Texas life-only vs life and health license

If you're getting into insurance sales in Texas, one of the first choices is which license to test for. The Texas Department of Insurance issues a Life Agent license and a broader General Lines - Life, Accident and Health license (often shortened to GLAH). They have separate exams, and they let you sell different things. Here's how they compare, based on the Texas Insurance Code and the Pearson VUE candidate handbook.

What each license covers

Life Agent license (Texas Insurance Code 4054.301-.303). It covers life insurance, endowments, annuities, accidental death and dismemberment, and disability income, including fixed and variable annuities and variable life.

General Lines - Life, Accident and Health (Texas Insurance Code 4054.051). The code lists this license as the one required to:

• represent an HMO,
• write life, accident and health insurance for a life insurance company,
• write only accident and health insurance,

among other things. A GLAH holder can also write several limited lines, including prepaid funeral and life insurance not exceeding $25,000, without getting a separate license (Texas Insurance Code 4054.053).

The practical dividing line: the Life Agent license's list doesn't include medical expense health coverage or HMOs. If you want to sell health plans, represent an HMO, or work anywhere health insurance is part of the job, the GLAH license is the one that fits.

How the exams compare

Both exams are administered by Pearson VUE. From the candidate handbook:

The Life, Accident and Health exam has 145 questions: 130 scored and 15 unscored pretest questions. They're split into a General Knowledge half (100 scored) that covers both life and health, and a Texas State Specific half (30 scored). You pass with a scaled score of 70, and you're scored on the exam as a whole, not each half separately. What's on the Texas life and health exam breaks the outline down section by section.

We haven't listed a question count for the Life Agent exam here because it isn't in the sources this post is built on. Check Pearson VUE's current Texas insurance publications before you book.

What stays the same

A lot of the licensing process is identical whichever exam you take:

• You have to be at least 18.
• You apply within 12 months of passing the exam, or you retake it.
• The application fee is $50 per license type.
• Texas residents are fingerprinted (through IdentoGO), and the application isn't processed until the Texas DPS and FBI background reports come back.
• You can't act as an agent until an insurer appoints you.
• Licenses run for 2 years, expiring on your birthday.
• Continuing education is 24 hours per 2-year period, including 3 hours of ethics, for both license types. Holding several licenses doesn't multiply it: 24 hours total covers them.

If you sell annuities, there's an extra one-time 4-hour annuity training course plus 8 hours of annuity CE each 2-year period. Those hours count toward the 24.

So which one should you take?

• You'll only sell life insurance and annuities, and have no plans for health products: the Life Agent license covers that, with a shorter, cheaper exam.
• You want to sell medical expense health insurance or represent an HMO, or you don't know yet where you'll end up: take the Life, Accident and Health exam. The extra 30 minutes and $10 buy you both lines, and you won't have to test again later if your job grows into health.

If an employer or agency is sponsoring you, ask which license they appoint for before you register. It's their product mix that usually decides.

Studying for the combined exam

The health half is where the combined exam adds the most new material: disability income, medical expense plans and managed care, the uniform health policy provisions, Medicare and long-term care. Cost-sharing math comes up often, and deductible, coinsurance and out-of-pocket max explained covers it with worked examples. For a full plan, see how to study for the Texas life and health exam.

Encodr's Texas Life and Health course is free, with 1,101 cards across 19 units built on the September 2026 outline, including three units of Texas law.