1.2 Life Module Competency Weights and Official Manual Map
Key Takeaways
- The CISRO Life Insurance competency is: Recommend individual and group life insurance products adapted to the client’s needs and situation.
- Exam weights are Assess 35% (sub-components 1.1–1.3), Analyze products 30% (2.1 contracts, 2.2 riders), Implement 25% (3.1–3.3), and Ongoing service 10% (4.1–4.2).
- CSI lists the CISRO Life Insurance manual as 12 chapters; use that list as a study map, not as an OpenExamPrep affiliation or a second official blueprint.
- Accident and Sickness, segregated funds and annuities, and Ethics (Common Law or Quebec Civil Law) are sister LLQP modules and are out of scope for this Life sitting.
One competency, four weighted components
Independent OpenExamPrep material in this guide helps learners study the CISRO LLQP Life Insurance module. It does not replace the official Life Insurance manual, and it is not a CISRO, CSI, or provincial-regulator product.
CISRO states a single Life competency: Recommend individual and group life insurance products adapted to the client’s needs and situation. Every scored stem is supposed to test some part of that sentence. Trivia that never touches a client’s situation, a contract feature, a rider, an underwriting constraint, or an in-force service step is off-blueprint even if it is interesting insurance lore.
The competency splits into four components with published weights and ten sub-components. Those weights are how you should budget study time after the approved course, not a promise of an exact item quota on any one sitting.
| Weight | Component | Official sub-components | What a typical stem looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| 35% | 1. Assess the client’s needs and situation | 1.1 Determine the client’s situation; 1.2 Assess existing coverage; 1.3 Articulate needs based on risks | A couple with a mortgage, group life at work, and a cottage capital-gain problem |
| 30% | 2. Analyze the available products that meet the client’s needs | 2.1 Analyze types of contracts; 2.2 Analyze riders | Term vs whole life vs Term-100 vs UL, plus waiver, GIB, or accelerated-benefit riders |
| 25% | 3. Implement a recommendation adapted to the client’s needs and situation | 3.1 Underwriting criteria; 3.2 Propose a recommendation; 3.3 Confirm implementation requirements | APS, MIB, TIA, illustrations, beneficiaries, delivery |
| 10% | 4. Provide customer service during the validity period of the coverage | 4.1 Validate amendment, renewal, or termination; 4.2 Inform the claimant of the claims process | Replacement/LIRD, lapse, reinstatement, proof of death |
If you have about 40 focused hours for Life after the course, a weight-faithful split is roughly 14 hours on assess and needs (35%), 12 hours on contracts and riders (30%), 10 hours on underwriting and the recommendation package (25%), and 4 hours on in-force service and claims (10%). Those hours are a study heuristic. Do not treat “10.5 scored items on Assess” as a published CISRO quota: 0.35 × 30 = 10.5 is just the weight applied to the 30 scored items, and any one paper can round differently. Still, a candidate who only drills term-versus-whole-life charts and skips fact-finds is training for 30% of the exam and hoping the other 70% is easy.
The 35% Assess slice is where many career-changers under-prepare. Sub-component 1.1 is personal, family, occupation, lifestyle, and tax exposure. Sub-component 1.2 is the inventory of individual policies, group certificates, and government death/survivor benefits already in force. Sub-component 1.3 is the actual need: human-capital/income replacement versus capital needs, including business continuation and estate liquidity. Later chapters of this guide teach those methods with numbers. Here the exam skill is recognizing that a product recommendation that skips the fact-find is incomplete, even if the product description is perfect.
Component 2 is not “list every life product.” Sub-component 2.1 is comparing types of contracts—term (level, increasing, decreasing; renewable; convertible), whole life, Term-100, universal life, group life, and business-owned designs—against the need you already articulated. Sub-component 2.2 is riders: accidental death, waiver of premium, payor, guaranteed insurability, accelerated benefits, critical illness attached to life, term riders, paid-up additions. A stem that asks whether a rider actually solves the stated risk is a 2.2 item, not a trivia item.
Component 3 moves from “this product could fit” to “this file can be placed.” Underwriting evidence, risk class, temporary insurance, the signed illustration, beneficiaries, and delivery requirements all live here. Component 4 is the smallest slice, but it is where replacement disclosure, lapse, and death claims sit—high-stakes work in practice, and easy marks if you have rehearsed the process.
The 12-chapter Life Insurance manual as a study map
CSI publishes a 12-chapter listing of the CISRO Life Insurance exam-prep manual. Use it as a map of topics you must be able to work, not as a claim that OpenExamPrep is affiliated with CSI or CISRO, and not as a second blueprint that overrides the weights above. The provincial exam is weighted by competency components; the manual is ordered as a teaching book.
| Manual chapter (CSI listing) | Study use | Closest CISRO components |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Introduction to Life Insurance Module | Vocabulary and why death creates a funding problem | Frames the competency |
| 2. Term Life Insurance | Level, increasing, decreasing; renewable vs not; conversion | 2.1 |
| 3. Whole Life and Term-100 Insurance | Permanent trio minus UL; dividends; non-forfeiture | 2.1 |
| 4. Universal Life Insurance | Unbundled COI, deposits, exempt test, loans | 2.1 |
| 5. Riders and Supplementary Benefits | Which rider solves which residual risk | 2.2 |
| 6. Group Life Insurance | Master contract, certificates, conversion, employer control | 2.1 and 1.2 |
| 7. Taxation of Life Insurance and Tax Strategies | Premiums, death benefits, ACB, CDA, grandfathering | 2.1 and 3.2 |
| 8. Business Life Insurance | Buy-sell funding, key person, collateral, shared ownership | 1.3 and 2.1 |
| 9. Application and Underwriting | Insurable interest, evidence, classes, TIA | 3.1 and 3.3 |
| 10. Assessing the Client’s Situation | Fact-find, existing coverage, needs methods | 1.1–1.3 |
| 11. Recommending an Insurance Policy | Amount, plan, riders, illustrations, beneficiaries | 3.2 |
| 12. Ongoing Service | Amendments, replacement, lapse, claims | 4.1–4.2 |
CSI also lists an optional Life Insurance Taxation Principles bonus. CSI describes that bonus as extra explanation, not a fifth required provincial sitting. Do not skip tax on this module because of that label. Canadian policy tax—personally owned premiums generally not deductible, death benefits generally received tax-free, gain on disposition, 1982 and 2017-era exempt-test grandfathering, and the corporate capital dividend account (CDA) credit of death benefit minus ACB—sits inside Life manual chapter 7 and inside the Life competency. Confirm current Income Tax Act treatment in the exam e-book; this guide teaches the curriculum rules as industry knowledge, not as legal advice.
What this module is not
A full life licence still requires three sister modules. They are out of scope here on purpose.
Accident and Sickness (OpenExamPrep exam ca-llqp-accident-sickness) covers disability income, extended health, critical illness as a standalone A&S product, long-term care, and related group A&S designs. You will see life riders named CI or waiver on the Life paper; you will not be graded on A&S policy anatomy.
Segregated Funds and Annuities (ca-llqp-segregated-funds-annuities) covers maturity and death guarantees, reset options, individual annuities, and group retirement plans. Universal life investment accounts are Life. Seg fund guarantee math is not.
Ethics and Professional Practice (ca-llqp-ethics-professional-practice) is Common Law outside Quebec and Civil Law / Civil Code in Quebec. CISRO’s ethics competency is a different sentence: develop an ethical professional practice in compliance with the rules governing the sector. Quebec candidates do not write a different Life product module; they write a different Ethics module through the AMF. Do not dump Civil Code contract chapters into Life study time.
On the CISRO Life Insurance module, what weight is assigned to assessing the client’s needs and situation (sub-components 1.1–1.3)?
Which topic belongs on a sister LLQP module rather than on the Life Insurance module sitting?
What is the single CISRO competency this Life Insurance module is built to test?