Last Updated on August 22, 2026 by Jacques Wong, B.Sc.
Whether you want to work for a big company or strike out on your own as an independent insurance agent, completing the required Texas insurance exam is the first step in earning your Texas property and casualty insurance license and starting your lucrative but stable insurance career selling home, business and auto insurance. If you want to pass the Texas P&C insurance exam, it pays to know what you’re up against. It’s not an impossible task as most people pass on the 1st try, but it does take some preparation and understanding the exam structure goes a long way to ensuring you’re among the successful ones.
The Exam Format At a Glance
Texas Insurance License Exam Key Stats:
- 145 Multiple-Choice Questions (130 real questions and 15 pretest questions)
- 70% to Pass
- 2.5 Hours Allotted
- 70-75% Section 1 – General Knowledge
- 25-30% Section 2 – Texas-Specific Knowledge
The Texas P&C Insurance exam is made up of 145 multiple-choice questions (only 130 are scored) and you need a 70% to pass. With 2.5 hours (or 150 minutes) to write the exam, you get just over 1 minute per question.
The questions itself can be roughly broken down into a few types:
- Application Questions (40-45%) – this is by far the most important thing to learn and that is how to apply the knowledge you’ve learned inside the course to actual real-life scenarios similar to what you might experience when you’re actually working as an insurance broker.
- State-Specific Questions (25-30%) – for Texas regulations
- Definition Questions (20-25%) – this is one of the easier questions to answer and pick up valuable marks. By studying the Glossary of Key Terms inside our course and utilizing tools like flashcards, you should have no problem with this section. They also like to test numbers here as well such as dollar amounts or number of days.
- Exception Questions (15-20%) – this comes up a lot as well and the main thing is to watch out for double negatives and other tricky wordplay such as sneaky inclusions of “except” or “not”. For example, they might as what is “not excluded” which means “covered” or they might ask “all of the following are true except.” Watch out for those!
- Calculation Questions (10-15%) – here you’ll have to do some math like calculating deductibles or coinsurance. Nothing to difficult here. If you can add, subtract and multiply, you’ll be just fine.
You may have noticed that the question types don’t add up to 100%, that is because 1 question can test multiple things. For example, you may have an application question that also tests state-specific knowledge. But generally, 1/3 will be scenario questions, 1/3 will test definitions and 1/3 will test you on numbers like days or dollar amounts.
In terms of the general exam makeup, about 70-75% of the questions will cover core insurance concepts that are applicable nationwide. And 25-30% of the exam will be dedicated to questions that test state-specific knowledge like Texas regulations and insurance requirements.
Texas Property & Casualty Exam Topics & Weightings
The Texas insurance exam for P&C agents can be broken down into 2 sections: general and state-specific and 3 main topic clusters: property insurance, casualty/liability and Texas-specific content.
Property Insurance (30-35% Weighting):
This section is part of the General/National knowledge and covers important topics like homeowners forms, valuation methods, commercial property insurance, and more.
To excel at this section, you need to focus on exclusions, what triggers coverage, and how deductibles are applied.
Casualty Insurance (30-35% Weighting):
Another word for Liability Insurance, this section is equally as important as the Property section and covers concepts like general liability, professional liability, workers compensation, and auto insurance.
This section also applies generally to how insurance operates in the United States and is not state-specific.
To excel at this section, focus on exclusions, coverage triggers, and liability limits required.
Texas-Specific Content (25-30% Weighting):
This is where we get into state-specific requirements to Texas. Here, the exam will test you on minimum required liability limits for Texas (ie. for auto insurance), windstorm insurance (including TWIA), FAIR plan, and any state-specific policies or endorsements that may apply.
Windstorm coverage, liability limits, licensing requirements, consumer protection laws (ie. claims deadlines & unfair trade practices), TDI regulations, and agent conduct are very important topics to understand here.
Note: the questions and sections are all randomly pulled from a large bank so they won’t be clearly grouped by topic or category.
Tips for Passing Your Texas Insurance Exam
1) Follow the topic weightings
We have outlined above some of the most important concepts for the exam. Now that you understand the exam structure, make sure you study accordingly.
Also, not all topics are tested equally on the exam so make sure you tailor your studies to the exam weightings. Your time and effort dedicated to each section should be roughly dictated by the weighting of that topic on the exam with some allowances for personal needs as you might pick up certain concepts easier than others.
2) Create a study schedule
Many insurance exam takers in Texas are trying to launch their new careers while juggling other responsibilities like family, work, friends, volunteering, etc. Without a solid study plan, these other priorities will take over.
Work backwards from your goal date and build a plan from there. I recommend budgeting 3-6 weeks (30-50 hours in total) for test prep. Schedule your study sessions in your calendar whenever it works best for your schedule and stick with it.
Try to schedule it for the same time every day if you can and make sure you build in breaks as well so try not to have study sessions longer than 2 hours if possible. The goal here is consistency and avoiding burnout.
Luckily, PNC Learning’s Texas P&C Insurance Course comes with a mobile app that makes studying anytime, anywhere, and on-the-go easy making it more likely for you to stick to your schedule.
3) Take a quality pre-licensing course
Investing in proper licensing prep is the single best thing you can do to improve your odds of passing on the first try.
Without the right materials, you won’t have the right foundation to begin your new career. The best Texas insurance license exam study guide/materials should teach you everything you need to know in plain language, avoid using jargon where possible, has practice questions to reinforce concepts, and comes with dedicated support from knowledgeable instructors so you’re not left studying alone.
To further support the learning experience, PNC Learning’s Texas insurance course also includes access to a peer learning community where students can connect to form study groups, motivate each other, or get help from peers and our instructor team.
4) Practice active learning
For the Texas insurance exam, understanding is more important than memorizing. So don’t just read the materials or watch the lectures passively. Make sure you are engaging with the materials by annotating the margins with your own notes, highlighting key points, summarizing concepts/sections in your own works, or drawing diagrams to help you visualize concepts.
Another great way to practice active learning is to teach others. Friends and family are a great captive audience for this (because who doesn’t love learning about insurance) but if you don’t have that, our peer learning community is another awesome resource.
Also make sure you utilize all elements of the course: the reading, the visuals, audio, and interactive elements as well.
This well-rounded approach will help you more easily internalize the material so you are better prepared for those all-important application questions which make up almost half of all the exam questions.
5) Watch for common exam tricks
On the Texas insurance exam, they love to use work tricks so make sure you read the questions carefully.
Watch out for the use of negatives and especially double negatives like “not”, “not excluded”, “except” or “false”. Similarly, absolute terms like “always” or “never” are also dangerous because in insurance, there usually aren’t absolutes – there are always exceptions to the rules and sometimes exceptions to exceptions!
Also don’t assume anything! If the question doesn’t say the person in the scenario carries a specific coverage, assume they do not.
6) Texas-specific knowledge
You also need to know the exact Texas requirements for things like liability limits and time limits. You should create a table to help you remember them. Don’t skip this part!
7) Utilize your practice test questions
In our Texas P&C Insurance Exam Prep Course, we have included thousands of questions designed to match the style of questions you’ll see on the real exam and also tailored to the specific exam weightings for each topic.
I suggest using them for exam review to get a feel for the exam questions and also to help you diagnose where you need to spend more time. If you don’t answer a question correctly, investigate why and make a note for yourself to help you remember. Consistently missing questions on a certain chapter or topic means you may need to go back and review it further.
If you are consistently scoring highly on the practice exams while taking them under time pressure (2.5 hrs), then you are ready to write the exam!
8) Tips for writing the Texas insurance exam
The night before the exam, make sure you go to sleep early. You want to be well-rested for the big day ahead. If you have trouble sleeping early, you can acclimate by sleeping earlier and earlier starting a few days prior until you hit your goal sleep time.
On the morning of your exam, eat a light but nutritious meal. Try to include some fruit or other sources of natural sugars to give your brain the energy it needs to function optimally. Also, remember to be well hydrated but not so much that you’re wasting precious exam time in the bathroom.
Try to get to your exam location and get settled in early. Google Maps (when used on your desktop) has a helpful feature where you can set your desired arrival time and it will estimate when you need to leave your house. Make sure you have time to find parking and get settled. Bring your ID but leave everything you don’t need in the car.
While I always recommend writing in-person so you can mark up the questions, some might find it more convenient to write online. If you are writing the exam online, make sure you test your technology the night before to make sure everything works. The online proctor will ask you to clear your desk and room of any clutter so make sure you do that ahead of time.
During your exam, read the questions carefully – looking out for those exam tricks we told you about. You only have about 1 minute per question so skip over any difficult questions and return to them later. You’ll also be given a piece of scratch paper so you can use that for calculations or to rewrite questions in a clearer way (ie. by converting double negatives into positives).
If you are writing the exam on paper, you should also circle or highlight the key parts of the question and cross out anything that is filler or not important to the question. To learn more, here’s a short video we produced on how to tackle multiple choice questions on insurance exams.
Study Smart
Earning your insurance certification opens doors to a stable, rewarding career with strong job security throughout all economic cycles, great income potential (limitless if you’re a producer), flexibility in terms of schedule and location, and opportunities for career advancement and personal growth.
The most important decision you can make when you start this Texas licensing journey is picking the right study partner.
PNC Learning’s online property and casualty insurance exam prep course contains everything you need to know to pass the Texas insurance exam. Some of our learning tools include: Texas property and casualty insurance exam study guide covering national and state-specific knowledge, video lectures for the visual learners, an extensive bank of practice exam questions, audiobook and mobile app for those that like to study on the go, and a vibrant peer learning community where you can find support and motivation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it hard to pass the Texas Insurance exam?
No, it’s not hard to pass the Texas exam but it does take some dedication, the right preparation strategy and access to good study materials and instructor support to help you when you need it. If you were able to get through high school, you can get through this!
How hard is it to get an insurance license in Texas?
Once you pass the Texas state exam, the rest is easy. It’s just a matter of passing a background check and filing the necessary paperwork with the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI). See our guide on how to get your insurance license in Texas for more details.
How many questions are on the Texas insurance license exam?
There are 145 questions on the Texas P&C exam. 130 of these questions are real and graded while 15 of them are pre-test questions which don’t count towards your final score. You will not know which ones are pre-test vs actual exam questions.
Your Texas insurance career starts with one exam — let’s make sure you pass it.
PNC Learning’s Texas P&C Exam Prep Course has everything: a full study guide, video lectures, thousands of practice questions, an audiobook, mobile app, and a peer learning community.