How we rank insurance pre-licensing courses
Last checked October 18, 2026 · Sources: NAIC Uniform Licensing Standards; state insurance departments and their test vendors; providers’ own pages.
Insurance licensing is set state by state, so we rank insurance pre-licensing courses on whether they cover your state and line, whether they meet your state’s hour requirement, price, access and guarantees, and rate each course out of 5 with one rubric used across the site. We use providers’ own pages for prices and Pearson VUE, PSI and state insurance departments for exam facts. Ratings are editorial, not hands-on tests, and we take no payment for placement.
What we look at
| Factor | Why it matters for insurance licensing |
|---|---|
| State and line coverage | Courses are state-specific; ExamFX says it covers all 50 states, and Kaplan sells packages by state and line. |
| Meeting your state’s hour rules | Requirements range from none listed in Texas to 200 hours for Florida’s 2-20, and some states require live hours, such as Illinois’s 7.5 per line. |
| Published price | We link every price to the provider’s own page; where prices only show at checkout, we say so. |
| Access length | Both Kaplan and ExamFX give 60 days, which matters if you can’t start right away. |
| Guarantees and their conditions | Kaplan’s Commitment and ExamFX’s 80% Readiness Exam guarantee work differently; we spell out the terms. |
Our criteria. Each review links to the provider pages we used.
How we rate insurance pre-licensing courses
We use the same rubric across every exam on this site. Each course is scored out of 5 in six categories, based on what the provider publishes and the consensus of third-party reviews, and the weighted total is its rating: question bank 25%, practice exams 20%, lectures and materials 15%, platform and mobile 15%, support 10% and value 15%. Ratings are our editorial assessment, not measured results, and each review shows its breakdown.
| Provider | Rating |
|---|---|
| Kaplan | 3.9 / 5 |
| ExamFX | 3.8 / 5 |
Current ratings, October 2026.
A note on sources
Most of the state-by-state insurance guides we found were written by course sellers, and some are out of date: one listed Massachusetts as a Prometric state, but Pearson says Massachusetts selected it as provider, and many still show California’s pre-2026 rule of 20 hours per line. We confirm testing companies and rules with Pearson VUE, PSI or the state insurance department where we can, and label anything that comes from course sellers or approved schools instead.
What we don’t do
- We don’t claim hands-on testing we haven’t done; our ratings are editorial and say so.
- We don’t accept payment for placement, and we don’t currently earn commissions; if that changes, our affiliate disclosure will say so at the top of each page.
- We don’t repeat providers’ own pass-rate claims as facts; we label them as the provider’s claim.
- We don’t quote prices we can’t see on a provider’s own site.
How often we check
Every page shows when we last checked it, with its sources, under the title. We aim to recheck prices every three months and state rules every six, and sooner when a state changes its law, as California did on January 1, 2026.
Common questions about how we rank insurance pre-licensing
Do you test the courses yourselves?
No. Our ratings are editorial: we score what providers publish, and the consensus of third-party reviews, against the rubric above, and say so on every review.
Do providers pay for their ranking?
No. We don’t currently earn commissions, and no one pays for placement.
Why does state coverage matter so much?
Because each state sets its own rules, a course is only useful if it covers your state and meets its hour requirement.
See also our insurance licensing guide and course comparisons. MockTestPrep is independent and is not affiliated with any provider, vendor or state.