Mississippi Life & Health Insurance Exam 2026

The Mississippi Life, Accident & Health Producer License

Mississippi does not issue a single "Life and Health" line of authority. It issues Life at §83-17-63(1)(a) and Accident and Health or Sickness at §83-17-63(1)(b), and it offers a combined examination that qualifies you for both at once. The licence you end up with lists two lines; the exam you sit is one.

The combined exam is 115 scored questions plus 10 unscored pretest questions in 150 minutes, passing at 65% - seventy-five of the hundred and fifteen scored items. Compare that with the separate route: 120 scored questions across 240 minutes and two $50 fees. The combined exam asks fewer questions, in less total time, for less money, and it samples both bodies of material rather than testing each exhaustively. The trade is that one result decides both lines.

The pre-licensing position is genuinely unresolved, and you need to know why before you spend money. §83-17-251(2) has long required "twenty (20) hours of approved prelicensing education courses per line of authority," which made this route 40 hours. House Bill 819 of 2024, effective 1 July 2024, added §83-17-251(2)(h) exempting "[a]n individual that is seeking licensure for the life line of authority only." Whether a combined applicant is inside or outside that word is not answered in the statute, in a MID bulletin, in MID's FAQ, or on any MID licensing page. Pearson VUE's candidate handbook does print a figure - "Life, Accident & Health or Sickness Producer: 40 hours classroom or self-study" - but that is simply 20 plus 20 and it predates the exemption, since the same table still prints "Life Producer: 20 hours per line of authority," which House Bill 819 plainly overrides. The pre-licensing section of this guide sets out precisely what each MID page says so that you can put the question to the Department in the Department's own words.

Online proctoring is not available for this exam. Pearson VUE's live Mississippi page suspends OnVUE for the MS Life Producer, the MS Accident & Health or Sickness Producer and the MS Life, Accident & Health or Sickness Producer exams - the whole 65% side of Mississippi's split passing standard. The July 2025 handbook still prints "Yes" against all three. Plan on a test centre. This guide's exam-day section covers what that day involves in detail.

Combined or Separate: Working the Arithmetic

The combined exam. 115 scored plus 10 pretest, 150 minutes, 65% to pass. Pace it against the items you actually answer rather than the ones that count: 125 items in 150 minutes is about 72 seconds each, the tightest of any Mississippi producer exam, and the reason candidates who are comfortable with the material still run short of time. The two separate exams are each 60 scored plus 10 pretest in 120 minutes at the same 65% - 70 items in two hours, about 103 seconds each, which is a far more relaxed pace.

Money. One $50 examination fee against two. One $100 licence fee either way, because §27-15-87(1) charges it for the licence rather than per line - filing both lines in a single application costs the same $100 as filing one. Adding the second line later is where the separate route gets expensive: a second $50 exam plus $25 to amend the licence under §27-15-87(2).

Risk. A failed combined attempt costs you both lines and a retake of all 115 questions. A failed single-line attempt costs you one line and 60 questions. Candidates who are strong on one side and shaky on the other - which is most people, since life and health reward quite different habits of mind - should think carefully about whether they want a single 65% to carry both.

Retakes. Because you will be at a test centre, the centre rules apply: the handbook requires a candidate to "wait one (1) day before scheduling a reexamination" and states that "Testing at a test center is unlimited." Reservations for a retake cannot be made at the centre - rebook online or on (888) 293-4222.

Pretest questions. Ten of the 125 items you answer will not count. They are embedded, unmarked, and indistinguishable from scored items. The handbook explains their purpose - Pearson VUE uses them to validate new questions before they enter the scored pool - and there is no strategy that benefits from trying to spot them.

Most Tested Topics on the Mississippi Life & Health Exam

The combined exam's Mississippi Laws section leans on two clusters the single-line exams touch more lightly: the guaranty association limits, which Mississippi amended in 2020 and which sit at a level of subparagraph detail national courses do not reach, and the free-look periods, which in Mississippi run to four different numbers depending on the product and on whether the sale is a replacement.

The free-look grid is the highest-yield item here because it is five numbers plus a zero, not one, and because the pattern is counter-intuitive. Individual life is 10 days, under §83-7-51, statutory since 1989. Individual accident and health is a second 10 days - "not less than ten (10) days," under §83-9-25, statutory since 1971 and excepting travel and nonrenewable accident policies. Medicare supplement is 30 days, under §83-9-111, and the refund goes "directly to the applicant." Long-term care is 30 days, under Rule 8.06(D). And any life-or-annuity replacement is 30 days, under Rule 14.05(A)(4). Then the negative that ties them together: a standalone, non-replacement individual deferred annuity has no free look at all in Mississippi. §83-7-51 reaches an "individual life insurance policy or contract" and stops; the annuity suitability regulation at 19 Miss. Admin. Code Pt. 2, Ch. 18 creates no right to return; nothing else in Title 19 does either. Sell a standalone annuity and the only free look is whatever the contract itself gives. Sell it as a replacement and thirty days appear.

The aggregate row is the guaranty item candidates most often flatten. Mississippi's schedule is not a single number: the caps are coverage-specific, and the $300,000 aggregate per life is a ceiling that sits above them, so the sublimits bind first. The clearest example is annuities - the $250,000 annuity figure sits inside the $300,000 aggregate, so an annuity-only claimant is capped at $250,000, not at $300,000. The one place the aggregate itself moves is health benefit plans, where it rises to $500,000.

The sales inducement prohibition at §83-23-235 is short, absolute and frequently tested because it catches a natural sales instinct. The association's existence may not be used to sell anything. The exception runs only to the Association itself and to entities that neither sell nor solicit insurance. What the statute requires instead is affirmative and it is split between two parties: the Association prepares the summary document and submits it for the Commissioner's approval, and member insurers deliver it with the policy and keep evidence of compliance, under §83-23-235(2) through (4) and 19 Miss. Admin. Code Pt. 1, Ch. 24, effective 1 January 2021.

Mississippi Pre-Licensing Education: Hours, Formats and the House Bill 819 Problem

Mississippi is one of roughly twenty states that still require pre-licensing education, and its rules are more prescriptive than most - particularly about self-study, where a proctored closed-book examination is required and a third party must swear to it.

The hours. §83-17-251(1) requires an applicant to furnish the Commissioner "certification on a form prescribed by the commissioner that he or she has completed an approved prelicensing course of study for the line of insurance requested." §83-17-251(2) fixes the quantity: "[t]he prelicensing course of study hours shall consist of twenty (20) hours of approved prelicensing education courses per line of authority." MID's pre-licensing page renders that as "20 hours per line of authority classroom or self-study" for Life, Accident and Health, Property, Casualty and Personal Lines; adjusters are 20 hours and bail agents 40. Candidate handbook #122500 prints a figure against every producer route, including both combined ones: "Property and Casualty Producer: 40 hours classroom or self-study" and "Life, Accident & Health or Sickness Producer: 40 hours classroom or self-study."

The House Bill 819 problem. In 2024 the Legislature added §83-17-251(2)(h), exempting "[a]n individual that is seeking licensure for the life line of authority only." The act's own final section reads: "This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2024." Two MID pages then diverged, and both are still live today:

MID's Licensing Examinations and Producer/Individual Licensing pages both announce the change in identical words: "(NEW) Effective July 1, 2024, House Bill 819 will go into law. This new law will exempt Life applicants from the 20-hour Pre-Licensing requirements. This effects the Life Line of Authority only." [sic] MID's Pre-Licensing and Continuing Education page makes no mention of House Bill 819, of any exemption, or of Life being treated differently - it still lists Life alongside the other lines at 20 hours each, and its own page metadata shows it was modified in April 2026, nearly two years after the exemption took effect.

Neither page addresses the combined applicant. Neither does the statute. Neither does MID's FAQ. The exact same "only" construction appears one subsection earlier at (2)(g), for variable products, and is equally unaddressed. So the handbook answers the combined question - with 40 - but it answers it with a pre-2024 number, and the same table is demonstrably stale on Life. The honest position for a Life plus Accident & Health applicant is that the hours owed are 40, 20 or none depending on how the Department reads its own statute, and the Department has not said. Call MID Licensing on (601) 359-3582 or email licensing@mid.ms.gov, ask for the answer in writing, and keep it.

Note also a separate MID error that has propagated: MID's 2024 Legislative Summary lists House Bill 819 as "Approved: 4/30/2024 / Effective: 4/17/2024" - an effective date thirteen days before the Governor approved the bill. The enrolled text says 1 July 2024. Where a departmental summary and the enrolled bill disagree, the bill governs.

Who may teach it. Providers must be approved by the Department before submitting any course for approval, and applications require detailed outlines, examination questions and handouts. The Commissioner "reserves the right to require all applications to be submitted electronically through SIRCON's compliance express or a contracted vendor." A course application should reach the Commissioner at least thirty days before the intended start date, and each approved course is approved for a two-year period. Providers must retain records for five years.

Delivery formats, and how Mississippi classifies them. MID's taxonomy turns on timing, not medium, and it catches people out. Classroom is defined as "a physical or virtual place of study for multiple participants" with activities "occurring in real time" at a specific time, date and place - so a live webinar is classroom, not self-study. Self-study is "education which either fully or in part is correspondent in nature or without classroom instruction," delivered outside real time by correspondence, online training, video, audio, CD or DVD. An online course is defined separately as "[a]n asynchronous/non-contact program of study where activities and information are delivered in a recorded, streaming, or multimedia format" - which places recorded online study inside self-study rather than beside it.

The examinations. This is where Mississippi is stricter than most states, and where the format you choose has real consequences. For classroom delivery, "[o]nly prelicensing classroom courses require an examination," and separately "[t]he licensee must attend one hundred percent (100%) of the course and be attentive to receive credit" - full attendance, not a percentage. For anything with a self-study element, "[a]ll courses which contain an element of self-study in part shall require successful completion (minimum score of seventy percent (70%)) of a closed-book examination, monitored by a disinterested third party," and that proctor must sign "an affidavit/certification attesting that the student completed the exam without assistance." So a self-study route does not avoid an examination; it adds one, closed-book, at 70%, in front of a witness who swears to it.

Blended courses. "Courses will not be approved for partial self-study, unless sixty percent (60%) or more of the course has been approved for classroom credit." Read that carefully - it governs partial self-study, a blended course, and does not cap a fully self-study course, which MID's own page plainly permits.

Certificates and reporting. A completion certificate must carry "the course identification number as assigned by the Commissioner of Insurance or his designee," and providers "may issue course completion certificates to students electronically, once the student has met all requirements." The provider files the completion through Sircon, and for pre-licensing the deadline is short: "[p]relicensing course completions should be submitted within five (5) calendar days of the course completion date." That five-day figure is specific to pre-licensing - ordinary continuing education rosters run on fifteen calendar days, and the two are routinely confused. Note that MID states the pre-licensing deadline two different ways: the Guidelines say five CALENDAR days, while MID's applicant sheet "How to Get a Mississippi Resident Insurance License" says five BUSINESS days. The Guidelines are the operative document for providers.

How long is a certificate good for? MID publishes no answer. We looked: neither the pre-licensing page, nor the Guidelines, nor the how-to sheet states any expiry or shelf-life for a pre-licensing certificate of completion. Do not let anyone tell you a Mississippi certificate expires after a set period without producing the rule - and do not confuse the question with the continuing-education rule that "[l]icensees will receive credit hours for courses only if the course is taken during the license year in which the credit is to be used," which is about CE credit-year alignment and not about pre-licensing at all.

Exemptions. §83-17-251(2) exempts eight categories, (a) through (h): applicants exempt from the written examination under §83-17-39(1) or §83-17-67; holders of a bachelor's degree with major coursework in insurance from an accredited institution; holders of a current and valid CEBS, CHFC, CIC, CFP, CLU, FLMI or LUTCF for the life line; holders of a current and valid RHU, CEBS, REBC or HIA for accident and health or sickness; holders of a current and valid AAI, ARM, CIC or CPCU for the property and casualty lines; limited lines and limited lines credit producers; applicants for the variable life and variable annuity line only; and applicants for the life line only. Every one of those exempts the coursework and none of them exempts the examination - the examination waivers are §83-17-39(1)(a) through (g) and contain no designations at all. The Property & Casualty guide sets the two lists side by side.

What Exam Day Looks Like in Mississippi

Because OnVUE is currently unavailable for all three of Mississippi's life and health exams, exam day for this licence means a test centre, and the handbook's centre rules apply to you in full.

Arrive thirty minutes early. The handbook is specific: "Candidates should report to the test center thirty (30) minutes before the examination and check in with the test center administrator." There is no published grace period for arriving late. A candidate "absent from or late to an exam who [has] not changed or canceled the reservation according to the Change/Cancel Policy will not be admitted to the exam and will forfeit the exam fee" - the whole $50.

There is, however, an excused-absence route, and almost nobody knows about it. Candidates who are late or absent "may call Pearson VUE within 14 days of the exam date to request an excused absence" for six enumerated reasons: illness of the candidate or an immediate family member; a death in the immediate family; a disabling traffic accident; a court appearance or jury duty; military duty; or a weather emergency. On a Gulf Coast state during hurricane season, that last one is worth remembering. Fourteen days is the window.

Two forms of identification, and the name must match exactly. "Candidate must present two (2) forms of current signature identification. The name on the identification must exactly match the name on the registration." The primary ID must bear a photograph and a signature and must not be expired - a government-issued driver's licence, a U.S. Department of State driver's licence, a U.S. learner's permit in plastic card form with photo and signature, a national, state or country identification card, a passport or passport card, a military ID or a military dependant's ID, or an Alien Registration Card. The secondary ID must bear a signature and not be expired - a U.S. Social Security card, a debit or credit card, or any second document from the primary list.

Three details in that rule cost candidates their attempt. First: "Pearson VUE does not recognize grace periods. For example, if a candidate's driver's license expired yesterday and the state allows a 30-day grace period for renewing the ID, the ID is considered to be expired." Mississippi's own driver-licence grace period is irrelevant at the door. Second, if an ID's signature is embedded in a microchip or is "difficult or impossible to read," you must produce another document from either list that carries a visible signature. Third, "[c]andidates who have changed their names must provide written documentation of the change" - a marriage licence, a divorce decree, or another official document. A recently married candidate whose registration and licence disagree needs the certificate in hand.

Check-in. "The candidate's identification and other documentation will be reviewed and they will be photographed for the score report," and "[c]andidates are required to review and sign a Candidate Rules Agreement form." Test centre procedures include "emptying pockets in clothing, prohibiting hats and hoodies, checking eye wear, stowing belongings in a locker." Nothing biometric is described anywhere in the Mississippi handbook.

What you cannot bring in. "No personal items are allowed in the testing room. Personal items include but are not limited to cellular phones, hand-held computers or other electronic devices, pagers, watches, wallets, purses, firearms or other weapons, hats, bags, coats, books, and/or notes, pens or pencils." Note the watch - candidates who intend to pace themselves by wristwatch on a 150-minute exam need another plan. "Dictionaries, books, papers (including scratch paper), and reference materials are not permitted." Belongings go in a locker or back to the car, all electronics switched off first, and "[t]he test center is not responsible for lost, stolen, or misplaced personal items."

What is provided. "Upon entering and being seated in the testing room, the test administrator will provide the candidate with materials to make notes or calculations and any other items specified by the exam sponsor. The candidate may not write on these items before the exam begins or remove these items from the testing room." And the rule people ask about most: "You will not be permitted to bring your own calculator into the testing room."

Breaks. "Break policies are established by the exam sponsor. Most sponsors allow unscheduled breaks. To request an unscheduled break, the candidate must raise their hand to get the administrator's attention. The exam clock will not stop while the candidate is taking a break." Candidates must leave the testing room for any break "[h]owever, candidates are not permitted to leave the floor or building for any reason during this time." On a 150-minute combined exam with 125 items to answer, a break is expensive; plan for one only if you know you need it.

Misconduct. The language is severe and it reaches beyond the test centre: "Any candidate discovered causing a disturbance of any kind or engaging in any kind of misconduct - giving or receiving help; using notes, books, or other aids; taking part in an act of impersonation; or removing examination materials or notes, from the examination room - will be summarily dismissed from the examination and will be reported to the state licensing agency." And where the Candidate Rules Agreement is breached or cheating suspected, "[t]he examination fee will not be refunded, the exam may be determined invalid, and/or the state may take further action such as decertification." On a score whose validity is questioned, Pearson VUE conducts a confidential review and then "will refer the matter to the Department, which will make the final decision on whether or not to cancel the score."

Understand what that report means in Mississippi specifically. §83-17-71(1)(k) makes "[i]mproperly using notes or any other reference material to complete an examination" one of the fourteen statutory grounds on which the Commissioner may refuse, suspend or revoke a producer licence, or levy a civil penalty of up to $1,000 per violation. Exam-room misconduct here is not merely a testing problem; it is a licensing ground in its own right, and it survives the exam.

Accommodations go to Pearson VUE, not to MID. "Pearson VUE complies with the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act as amended," and provides "reasonable and appropriate accommodations to individuals with documented disabilities who demonstrate a need" - a separate testing room, extra testing time, or a reader or recorder. Requests are made through pearsonvue.com/us/en/test-takers/accommodations.html, selecting the test sponsor from the list, and questions go to the ADA Coordinator at accommodationspearsonvue@pearson.com. "Candidates requiring and/or requesting special accommodations must test at a physical Pearson VUE testing location" - which for this exam is where you are testing anyway. Separately, candidates for whom English is not the primary language may request additional time by submitting an ESL form with a letter from an English instructor or employer, with the exam length set at one and a half times standard.

Results. "[E]ach candidate will leave the test center with an official score report in hand," and all candidates "will have access to their score report online within their own account page." A duplicate is retrieved by logging into the Pearson VUE account and clicking score reports. The handbook does not describe any diagnostic or content-area breakdown on a failing report, so do not count on receiving one - work back through content outline #122501 instead.

Mississippi Life & Health License Fees

Two rows on that table are money you may not have to spend. The long-term care training row is a real saving and a real risk of being oversold: Mississippi never adopted the NAIC producer-training model, and its long-term care regulation contains no training rule, notwithstanding that vendors market an "MS 8-hour initial LTC certification" and that the NAIC's own model-adoption chart lists Mississippi under the model. Ask which rule imposes it. The pre-licensing Life row is the genuinely open one, and it is worth a phone call before it is worth a payment.

Mississippi Life & Health License Eligibility

Eighteen years of age under §83-17-61 - the application section, not the examination section. A truthful uniform application, with the declaration made "under penalty of refusal, suspension or revocation of the license that the statements made in the application are true, correct and complete." Pre-licensing education for each line of authority requested, subject to the eight exemptions at §83-17-251(2) and to the House Bill 819 question set out above.

Designations exempt you from the course and not from the exam, and a combined applicant should map their designations to the right line. §83-17-251(2)(c) names CEBS, CHFC, CIC, CFP, CLU, FLMI and LUTCF and exempts the holder "for the life line of authority." §83-17-251(2)(d) names RHU, CEBS, REBC and HIA and exempts "for the accident and health or sickness line of authority." CEBS appears in both, and is therefore the one designation that reaches this whole licence on its own. None of them touches §83-17-39(1), which is where the examination waivers live and which contains no designations at all.

A degree can do it too. §83-17-251(2)(b) exempts an individual "who has received a bachelor's degree with major coursework in insurance from an accredited institution of higher learning" - unqualified by line, unlike the designation exemptions.

No fingerprints, no criminal history record check, no bond, no residency period, no minimum net worth. Mississippi screens producers by self-disclosure on the uniform application and by the fourteen disciplinary grounds at §83-17-71 afterwards. The Health guide owns that material and walks the grounds and the documentation.

Controlled business under §83-17-1(h) makes a violation "deemed to be probable" where aggregate commissions on the producer's own interests, or those of family, relatives, employers, employees or business associates, exceed 35% over any 24-month period. For a new life and health producer whose first policies are frequently written on family, that threshold arrives faster than it does in most lines - and the exceptions in the paragraph, for motor vehicle dealers and lenders, do not help here.

Mississippi Life & Health Continuing Education

§83-17-251(3) sets the requirement by term length rather than by a flat biennial number: 12 hours where the licence "has been in effect for a term of eighteen (18) months or less," and 24 hours for a longer term, "of which three (3) hours shall have a course concentration in ethics." Read the sentences as the Legislature wrote them - the ethics clause is attached grammatically and exclusively to the 24-hour sentence, so a short first term carries no ethics obligation.

Holding both lines does not double it. The requirement attaches to the producer licence, not to the lines of authority on it. A producer with Life and Accident & Health owes the same 24 hours as a producer with Life alone. Adjusters are a separate licence type with a separate requirement.

Annuity training is required and is not CE. 19 Miss. Admin. Code Pt. 2, R. 18.07(B)(1) requires "a one-time four (4) credit training course approved by the Department and provided by the Department approved education provider" before a producer solicits annuities, and R. 18.07(A) separately bars soliciting an annuity without "adequate knowledge of the product" and compliance with the insurer's product-training standards. The topics the course must cover are prescribed: annuity types, parties to a contract, contract features, taxation, primary uses, and the "[a]ppropriate standard of conduct, sales practices, replacement and disclosure requirements." Mississippi adopted the NAIC 2020 best-interest amendments here - the amended regulation "shall become effective on January 1, 2022, and shall apply to acts or practices committed on or after July 1, 2022" - A producer who held a life authority on that date owed the full four credits within six months; the one-time one-credit update at R. 18.07(B)(6) was available only to a producer who had already completed a Department-approved annuity course before 1 January 2022.

Long-term care training is not required. This is the negative worth carrying, because it cuts against both the NAIC's model-adoption chart and the CE vendors. 19 Miss. Admin. Code Pt. 3, Ch. 8 is Mississippi's long-term care regulation and its rules run 8.01 through 8.19 with no training rule, no hour count and no marketing-standards training section anywhere in them. The Mississippi Long-Term Care Partnership Program statutes at §§43-13-601 to 43-13-607 impose none either. What Chapter 8 does give you is the 30-day free look at Rule 8.06(D).

Flood training is federal and conditional - three hours required by FEMA only where the agent has signed up for the NFIP Agent Leads Referral Program, carried through MID Bulletin 2007-2.

Mechanics. No carryover: surplus hours are lost at the compliance date and a repeated course earns credit once per licence period. Providers file completions to MID through Sircon within 15 calendar days for continuing education - note that pre-licensing completions run on a shorter five-calendar-day clock. Renewal opens online 90 days before expiration, and expiration is the last day of your birth month, biennially.

Five exemptions at §83-17-251(4): the §83-17-39(1)(b), (c), (e) and (g) exam-waiver categories; limited lines and limited line credit producers; non-residents meeting home-state CE where a reciprocal agreement exists; non-active agents as defined in §83-17-1; and an individual sixty-five or older with twenty-five or more continuous years of licensure as of 17 April 2023, on a sworn affidavit. The Property & Casualty guide owns renewal itself and works the calendar and the late-renewal arithmetic in full.

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