Idaho Life & Health Study Guide

Idaho has no combined Life and Health exam, so a producer pursuing both lines sits two papers and faces fifty scored questions of Idaho law rather than twenty-five. The material that spans both sides clusters in three places: what happens when an insurer fails, what a buyer may hand back and when, and what a producer may not do. Learn those and you have covered the overlap.

When the insurer fails — the guaranty association limits

Idaho Code Chapter 43 creates the Idaho Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association at § 41-4306 — membership being “a condition of their authority to transact insurance in this state” — with three accounts: life, health and annuity. The limits sit at § 41-4303(3):

• Life: $300,000 in death benefits, but not more than $100,000 in net cash surrender and withdrawal values.
• Annuities: $250,000 in the present value of annuity benefits, including net cash surrender and withdrawal values. Structured settlement annuities are also capped at $250,000 in the aggregate per payee.
• Health: $500,000 for major medical; $300,000 for other health claims or benefit payments; $100,000 for health cash values.
• Aggregate: $300,000 per life — rising to $500,000 where major medical is involved. A separate $5,000,000 cap applies to multiple non-group life policies held by one owner.

Note that Idaho’s annuity limit is $250,000, not the $300,000 many states use — and that it is the present value figure, not merely a surrender-value sub-limit.

And you may not sell on it. § 41-4319 forbids any advertisement “which uses the existence of the insurance guaranty association of this state for the purpose of sales, solicitation or inducement to purchase.” The property-casualty equivalent is § 41-3619, which makes the same conduct “an unfair trade practice.”

Four free looks, and no two the same

This is the highest-yield block on either exam, because Idaho gives four different return periods and the exam simply names a product:

Product	Free look	Cite
Life insurance and annuities	20 days	§ 41-1935
Individual disability / health	10 days	§ 41-2138
Long-term care	30 days	§ 41-4605(6)
Medicare supplement	30 days	IDAPA 18.04.10

Replacement does not extend any of them. IDAPA 18.03.04 § 014.04 gives a replaced life policy or annuity 20 days from delivery — the same twenty as a new contract, with an unconditional refund of premiums.

Replacement — what the producer must actually do

IDAPA 18.03.04 § 012.02.a puts three duties on the producer, all before anything is signed: present a “Notice Regarding Replacement” not later than at the time of taking the application, signed by both the applicant and the producer; obtain a list of the existing policies being replaced, properly identified; and leave the applicant with copies of all written communications used in the presentation.

Then the incumbent carrier gets its turn. § 014.02.c gives the existing insurer 20 days from receipt of the written communication and accompanying materials to conserve the business.

That is Idaho’s third twenty. Free look, life-settlement rescission, conservation window — all twenty. When a question hands you a twenty-day period in a replacement fact pattern, read carefully which party it belongs to.

What a producer may not do — Idaho names them separately

Title 41 Chapter 13 is unusually granular, and Idaho gives several practices their own section rather than folding them into a general prohibition:

• § 41-1303 — misrepresentation or false advertising of policies
• § 41-1305 — “‘Twisting’ prohibited”, a named offence in its own right
• § 41-1308 — defamation
• § 41-1309 — boycott, coercion and intimidation
• § 41-1313 — unfair discrimination in life, annuities and disability
• § 41-1314 — rebates and illegal inducements, with exceptions at §§ 41-1315 and 41-1315A
• § 41-1325 — borrowing money from clients

Unfair claim settlement practices are separate again. § 41-1329 lists fourteen enumerated acts, and they bite only when committed intentionally or “with such frequency as to indicate a general business practice.” A single mishandled claim is not a violation. The penalty is its own provision: an administrative penalty “not to exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000)” under § 41-1329A — where the general Title 41 penalty in § 41-117 is only $1,000 for an individual and $5,000 for any other person, with criminal exposure of a $1,000 fine and up to six months in county jail.

Handling other people’s money

Two producer duties are worth memorising because they carry the heaviest consequences in the code.

§ 41-1024: “All fiduciary funds received or collected by a producer shall be trust funds received by the producer in a fiduciary capacity.” Separate accounts are required, and commingling several clients’ funds in one trust account is permitted only where each person’s share is “reasonably ascertainable from the records and accounts of the producer.” Unlawful diversion of fiduciary funds is a felony.

§ 41-1036: records must be kept five years “after the creation or the completion, whichever is later, of the respective transactions” — note the “whichever is later,” which on a long-term contract starts the clock at the end of the term, not the sale.