Florida Life & Health Study Guide

The 2-15 exam draws from both content areas, but the questions that separate a pass from a near-miss cluster in one place: what happens when an insurer fails. Florida’s guaranty association limits are a tiered set rather than a single figure, they carry an aggregate cap that overrides the components, and there is a marketing prohibition attached that is easy to state and easy to forget under pressure.

FLAHIGA — the limits, and the ceiling over the limits

If an admitted life or health insurer becomes insolvent, the Florida Life & Health Insurance Guaranty Association (FLAHIGA) steps in under F.S. § 631.717. The per-insured limits follow the NAIC model with a tiered health schedule:

• $300,000 life death benefit
• $100,000 net cash surrender or withdrawal value
• $250,000 present value of a deferred annuity, per owner
• $500,000 for basic hospital, medical and surgical or major medical coverage
• $300,000 for long-term care and other health coverage, and $300,000 for disability

Then the part candidates skip: an aggregate cap of $300,000 for any one life — except up to $500,000 where major medical coverage is involved. The cap sits on top of the components, not beside them.

You may not sell with it

F.S. § 631.735 prohibits using the existence of either guaranty association to induce a purchase. Not “discouraged” — prohibited. A fact pattern in which a producer steadies a nervous client by pointing out that the state fund backs the policy anyway is describing a violation, not good service. The same prohibition covers the P&C side (FIGA).

And note the boundary that makes the whole subject matter: guaranty coverage exists only for admitted insurers. A placement in the surplus lines market has no guaranty backstop at all.

The free-look ladder, from the senior-market end

A 2-15 producer works the whole ladder, so learn it as one object rather than four facts: 14 days for an individual life policy (F.S. § 626.99(4)); 21 days for an annuity — fixed and variable alike (§ 626.99(4)(b)); 30 days for long-term care (§ 627.9407(8)); 30 days for Medicare supplement (§ 627.674(4)). The 30-day rungs are the ones a senior-market producer touches daily, and they are the ones national prep most often prints wrong.

Continuing education — the code on the course matters

Florida requires 24 hours every two years: a 4-hour Law & Ethics Update plus 20 elective hours, due by the last day of your birth month — first after 24 months licensed, then every two years (F.A.C. 69B-228.220). The trap is not the total. It is that the statute requires an update course specific to the license held, and Florida codes them separately: 5-215 for a 2-15, 5-214 for a life license, 5-240 for health, 5-220 for general lines and personal lines.

A 2-15 agent who sits a 5-220 update because it was the one available that week has not satisfied Florida’s requirement. And because providers have 21 days to report a completion to DFS, the date that matters is when the credit posts — not when you close the course.