If you’re in Canada and you want to sell life and/or accident and sickness insurance policies, you’ll have to pass the LLQP exam, among other requirements.
In order to pass the Life License Qualification Program (LLQP) exam, you need to pass the requirements for your type of life insurance license.
There are two types of life insurance licenses: (1) Accident and Sickness and (2) Life and Accident and Sickness.
In order to apply for the former, you need to successfully complete two exam modules within one year of the date you passed the first exam module.
To apply for the latter, you need to successfully complete four exam modules within one year of the date your first exam module was passed.
But before you take the LLQP, there are other requirements you need to satisfy. We’ll be going over those requirements, as well as other LLQP-related information, in this piece.
Table of Contents
What types of questions are on the LLQP?
Although the LLQP exam is open-book and multiple-choice, many test takers find it challenging.
Modules covered on the exam include Life Insurance, Accident & Sickness (A&S), Segregated Funds & Annuities, and Ethics and Professional Practice (Common Law or Quebec version).
But thankfully, there are a variety of Insurance Council-approved LLQP course providers (more on that below) that can guide you in your exam study and preparation and help you pass the exam.
Online via an approved external provider. Those who are registering for licensing outside of New Brunswick and Ontario must first get in touch with their territory/province administrator in order to register for online proctored LLQP exams. After contacting their administrator, the administrator will verify the registrant’s eligibility.
In-person in various locations. As of now, there are in-person testing sites in locations like Fredericton, New Brunswick, and Whitby, Ontario.
Exam dates, whether in person or online, are held throughout the year. You have to select a separate session for each module, and each session is 75 minutes long.
How do I register for the LLQP?
Before you can take the LLQP exam, you have to:
Register for the exam with the Insurance Council using the online portal
Select the way you want to write the exam: in person or online
To register for the exam, you’ll need to log into the Insurance Council’s online portal with a portal account.
Those who already have a portal account or have previously taken the LLQP exam can log into the portal with their password and username.
After logging in, they can select “Register/Manage my LLQP exams,” which they will find on the main menu.
First-time registrants will have to create a portal account. It’s important that they enter their legal name exactly as it appears on their government-issued photo ID (e.g., passport, driver’s license, health card, Certificate of Indian Status), and they’ll also be required to enter their residence address to their account.
Exam prerequisites
There are a number of steps you’ll need to take before writing the LLQP exam:
First, you have to successfully complete an LLQP course provided by an Insurance Council-approved LLQP course provider.
You must have a Canadian Insurance Participant Registry (CIPR) number.
When you complete your LLQP course, you need to have valid confirmation of the completion of an LLQP course provided by an Insurance Council-approved provider. Once the completion of your course expires, you cannot write the exam. In order to qualify for exam registration, you have to retake and successfully complete the course.
What’s considered a passing score?
You need a score of 60% or above to pass the LLQP exam.
Online exam results: Those who took their exam online can view their results on their Insurance Council online portal account, or they’ll receive their results from their external exam provider. This can take up to 7 days.
In-person exam results: If you took your exam in person, you can expect to receive your results in 5 business days. To see your exam results in your Insurance Council online portal account, you have to navigate to the “View my exam results” tab, which is in the main menu.
Rewriting an exam
If you didn’t pass the exam, you can retake it. However, there will be a waiting period if you’ve attempted the exam a number of times.
Those who’ve had three unsuccessful attempts will have to wait 3 months between each following attempt, and test takers with 5 attempts will need to wait 6 months between each additional attempt.
It should be noted that wait periods don’t extend your LLQP course completion’s validity date.
Once your course completion expires, you won’t be able to write any exam modules, and retaking the prequalification course won’t change the exam-writing wait periods.
LLQP course providers
In order to sell life and/or accident and sickness insurance products in Canada, you need to pass the LLQP exam.
But before you can take the exam, you have to complete a course by a provider approved by the Insurance Council.
Here’s a list of Insurance Council-approved LLQP course providers (note that these are all third-party, or external, providers):
Advocis – Through Advocis’ online self-study program, you can gain the foundational skills and knowledge you need to help you pass the LLQP exam. Even if you aren’t based in Toronto, Ontario, where Advocis is based, you can still take advantage of Advocis’ top-notch program, thanks to its live online classes, practice exam tools, videos, and case studies, all of which you can access online.
Business Career College – Whether you prefer instructor-led training or self-study, Business Career College (based in Edmonton, Alberta) has what you’re looking for. Currently, their LLQP course is valid in every jurisdiction in Canada except Quebec.
IFSE Institute – According to IFSE’s website, students can choose from three course offerings: licensing outside of Quebec, licensing in Quebec only, and licensing in a province/territory plus Quebec. Their enrollment period is 1 year, 30 hours per module is the suggested study time, and classes are conducted entirely in English.
Olivers Publishing Inc. – At Olivers, there are many LLQP courses to choose from, including Ethics and Professional Practice (Quebec), Ethics and Professional Practice (Common Law), Accident and Sickness (A&S), and LLQP Full. The course prices range from 69.95 CAD to 375.00 CAD.
SeeWhy Learning – For 365 days, the SeeWhy Learning LLQP (common law) course offers access to an array of resources, such as quizzes, flashcards, and practice and online certification exams. Optional add-ons that are available after registration include trainer videos, CISRO manuals, and study guides. You can expect to pay between $350 and $449, depending on the extensiveness of your SeeWhy Learning course.
How much does the LLQP cost?
Test takers have the option to pay for and schedule individual exam modules separately or pay for a full-day exam package.
While the full-day package costs $145 CAD, individual exam modules, which include Life Insurance, Accident and Sickness Insurance, Segregated Funds and Annuities, Ethics and Professional Practice (Common Law), and Ethics and Professional Practice (Civil Code – Quebec), cost $55 CAD each.
$55 CAD is also the cost of rewriting an exam module.
To obtain a copy of the results from a previously issued exam, you have to pay $25 CAD.
It’s important to remember that exam registration fees cannot be refunded or transferred, and they expire one year after you registered.
Currently, you can only pay exam registration fees online. You can find more information about registering and paying for the exams on the LLQP Exam Information page.
