provide you with a pen/pencil, scratch paper, and basic function calculator at the test site. Make sure to write down your cheat sheet on your scratch paper when you sit down at your cubicle prior to starting your insurance license test. This will allow you to refer back to it whenever you need to during the exam.

If I don't pass is there any waiting period that applies before I can retake the insurance licensing exam?

No, there is no waiting period before you can re-test. However, in Illinois if you pass one portion of an exam and not another you must retake and pass the failed portion within 90 days. If you fail to do so you will have to retake all parts of the exam. If you fail any portion of the exam you MUST wait 24 hour before rescheduling the exam. For this reason it is very important that you select the best Illinois Insurance School to help prepare you to pass on your first attempt. Each time a candidate retakes the exam another full testing fee is required.

What do Illinois Insurance Exam questions look like?

Here are two Illinois Insurance Licensing Exam questions that come from our materials that are very similar to the formatting and content of the questions on the exam:

Life & Health

1. An insurance producer selling a Variable annuity whose cash value depends on the performance of an underlying investment account must be registered with:
   
   
   1. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners
   2. The National Association of Life Underwriters
   3. The Chartered Life Underwriters
   4. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA, formerly the NASD)

Property & Casualty

2. A customer has a Personal Auto Policy (PAP) written with a combined single limit of liability of $100,000. If the customer is involved in an at fault accident that injures five other people $25,000 each, how much will his policy pay:
   
   
   1. $25,000
   2. $ 75,000
   3. $ 100,000
   4. $ 125,000

Answers and explanations to the above questions as found in our comprehensive Insurance exam prep online video and print materials as follows:

1.    D    Producers selling Variable life and Variable annuities must have a state life insurance license plus a federal securities license (Series 6 or 7), which are now issued by FINRA, formerly known as the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD).
   
   
2.    C    While most PAPs are written with ‘split limits’, such as $25/$50/$50, which means that the most the insurer will pay for BI if you injure one person would be $25,000, and the most they will pay for BI if you injure more than one person in the same occurrence is $50,000. Remember, the per person limit for BI is within the per occurrence limit. The last number is the limit for PD to the property of others per occurrence, which in this example is $50,000. So, the most the insurer will pay in this example is $50,000 for BI plus $50,000 for PD, for a total of $100,000, not counting the cost of defense.
   However, most BAPs are written with single limits of liability, meaning that there are no internal or inside limits. If your combined single limit is $100,000, the insurer will pay up to that amount for BI and/or PD, so one person could collect up to $100,000. But, if they did, there would be nothing left to cover the BI of others or PD to their property.

FREE ILLINOIS INSURANCE EXAM TEST PASSING TIPS/TRICKS

The Illinois Insurance exam testing tips below have been compiled by our Illinois Insurance Exam instructors which have over 35 years of Insurance exam training experience and are provided for FREE to anyone taking an Illinois Insurance exam as a thank you for visiting our site. Please make sure to tell anyone you know about our site so they too can view these Illinois insurance exam study tips prior to taking their test.

How to prepare for your Illinois Insurance exam:

Your preparation for the Illinois Insurance exam is crucial. You cannot simply attend a lecture class or read a book and pass the Illinois Insurance test. You MUST understand the concepts the Illinois Insurance exam is based upon.

How to know you are ready for the Insurance exam:

You should be able to pass all the exams included in your Illinois Insurance study materials until you can score a minimum of 90% or better, understanding why the correct answer is correct, and the incorrect answers are incorrect

Click here to download 25 of the best Illinois Life & Health practice exam questions that we have to offer for FREE

Click here to download 25 of the best Illinois Property & Casualty practice exam questions that we have to offer for FREE

The questions above are included in our full online courses. Our full online video Illinois Life & Health and Property & Casualty courses actually includes over 800 practice exam questions each with answers and explanations.

DO NOT memorize the questions included in your Insurance Exam study materials!

Why? The questions on the real exam will be different. It doesn't matter whose materials you are using to study for the insurance exam. The company that creates the questions on the real insurance exam (Pearson) has thousands of questions in their database that they pull from to create your insurance test for you on the spot. Memorizing the insurance exam questions in your insurance exam study material is a sure fire way to fail the exam.

What to do the night before your test:

DO NOT stay up all night cramming. This may have worked in college but it will not work now. Why? Let's face it. Most of us taking this exam are NOT fresh out of college. When was the last time you stayed up until 4 in the morning? Shocking your body is not a smart thing to do the night before what could be the biggest test of your life. You must be rested the day of your insurance exam. Get a good nights sleep and make sure to eat a good breakfast the morning of your test.

What to do on the day of your insurance exam:

Get to the test center early. There is nothing worse than encountering a traffic jam on the way to your test and getting stressed out about making it on time. You will have to arrive early as you will want to sit in your car at the test center and read the Key Facts that were provided in our online video course three times prior to going in to take the test. This is one of the most important steps in preparing to obtain your Illinois insurance license. Why? It is imperative that you load your memory of the concepts you will be asked about on the insurance licensing test just prior to taking it. This way, all of the most important information is fresh in your mind when you go into the exam. Our Insurance Exam courses all include hundreds of Key Facts that are highly exam specific.

Click here to print off some FREE Illinois Life & Health Exam key facts to take with you to your test

Click here to print off some FREE Illinois Property & Casualty Exam key facts to take with you to your test

The Key Facts above come from our online course. Of course, if you would like the full copy you can register for our Illinois Insurance Online Video course to access them.

How you should take your insurance licensing exam:

The most important tip we can give you is to READ THE QUESTION! This most likely sounds pretty stupid. However, I would imagine as you have studied for the Illinois Insurance test you have missed many questions simply because you did not read them correctly. Read the question twice before even looking at the answers, then read every answer before picking which one you think is correct. Answer A may look good, but answer D may be better.

NEVER pick an answer you have not heard of. They will make words up on the Illinois insurance licensing exam that do not even exist. If it has not been covered in our online video exam prep course, it is not a correct answer on the exam.

Only mark those questions for review you really don't know the answer to, or you have narrowed it down to two possible correct answers. DO NOT review the full exam once you have completed it. In our experience if you review the full exam you may get confused and start changing answers. Your first selection is your best. Only review those questions you have marked for review.

Here are the SECRETS to passing the Illinois Insurance exam

The following insurance licensing exam secrets will teach you how to attack the most difficult exam question format.

Sample Question #1 (Life & Health) - Double negative EXCEPT question format

All of the following are true regarding a Modified Endowment Contract (MEC) EXCEPT:

1. Cash surrender of the contract prior to age 59½ may lead to taxes plus penalties
2. Increasing the premium on an existing Whole Life policy could cause it to become a MEC
3. A decrease in the death benefit on an existing Whole Life policy could cause it to become a MEC
4. Issuing an MEC is a violation of the state Insurance Code

How to attack this question: These EXCEPT questions are very difficult for your brain to interpret. Here is why. You have never encountered exam questions in your entire testing lifetime that were worded this way. For example, if the above question was on a test you took back in school it would be worded the following way:

Which of the following statements regarding a Modified Endowment Contract (MEC) is false:

However, on the insurance exam most of the questions are not straight forward and are written in a format that is very confusing (such as the sample above). You have to train your brain to learn new key words. You have to first determine if the correct answer will be true or false. Since the question says "true" then ends in "EXCEPT" the correct answer is going to be false.

Remember that you must READ THE QUESTION at least twice to determine what the question is asking prior to looking at the answers. So, which of those answers listed is false? If you had taken our course you know answer D is false. It is not a violation of Illinois Insurance law to issue a MEC. A, B and C are all true statements about MECs? Be very careful because when your brain comes across the word "true" in the question. Because when you read answer A and it is true you will want to select it as the correct response when it is fact an incorrect response.

These double negative questions are great in all are true EXCEPT format because they give you three true statements that may help you answer another question within the insurance licensing exam (answers A, B and C).

Sample Question #2 (Property & Casualty) - Double negative EXCEPT question format

All of the following are true about the additional coverage provided under Section II of a HO policy for Loss Assessments EXCEPT:

1. Coverage is provided up to $1,000
2. Coverage is in addition to limits with no deductible
3. Assessments made by governmental bodies are covered
4. Assessments made by an association of property owners are covered

Which answer is FALSE? You can also use process of elimination with these questions. If you read through answer A and you know it is true then it can be eliminated as being the possible correct answer. If you had taken our online video Property & Casualty course you would know that Answer C is false as assessments made by government bodies are NOT covered. Again, this question gives you three Key Facts related to Loss Assessments under the HO policy (A, B and D).

Once you have mastered the Illinois Insurance exam question techniques outlined above you will significantly increase your chances of passing the exam the first time and obtaining your Illinois Insurance License.

They will provide you everything you need at the test center

They will provide you a calculator, scratch paper and pencil. You do not need to bring any of these items with you. You cannot take a programmable calculator into the Illinois Insurance test.

Why are we providing you this information for FREE? We want you to pass your Insurance Exam on your first attempt. In fact, we will do whatever we can to assist you in passing your exam short of taking it for you! There should be absolutely no reason for you to fail the insurance licensing test. We are confident if you employ the information provided above you will find success on your insurance exam and obtain your insurance license. You may know others within your organization that will be taking the Illinois insurance exam as well. Please share our site them. Thank you for visiting our site and good luck with your exam!!