Life-Only Insurance Agent Exam: Full Comparison

If you plan to sell life insurance in the United States, the Life-Only Insurance Agent Exam is one of several closely related licensing paths — and it's easy to confuse them. This page compares the Life-Only exam with the broader Life Insurance License Exam, the Health Insurance License Exam, and the combined-adjacent Accident & Health Insurance Agent Exam, so you can pick the license that actually matches the products you want to sell. For reference, the Life-Only exam is a 80-question, 120-minute test with a $39 fee.

Scope: what each license lets you sell

• Life-Only Insurance Agent Exam — Authorizes you to sell life insurance products only: term, whole life, universal life, and, where the underlying annuity authority is included, fixed annuities. It does not cover health, disability, or medical-expense products.
• Life Insurance License Exam — In most states this is effectively the same authority as "Life-Only." The two names are frequently used interchangeably; the exam covers life products and general insurance principles.
• Health Insurance License Exam — Covers health-related coverage: major medical, HMO/PPO plans, Medicare supplements, long-term care, and disability income. It does not authorize you to sell life insurance.
• Accident & Health Insurance Agent Exam — Covers accident, health, disability income, and medical-expense products. In most states the "Accident & Health" and "Health" lines are the same authority under slightly different labels.

Difficulty

All four exams draw from a common foundation of insurance regulation, ethics, contract law, and state-specific rules, plus a product-specific section. The Life-Only exam is generally considered the most self-contained of the group, since it focuses on a single product line rather than the wider range of accident, disability, and medical-expense concepts tested on the health-oriented exams. Candidates who sit for a combined life and health exam face the union of both content outlines and typically report the highest difficulty.

Who each is for

• Life-Only — Agents focused on life insurance and final-expense sales, or those testing into the industry with the narrowest, fastest path.
• Life Insurance License Exam — The same audience; choose based on the exact name your state uses for the life line of authority.
• Health Insurance License Exam — Agents specializing in Medicare, individual and group health, and supplemental medical coverage.
• Accident & Health — Agents selling disability income and accident/medical products; often paired with a life license for a full "Life & Health" practice.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites are set by each state's insurance department rather than by the exam type, so they are broadly similar across all four: you must generally meet a minimum age, complete any state-mandated pre-licensing education for the line of authority, register with the testing vendor, and pass a background check before the license is issued. None of these exams requires another license as a prerequisite — you can start directly with Life-Only if life products are your focus.