- What DE-LH Actually Is
- Who Regulates and Administers the Exam
- Exam Structure: Two Major Lines, Two Portions Each
- The 17 Content Domains Explained
- Eligibility and Application Mechanics
- Fees, Scheduling, and Retake Rules
- Licensing, Renewal, and Continuing Education
- Mapping a Study Plan to Domain Weight
- Who Actually Needs DE-LH
- Frequently Asked Questions
- DE-LH refers specifically to Delaware's Life & Health Insurance Producer Exam, administered by Pearson VUE.
- The combined Life and Accident and Health path covers 221 multiple-choice items - 182 scored, 39 pretest - across 4 hours 30 minutes total.
- Insurance Ethics carries 24 of the 182 scored questions on the January 15, 2025 outline, spread across two ethics domains.
- Scheduling both major-line exams the same day costs one $90 fee, separate from the $125 producer application fee.
What DE-LH Actually Is
DE-LH is shorthand for the Delaware Life & Health Insurance Producer Exam - the state licensing test that anyone selling life insurance, accident and health insurance, or both in Delaware must pass before applying for a producer license. It is not a designation you earn once and display on a business card forever; it is a regulatory gateway. Pass it, submit your paperwork, and you become eligible to hold a Delaware resident producer license in the life and/or health major lines.
Because "DE-LH" is a compact label, it's worth being precise about scope from the start. This page focuses exclusively on the Delaware exam structure, domains, fees, and renewal rules as published by the state - not on any other credential that happens to share the same abbreviation. If you're looking for a plain-language definition, our companion pages What Is DE-LH? and DE-LH Meaning cover the terminology in more depth.
Who Regulates and Administers the Exam
The Delaware Department of Insurance sets the licensing requirements and content standards, while Pearson VUE administers the actual test at its testing centers. This split is standard for state insurance exams: the regulator owns the rules, the testing vendor owns the delivery. Both the Life exam and the Accident and Health exam are also offered in Spanish, which matters for candidates who want to test in their first language.
Unlike some professional certifications, Delaware does not mandate a specific prelicensing education course before you sit for the exam. That's a meaningful difference from states that require a set number of classroom or online hours before you can even register. In Delaware, the path is more self-directed - which is exactly why structured resources like the DE-LH Study Guide 2026: How to Pass on Your First Attempt matter so much for candidates who don't have an employer-sponsored training pipeline.
Exam Structure: Two Major Lines, Two Portions Each
Delaware treats Life and Accident and Health as separate major-line exams, and each exam is itself split into a general portion (national insurance concepts) and a state portion (Delaware-specific statutes and regulations). The current handbook lists 221 multiple-choice items across both exams - 182 scored and 39 pretest questions - with 2 hours 15 minutes allotted per exam, for 4 hours 30 minutes total if you sit for both on the same day.
One quirk worth flagging: the separate content-outline PDF lists only five general pretest questions per exam, which doesn't reconcile cleanly with the 39 pretest figure in the handbook. The official documents simply don't agree on the non-scored total, so don't be surprised if your own exam-day question count feels slightly different from what you calculated in advance. What matters for prep purposes is the 182 scored questions and how they're distributed across the 17 domains.
Key Takeaway
Pretest questions are unscored and mixed in without being labeled, so treat every question on screen as if it counts - you won't know which ones are experimental.
For a breakdown of exactly how many points you need and how scoring works, see DE-LH Passing Score 2026: Exactly What You Need to Pass. If you're still weighing how demanding this test is relative to other state exams, How Hard Is the DE-LH Exam? Complete Difficulty Guide 2026 walks through that in detail.
The 17 Content Domains Explained
Because DE-LH spans two major lines, the content outline lists 17 domains total - a mix of general knowledge and Delaware-specific law, split between the Life exam and the Accident and Health exam. Domain percentages are normalized against the official scored-item counts across the full two-exam path, so the weight of a domain reflects its actual share of the 182 scored questions.
Domain 1-4: Life General Knowledge
These cover the foundational life insurance material: types of policies, provisions/riders/options/exclusions, application and underwriting mechanics, and retirement-related insurance concepts.
- Know the differences between term, whole, universal, and variable life products
- Understand how riders modify a base policy and what exclusions typically apply
- Be comfortable with the field underwriting steps from application to policy delivery
Domain 5-8: Delaware Specific Life
This block covers Delaware statutes, rules, regulations, and bulletins - some shared across life, health, and property/casualty lines, some unique to life insurance, and one dedicated entirely to Insurance Ethics.
- Learn which statutes apply broadly versus only to life insurance
- Insurance Ethics alone accounts for 24 of the 182 scored questions on the January 15, 2025 outline
- Expect scenario-based questions testing producer conduct, not just memorized rule numbers
Domain 9-13: Accident and Health General Knowledge
This is the health-side counterpart to Domains 1-4: policy types, provisions and clauses, social insurance programs, other insurance concepts, and field underwriting for health products.
- Distinguish individual, group, and supplemental health policy structures
- Understand how Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security disability interact with private coverage
- Know standard clauses like coordination of benefits and pre-existing condition limitations
Domain 14-17: Delaware Specific Accident and Health
Mirrors the life-side state law block but for health insurance: shared statutes, health-only statutes, and a second Insurance Ethics domain specific to the health exam.
- Long-term care rules matter here - health producers selling LTC products have a separate CE requirement
- Expect overlap with Domain 6/7 material on shared bulletins, tested from a health angle
- Ethics questions again test judgment in producer-client scenarios, not just definitions
For a full breakdown of how each domain maps to study hours and question counts, the dedicated DE-LH Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 17 Content Areas page goes deeper than we can here.
Eligibility and Application Mechanics
Delaware's path to a resident producer license runs through three concrete steps: pass the exam(s), submit a Delaware State Police criminal background report, and pay the producer application fee. There's no minimum education credential and no prelicensing coursework mandate - the state trusts the exam itself to validate competency.
- Pass the exam: Life, Accident and Health, or both, depending on which lines of authority you want.
- Background check: A Delaware State Police criminal background report is a required part of the application file.
- Application fee: $125 to submit the producer application itself, separate from exam fees.
Because each major-line exam is split into general and state portions, Delaware allows a partial retake: if you fail only one portion, you retake just that portion rather than the entire exam - but you must pass the remaining portion within one year. That's a meaningfully candidate-friendly rule compared to states that force a full re-sit on any failure. For the complete list of prerequisites and how they apply to residents versus non-residents, see DE-LH Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify.
Fees, Scheduling, and Retake Rules
Testing happens at Pearson VUE centers, and Delaware gives candidates a cost-saving option worth planning around: scheduling both the Life exam and the Accident and Health exam on the same day costs a single $90 fee instead of paying twice. If your goal is dual authority, same-day scheduling is usually the more economical move - provided you're prepared to sit through the full 4 hours 30 minutes of combined testing time in one sitting.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Same-day Life + Accident and Health exam fee | $90 total (both exams, one day) |
| Producer application fee | $125 |
| Scored questions (both exams combined) | 182 |
| Pretest questions (per handbook) | 39 |
| Time per exam | 2 hours 15 minutes |
| Total time if both exams same day | 4 hours 30 minutes |
If a candidate fails one portion of an exam (general or state), only that portion needs to be retaken - but the passing portion's clock is running: the failed portion must be passed within one year or the passing score expires. Plan retake scheduling accordingly rather than letting the window lapse. For a granular cost picture including these fees plus any prep materials, see DE-LH Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown, and for current testing windows and deadlines, check DE-LH Exam Dates 2026: Testing Windows, Deadlines & Scheduling.
Licensing, Renewal, and Continuing Education
Passing DE-LH gets you to the application stage, not a permanent credential - Delaware resident producer licenses renew biennially, with the deadline falling on the last day of February in even-numbered years. Renewal requires 24 continuing education credits, including at least 3 ethics credits within that same biennium.
There's an added layer for health producers: anyone selling long-term care insurance must complete at least 3 Delaware long-term-care-specific CE hours within the renewal period, on top of the general 24-hour requirement. This is easy to overlook if you're focused only on exam prep and not on the ongoing licensing obligations that follow.
Mapping a Study Plan to Domain Weight
Because Insurance Ethics alone represents 24 of the 182 scored questions on the current outline, it deserves dedicated review time rather than being treated as filler at the end of a study session. A reasonable approach is to sequence your prep by domain cluster rather than by calendar week alone - general knowledge first (since it's the larger, more concept-heavy body of material), then Delaware-specific statutes, then a final ethics-focused pass right before test day.
Life or Health General Knowledge
- Work through policy types, provisions, riders, and underwriting mechanics for your chosen major line
- Use practice questions to expose gaps in terminology before moving to state law
Delaware Statutes and Bulletins
- Focus on the shared statutes first, then the line-specific ones
- Cross-reference the content outline so you know which bulletins apply to which line
Insurance Ethics and Full Review
- Given its 24-question weight, run several ethics-focused practice sets
- Take full-length timed practice exams to simulate the 2 hour 15 minute format
For a condensed reference you can review the night before your test, the DE-LH Cheat Sheet 2026: One-Page Review of Must-Know Facts distills the highest-yield facts into one page. And if you want to practice under realistic conditions before exam day, our practice test platform mirrors the multiple-choice format and timing you'll face at the Pearson VUE center.
Who Actually Needs DE-LH
DE-LH matters to anyone planning to sell life insurance, health insurance, annuities tied to life products, or long-term care coverage as a resident producer in Delaware. That includes independent agents building their own book of business, captive agents working for a single carrier, and financial professionals adding insurance products to a broader advisory practice. Because Delaware doesn't require prelicensing coursework, career-changers without an insurance background can enter the field directly through self-study and the exam itself.
If you're evaluating whether pursuing this license fits your career goals, Is the DE-LH Certification Worth It? Complete ROI Analysis 2026 and DE-LH Salary Guide 2026: Complete Earnings Analysis both dig into the practical upside. For a sense of who's hiring producers with this license, DE-LH Jobs is a useful starting point, and DE-LH Training covers preparation resources beyond the exam itself.
Curious how DE-LH test-takers tend to perform overall? DE-LH Pass Rate 2026: What the Data Shows walks through what's publicly known about outcomes, and our full practice test suite is built directly around the 17 domains listed above so your prep time maps to what's actually tested.
Frequently Asked Questions
Functionally two: a Life exam and an Accident and Health exam, each with its own general and Delaware-specific state portion. Candidates can take either one alone or schedule both on the same day for a combined $90 fee.
No. Delaware does not require a specific prelicensing education program, unlike many other states. Candidates are still expected to master the full content outline on their own or through independent study resources.
The handbook lists 221 total multiple-choice items across both exams: 182 scored and 39 pretest. Note that a separate content-outline document lists only five general pretest questions per exam, so the official sources don't fully agree on the pretest total.
You only need to retake the portion you failed (general or state), not the entire exam. However, you must pass the remaining portion within one year of your passing score on the other portion.
Resident licenses renew biennially by the last day of February in even-numbered years, requiring 24 CE credits including 3 ethics credits. Health producers selling long-term care also need at least 3 Delaware long-term-care-specific CE hours within the biennium.