Failed the Virginia Insurance Exam? Here's Your Targeted Retake Strategy

Failing the Virginia insurance exam is not a career-ending event — it is a diagnostic event. Virginia publishes no limit on the number of times you can attempt the exam, charges only $35 per retake, and requires only a 24-hour wait between attempts (with a 30-day pause after three consecutive failures). The candidates who convert a first failure into a passing retake are those who use the score report as a guide rather than a disappointment, make targeted changes to their preparation, and address the actual cause of the failure rather than just studying more of the same material. Here is exactly how to do that.

Step 1: Read Your Score Report Before You Do Anything Else

Within minutes of completing the exam, your score report is displayed on the Prometric screen. A copy is also emailed to you. This report is the most valuable study tool you have for your retake — and candidates who ignore it and go back to studying everything from scratch are the ones who fail again.

The Virginia Prometric score report for a failed exam shows:

Your numeric score (only shown if you fail — passing scores are reported as "pass" without a number)

Your section-level performance — specifically, whether you passed or failed the national/general section and the Virginia state law section separately

Performance by content area within each section

Read it carefully. Identify exactly which section caused your failure — national, state law, or both. Then identify which content areas within the failed section had the weakest performance.

The most common scenarios:

Passed national, failed state law: You know insurance products but under-prepared Virginia statutes. Retake focus: 90% Virginia state law.

Failed national, passed state law: You know Virginia law but need more work on insurance fundamentals. Retake focus: 90% national content weak areas.

Failed both: You need a full preparation reset with more time and a more systematic approach.

Failed both, narrowly: You are close — targeted work on the lowest-scoring content areas in both sections may be sufficient.

Step 2: Calculate Exactly What You Need to Pass

Take the guesswork out of "how close was I?" by doing the math:

P&C exam (Series 11-03):

National section: 100 scored questions — you need 70 correct (70%) to pass

State law section: 35 scored questions — you need 25 correct (71.4%) to pass

L/A/H exam (Series 11-01):

National section: 100 scored questions — you need 70 correct (70%) to pass

State law section: 40 scored questions — you need 28 correct (70%) to pass

If your score report shows you answered 62 national questions correctly, you need 8 more. If it shows 21 state law correct, you need 4 more. These are specific targets — you do not need to get everything right, you need to move specific numbers.

Step 3: Identify the Root Cause, Not Just the Symptom

Before scheduling your retake, honestly diagnose why you failed. The most common root causes:

Under-preparation for the state law section. The most common cause of first-time failures in Virginia. Candidates who take national-only courses or study predominantly national content arrive under-prepared for 35–40 questions that test statutes they have never read. Solution: Read the relevant Title 38.2 chapters directly. Know the auto insurance minimum changes, UIM stacking rule, workers' comp threshold, and unfair trade practices statute cold.

Insufficient practice exam repetition. Studying content is not the same as exam-taking. Candidates who read and re-read notes without practicing under timed conditions often know the material conceptually but cannot retrieve it efficiently under exam pressure. Solution: Shift to more practice exam time and less passive reading in your retake preparation.

Mismanaged time on the real exam. Some candidates spend too long on difficult questions early and run out of time at the end, leaving questions unanswered. Unanswered questions count as wrong. Solution: Practice the strategy of answering all questions at a consistent pace, marking uncertain ones to revisit, and never dwelling more than 90 seconds on any single question.

Exam anxiety causing retrieval failure. The material is in your memory but anxiety prevents clean access on exam day. Solution: Practice under exam-like conditions (timed, distraction-free, no notes) consistently in the weeks before the retake. Familiarity with the exam environment reduces anxiety. If testing in-person caused anxiety, consider the remote ProProctor option.

Gaps in specific high-weight content areas. Your score report will tell you which areas scored lowest. If Virginia auto insurance is your weakest state law area, and it comprises roughly 10 of 35 state law questions, improving on that one cluster moves your score by nearly 3 percentage points.

Step 4: Build a Targeted Retake Study Plan

For a state law failure: Spend the majority of your retake preparation time on Virginia statutes. Do not re-study national content unless the score report shows weakness there too. Use this sequence:

Read the Title 38.2 chapters covering your weak areas directly (law.lis.virginia.gov)

Do 30–50 Virginia-specific practice questions per day focused on your weak areas

Take a full state-law-only practice exam and score it before scheduling your retake

Target 75%+ on state law practice before scheduling

For a national content failure: Identify the specific sections with lowest scores (homeowners, auto, commercial lines, disability income, etc.) and spend the majority of retake time on those. National content knowledge is more straightforward to remediate than state law — it is a matter of coverage depth, not statutory reading.

For a full failure: Schedule a longer retake window. Two to three weeks of systematic daily study covering both sections is typically sufficient for a candidate who was genuinely close on the first attempt. If you scored below 60% on both sections, consider a full restart with a structured prep course before attempting again.

The 30-Day Mandatory Wait: Use It Productively

If you failed the exam three times and are in the mandatory 30-day waiting period, that month is preparation time — not a penalty to endure. Use it to completely reset your approach:

Switch study methods entirely if what you were doing produced three failures

Take a structured prep course if you have been self-studying

Work through 500+ practice questions covering your weak areas

Target 80%+ on practice exams before the retake — not 70%, because you want a buffer

The 30-day pause exists because the Bureau of Insurance recognizes that retaking immediately without meaningful change produces the same result. Your job is to make that change meaningful.

Frequently Asked Questions

How soon can I retake the Virginia insurance exam after failing?

After failing a Virginia Prometric exam, you must wait at least 24 hours before registering for a retake. This is a scheduling restriction — you can contact Prometric or schedule online the next day. The 24-hour wait applies to the first and second failures. After failing the same exam three times, Virginia law imposes a 30-calendar-day mandatory waiting period before you can attempt that exam again. There is no lifetime limit on attempts. Each retake costs $35 and must be paid at the time of scheduling. Your exam score from any passing attempt remains valid for 183 days to use for your license application.

If I passed one section and failed the other, do I have to retake both sections?

Yes. Virginia's exam structure does not allow section-by-section retakes. If you passed the national section and failed the state law section (or vice versa), you must retake the entire exam — both sections together — in your next attempt. However, your score report from the failed attempt shows exactly where you fell short, so you can focus your retake preparation almost entirely on the failed section while maintaining the knowledge base for the passed section. In practice, candidates who failed only one section typically devote 80–90% of their retake preparation to the failed section and do light review of the passed section in the week before retaking.

Does my failed exam score count against me in any way with the Virginia Bureau of Insurance?

No. Failed exam attempts are not reported to the Bureau of Insurance as a part of your licensing record and do not affect your application once you pass. The Bureau receives only your passing exam score (transmitted by Prometric within approximately two business days of the exam). Multiple failed attempts do not appear on your license, do not affect your background review, and do not create any regulatory flag. Virginia's only consequence of multiple failures is the 30-day mandatory wait after three attempts on the same exam. Once you pass, you apply for your license the same way as any other candidate.

Should I switch from remote to in-person (or vice versa) for my retake?

This depends on whether the testing format contributed to your failure. If you tested remotely and experienced technical issues, distractions, or unexpected proctor-side interruptions, switching to an in-person test center for the retake provides a more controlled environment. If you tested in-person and experienced significant anxiety related to the test center environment, testing remotely from your home may provide a more comfortable setting. If neither format-specific issue seems to have contributed to your failure — if you simply didn't know enough of the material — the format choice for the retake is secondary to preparation quality. The exam content and scoring standard are identical in both formats.

How many Virginia insurance exam retakes does the average candidate need?

Passing rates for first-time candidates in Virginia run in the low-to-mid 70s for most exam lines (approximately 73–75% for Life, Health, and P&C based on available data). This means approximately 25–27% of candidates fail their first attempt. Most of those candidates pass on their second or third attempt after targeted preparation. The candidates who require four or more attempts have typically not changed their preparation approach meaningfully between attempts — they retake without diagnosing what failed. Virginia's 30-day wait after three failures is the most consequential timing risk, because it forces a delay that affects the 183-day exam score validity window for candidates who are starting from zero attempts.

A first failure is information. Use the score report, diagnose the cause, target the specific gap, and retake when your practice exams demonstrate you are ready — not when the calendar says you should be.

Visit JustInsurance to enroll today and address any content gaps with a state-approved Virginia course that covers both national and Virginia state law content.