Georgia Life & Health Study Guide

Sit the combined 12-GA-05 exam and Georgia gives you a smaller state-law chapter than you would face taking the two exams separately — 25 scored questions instead of 60. What survives the compression is the material Georgia considers foundational for both lines: what happens when an insurer fails, what a buyer may hand back and when, and what a producer may not do. Learn those three and the state block is mostly finished.

When the insurer fails — the Georgia Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association

O.C.G.A. § 33-38-5(a) creates “a nonprofit, unincorporated association to be known as the Georgia Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association.” The limits are all in one paragraph, § 33-38-7(a)(12), and Georgia words the health tier in a way that trips people who learned the older NAIC phrasing:

• Life: $300,000 in death benefits — but not more than $100,000 in net cash surrender and net cash withdrawal values.
• Annuities: $300,000 in the present value of annuity benefits — but not more than $250,000 in net cash surrender and withdrawal values.
• Health: $500,000 for health benefit plans, and $300,000 each for disability income, long-term care, and other health insurance.
• Aggregate: $300,000 per life across everything — stretching to $500,000 only where a health benefit plan is involved.

Note the health line carefully. The $500,000 figure attaches to the defined term “health benefit plans,” not to “basic hospital, medical and surgical or major medical.” That older language is NAIC model text Georgia does not use, and study guides that import it will lead you to the wrong answer on a question that names disability income or long-term care — both of which sit at $300,000.

And you may not sell with it. § 33-38-21 prohibits using the existence of the association “for the purposes of sales, solicitation, or inducement to purchase,” in any advertising medium, with a penalty of up to $1,000 per violation and $10,000 in the aggregate, plus possible suspension or revocation.

The free look — one number for life, a different one for senior products

Georgia’s free look for individual life is 10 days from receipt, under O.C.G.A. § 33-25-8 — a stand-alone section, not part of the replacement regulation, and the single most miscited rule in Georgia study material. Return the policy and it “shall be void from the beginning and the parties shall be in the same position as if no policy or contract had been issued.”

Two consequences follow, and both are tested:

Replacement does not extend it. Georgia never adopted the newer NAIC replacement model with its twenty- or thirty-day extended right to return. Subject 120-2-24 imposes notice, signature and record duties on the agent and creates no return right at all. Ten days on a new policy, ten days on a replacement.

Senior products are different. Long-term care carries a 30-day free look under § 33-42-6(f), and Medicare supplement carries a 30-day free look under Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 120-2-8-.17(1)(e). Annuities run on the same 10-day § 33-25-8 footing as life.

What a producer may not do

Georgia keeps two separate articles in Chapter 6, and the distinction is itself an exam point.

Unfair trade practices — O.C.G.A. § 33-6-4 enumerates the conduct: deceptive advertising; misrepresentation of policy terms, benefits or dividends; defamation of an insurer’s financial condition; boycott, coercion and intimidation; false financial statements and false entries; unfair discrimination, expressly including discrimination based on “race, color, or national or ethnic origin”; rebating, at subsection (8)(B) — “paying, allowing, giving, or offering to pay, allow, or give directly or indirectly, as inducement to any contract of insurance, any rebate”; tying arrangements; falsely representing employment by Medicare or the Social Security Administration; deceptive marketing to service members; and discrimination against victims of family violence or sexual assault.

Unfair claims settlement practices — §§ 33-6-30 through 33-6-37 is a different article with a higher threshold. A practice is improper only if it is “committed flagrantly and in conscious disregard” of Title 33, or “committed with such frequency so as to indicate a general business practice.” One mishandled claim, standing alone, is not a violation. And § 33-6-37 states plainly that nothing in the article “shall be construed to create or imply a private cause of action.”

Sitting behind both is bad faith at § 33-4-6: an insurer that refuses to pay within 60 days of a demand faces a penalty of not more than 50 percent of its liability for the loss or $5,000, whichever is greater, plus all reasonable attorney’s fees.

Records, and the clause people misread

O.C.G.A. § 33-23-34(b) requires that “all records as to any particular transaction shall be kept for a term of five years beginning immediately after the completion of the transaction or the term of the contract, whichever is greater.” Read the last clause — it is not a flat five years from the sale. On a twenty-year policy, the clock does not start until the contract term ends.

Keeping the license — the headline numbers

Georgia agent licenses are biennial, expiring on the last day of your birth month (§ 33-23-18). Continuing education is 24 hours per cycle including 3 hours of ethics for licensees with fewer than 20 years of service, dropping to 20 hours (still 3 ethics) at 20 years — an automatic four-hour reduction Georgia began applying in 2026. Designation holders — CPCU, CLU, FLMI, CIC, CEBS, ChFC, AAI, CFP, CRM, CISR, or a BBA in risk management and insurance — complete 12 hours including 3 ethics.

Two trainings sit outside the CE count and are easy to miss: annuity best-interest training under Rule 120-2-94 before you may recommend an annuity, and 8 hours initial plus 4 hours every 24 months for long-term care partnership sales under Rule 120-2-16-.34.