Life and Health in Arkansas — Two Exams, One Application
Several states let you satisfy both the life and the health line with a single combined examination. Arkansas is not one of them. PSI publishes a Life exam and an Accident, Health & Sickness exam, each 100 scored questions, each 150 minutes, each $50 — and no combined paper exists.
What the bulletin does permit is a shared appointment: "Life and Health can be taken together." That is a scheduling convenience, not a discount. Two exams, two fees, two separate 70% bars, in one visit.
The saving in Arkansas is on the coursework, and it is real. Pre-licensing is 20 hours per line — but AID Rule 31 exempts the 5-hour Arkansas laws and rules block for an applicant who completed it within the previous two years. So the second line is 15 hours, not 20, and the pair comes to 35 hours rather than 40.
Both lines go on one NIPR application and through one background check, so the administrative cost does not double either.
TESTivity recommends Achievable to satisfy your Arkansas pre-licensing requirement. Achievable is an approved provider, its insurance courses were built by the same subject-matter expert behind TESTivity, and completing the Achievable course earns you the certificate of completion Arkansas requires.
One important distinction: TESTivity is not an approved pre-licensing provider in Arkansas and does not issue certificates of completion. The TESTivity learning tools and study packages will absolutely help you pass the exam — but treat them as a supplement to your Achievable course, not a substitute for it.
Disclosure: TESTivity has a partnership with Achievable and may earn a commission if you enroll through links on this page.
Exam Options & Format
Each exam is 100 scored questions plus 10 unscored pretest items in 150 minutes, passing at 70% as a raw percentage. Pretest items do not consume your time.
Each exam is also split into two separately timed, separately scored sections — a general knowledge section and an Arkansas-specific section — and each section carries its own 70% bar. PSI's Health outline states the split verbatim: Arkansas-specific 30 scored questions in 60 minutes, general knowledge 70 scored in 90 minutes. The Life exam's general section is likewise 70 scored in 90 minutes; its state section works out at 30 in 60 by arithmetic, though PSI does not print that line as plainly.
Sat together, that is four separately scored sections across five hours of testing. It is a long day, and it is worth being honest with yourself about whether you would rather split it across two appointments — there is no fee penalty for doing so, only the two-year clock on your Arkansas laws waiver.
If you fail one exam and pass the other, only the failed one is retaken — but both sit inside the same 90-day, three-attempt approval window, so a split result still burns the clock.
Most Tested Topics Across the Arkansas Life & Health Exams
Where the individual line guides drill into policy provisions and health law, the material that spans both exams sits in the guaranty association and the renewal regime — and Arkansas's guaranty limits genuinely differ from the NAIC baseline:
| Concept | The Arkansas rule |
|---|---|
| Life & health guaranty association | Arkansas Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association (§23-96-101 et seq.) |
| Life death benefit | $300,000 — and it is a combined limit with net cash surrender value, per life (§23-96-114(a)(2)(A)(i)) |
| Cash surrender value | Not a separate bucket — it shares the $300,000 with the death benefit |
| Annuity limit | $300,000 present value — higher than the $250,000 most states use (§23-96-114(a)(2)(A)(iii)) |
| Health benefit plan | $500,000; disability income and long-term care are $300,000 (§23-96-114(a)(2)(A)(ii)) |
| Aggregate per life | $300,000 across all coverages — except $500,000 where a health benefit plan is involved (§23-96-114(b)(1)(A)) |
| Guaranty association in marketing | Prohibited except in conformity with the Commissioner's rules (§23-96-105(a)(1)) |
| Free look, replacement | 30 days for a life or annuity replacement (AID Rule 97) |
| Free look, long-term care | 30 days (§23-97-311); Medicare supplement also 30 days (AID Rule 27) |
| CE per cycle | 24 hours including 3 ethics, due on your birthday, on a two-year cycle (AID Rule 50) |
| CE and multiple lines | Still 24 — the requirement does not increase with the number of lines held |
| CE non-compliance | $25 / $50 / $100 at 30, 60 and 90 days, then automatic suspension (§23-64-304(d)) |
Two guaranty limits are worth memorising against the national default. First, Arkansas's annuity limit is $300,000, not $250,000 — most states, and most study material, use the lower figure, so the instinct is wrong here. Second, the life death benefit and cash surrender value share one $300,000 ceiling rather than sitting in separate buckets; a question giving you a policy with both a death benefit and a substantial cash value is testing exactly that, and the answer is not the sum.
The $500,000 health benefit plan figure is the other one to hold, because it is the only coverage that lifts Arkansas's aggregate above $300,000 — and note that disability income and long-term care, which feel like health products, sit at $300,000 rather than $500,000.
Arkansas Pre-Licensing Education — What Rule 31 Actually Requires
Arkansas is one of roughly twenty states that require pre-licensing education, and it is a genuine gate rather than a formality: you must hold a certificate of completion before you may sit the exam, and PSI requires you to produce it at every attempt.
Twenty hours per line of authority, under AID Rule 31, effective 14 February 2022. Every 20-hour course has the same two mandatory blocks regardless of line: 5 hours of Arkansas laws and rules and 1 hour of ethics. The remaining 14 hours are line-specific — for Life that means the basics, policies and provisions, and 3 hours on annuities; for Accident & Health it means policy provisions, disability income, long-term care, Social Security and Medicare, Medicare supplement, medical expense, group coverage and HMOs.
The waiver that saves you five hours. Rule 31 exempts an applicant for a new licence or an additional line from "the five (5) hours of State Insurance Laws and Rules portion" where that block was completed within two years of the application filing date. So Life plus Health is 20 + 15 = 35 hours, not 40 — and the same applies to any later line you add, provided you stay inside the two-year window.
The certificate is valid two years. Rule 31: "Educational requirements must be completed no more than two (2) years prior to taking the license exam for course certification to be valid." Two clocks therefore run from the same date — your certificate's life, and your laws-block waiver. Adding a line in year three means a full 20 hours again.
Delivery and the provider's own exam. You may take the course in a classroom or online. Online providers must track actual study time and will not release the certificate until you have logged the full hours, and you will sit the provider's closed-book final at 70% or better before it issues.
Providers must be Commissioner-approved, and the approval process is slow by design — a provider must file a pre-licensing application "not less than ninety (90) days prior" to the intended use of the course, and instructors need three or more years of relevant insurance experience plus prior approval. Search approved providers and courses through the NAIC's SBS system, linked from AID's licensing page. Providers keep attendance records three years and rosters two.
Who is exempt. Rule 31 exempts insurance consultants, surplus line brokers, out-of-state licensees establishing Arkansas residency, and adjusters holding a current national or state claims-association certification. Adjusters generally are outside the pre-licensing scheme — AID's own handbook says so plainly. What Arkansas does not offer is a designation waiver: neither Rule 31 nor §23-64-509 credits a CLU, CPCU, ChFC, FLMI, CIC, LUTCF or similar toward the course or the exam. The statutory exemptions run to prior out-of-state licensure and to military service, and nothing else.
Exam Day in Arkansas — and a Warning About the State's Own Handbook
Start with a source problem you need to know about. The Arkansas Insurance Department publishes a PSI testing handbook on its own website — and that copy is a 2019 revision. PSI's live bulletin was revised 18 June 2025. They disagree on four things that matter on the morning of your exam: how many forms of ID to bring, how early to arrive, whether remote testing exists at all, and which test centres are open. Follow the 2025 bulletin. If a colleague quotes you different numbers from a PDF they downloaded from the state site, this is why.
Bring ONE form of ID — but consider bringing two anyway. The current bulletin: "To gain admission to the Test Center, you must present (1) form of identification." It must be government-issued, current, and carry your name, signature and photograph; "no form of temporary identification will be accepted." Accepted forms include a driver's licence, a state or national ID card, a passport or passport card, a military ID, a US learner's permit in plastic-card form with photo and signature, and an Alien Registration or Green Card. The superseded state-hosted handbook demands two — which costs you nothing to satisfy, and removes an argument at the door.
And bring your pre-licensing certificate. Every attempt. This is Arkansas-specific and it is the document candidates forget.
Arrive 15 minutes early per the current bulletin. The old handbook says 30. Fifteen is the requirement; thirty is not a bad habit.
Rescheduling: two days' notice, and only by phone or website. "You may cancel and reschedule an examination appointment without forfeiting your fee if your cancellation notice is received 2 days before the scheduled examination date." The bulletin works the example for you: "for a Monday appointment, the cancellation notice would need to be received on the previous Saturday." Critically — "a voicemail or email message is not an acceptable form of cancellation." Use the PSI website, or speak to a live representative on (833) 518-7458. This is the one exam-day rule on which both handbooks agree, so it is the safest of all of them.
Prohibited items, in the bulletin's own categories. Reference materials of any kind. "Electronic devices of any type, including but not limited to; cellular phones, cameras, computers of any type (e.g., laptops, tablets, iPads), earbuds, electronic games, electronic watches, handheld calculators, headsets, mobile devices, music players, pagers, radios, recording devices, smart watches, televisions." Note handheld calculators and electronic watches on that list. Hats or headgear not worn for religious reasons. And an unusually specific clothing rule: "bulky or loose clothing or coats including but not limited to; open sweaters, cardigans, shawls, scarves, vests, jackets and coats" — worth reading before you dress for a cold testing room. Also barred: backpacks, briefcases, purses, wallets, food, drinks, chewing gum, smoking or chewing products, notebooks, paper, pens and pencils, reading material, and "good luck items."
Results. Your score appears on screen immediately at the end of the exam and a score report is emailed. If you passed, you may print the licence at nipr.com about 24 hours later — Arkansas's apply-first sequence means there is no second application waiting on the other side. The Personal Lines guide covers results, retakes and the three-attempt cap in full.
What It Costs
About $142 in state and vendor charges to license both lines on a first-time pass: $100 for the two exams at $50 each, roughly $20 to file the single NIPR application covering both lines, and about $22 for the one criminal background check.
The larger and more variable cost is the 35 hours of pre-licensing — 20 for the first line and 15 for the second. Providers price this themselves. Note the timing incentive: leave the second line more than two years after the first and the Arkansas laws waiver lapses, putting you back to a full 20 hours. The fees do not change; the coursework does.
Eligibility Requirements
Minimum age 18, an Arkansas residence address for resident applicants, and a valid business email for NIPR. Both lines go on one application, one background check and one approval-to-test.
Nothing about taking two exams changes the eligibility rules — and nothing about them changes the 90-day, three-attempt window either, which covers the pair rather than resetting for each.
Keeping Both Lines Active
Important CE details: One 24-hour block covers the producer licence however many lines sit on it — carrying both Life and Health does not make it 48. A separate 24 applies only if you also hold an adjuster licence.
Carrying both Life and Health does not double your continuing education. AID Rule 50 sets 24 hours per two-year cycle including 3 hours of ethics for the producer licence, and the hours may be taken in courses applicable to any line you hold. The due date is your birthday.
The two product gates you may now be subject to sit on top of that structurally but count toward it in credit terms: the one-time 4-credit annuity Best Interest course under Rule 82, without which you may not sell annuities at all; and long-term care training under Rule 13 — 8 hours initially, then 4 hours every 24 months.
Excess hours carry forward one cycle only, then expire, and no course earns credit twice within a two-year period. Providers have 10 days after completion to file the roster, which is the practical argument for finishing well before your birthday rather than on it. The P&C guide covers the renewal transaction and the penalty ladder.
Quick Reference
Official Links
Don't study generic. Study Arkansas.
You've got the roadmap. Now get the Arkansas-specific Life & Health question bank, mock exams, and video course built by instructors with 20+ years teaching this material.