About the IF1 Exam

What IF1 Is and Where It Sits

IF1 Insurance, Legal and Regulatory is a foundation unit of the CII Certificate in Insurance (Cert CII), assessed at Level 3 on the Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF) and worth 15 credits. It is the entry route for new insurance professionals and is examined by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII).

IF1 is designed to give a broad grounding in how insurance works as a financial product: the nature of risk, the legal principles that underpin every insurance contract, and the regulatory framework that protects consumers and firms in the UK market. IF1 supplies 15 CII credits and is a core-unit option for the Certificate in Insurance. The full certificate requires at least 40 credits and the required unit combination; IF1 alone does not confer Cert CII. Its credits may also contribute to further CII qualifications under their completion rules.

The unit is examined on English law and practice unless an individual question explicitly states that a different legal system applies. This default matters: candidates who learned insurance law in Scotland, Northern Ireland, or another common-law jurisdiction should consciously switch to English-law answers for the exam, particularly on questions about contract formation, the duty of fair presentation, and remedies.

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Exam Format at a Glance

IF1 is a single, on-screen multiple-choice paper. The exam contains 100 compulsory questions rather than optional sections. There is no negative marking, so aim to answer every item before submitting.

Because there is no negative marking, an incorrect answer earns no mark, while a correct guess can earn one; an unanswered item cannot earn a mark. Attempt every question. With 120 minutes for 100 questions you have an average of 1.2 minutes per question, which is generous for a foundation-level paper but still demands disciplined time management (covered in the study-strategy section).

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Entry, Booking and Cost

You book IF1 through a CII assessment entry, which covers one sitting of the exam. Check the current CII price for the selected assessment or enrolment package and membership status. Study-material access and assessment-entry validity are different; confirm both when purchasing. This guide does not verify an exact current assessment-only fee.

Delivery options are:

• Remote invigilation — you sit the exam on your own computer at home or work, watched by a remote invigilator via webcam. Your setup must meet the CII's technical and environmental requirements (closed-book, no phones, no second monitors, a clear desk).
• Test centre — you sit at a CII-approved test centre.

Both routes deliver the same on-screen question paper and the same 120-minute timer.

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The 14 Learning Outcomes and How Many Questions Each Carries

IF1 does not publish percentage "element" weightings. The published 2026 syllabus lists 14 learning outcomes and states the number of questions in the examination against each one. The counts add to exactly 100. The CII adds one important caveat: the specification "has an in-built element of flexibility" and is a guide for study, so the number of questions testing each learning outcome will generally be within plus or minus 2 of the figure shown.

Three practical readings of that table:

• Learning outcomes 11 and 4 are the two biggest blocks on the paper. Regulation (15 questions) and market structure (14 questions) are worth 29 marks between them — more than good faith (11) and indemnity (7) combined. Candidates who treat regulation as background reading lose the largest single pool of marks available.
• Grouped by theme, risk and the insurance environment (learning outcomes 1–4) is worth about 33 questions, the legal principles of insurance (learning outcomes 5–10) about 38 questions, and regulation, consumer protection and ethics (learning outcomes 11–14) about 29 questions. No group is small enough to skip, and none dominates.
• Small learning outcomes are cheap marks. Proximate cause (learning outcome 8) carries only 2 questions, but the doctrine is narrow and rule-based, so those 2 marks are among the easiest on the paper to secure.

"Know" versus "understand"

The CII examination guide explains that the first word of each learning outcome fixes the skill level that can be tested. Learning outcomes beginning know — outcomes 2, 4 and 13 — can only be tested by recall: what, when, who. Learning outcomes beginning understand can test recall and cause-and-effect reasoning: why, and applied fact patterns.

That distinction is a revision instruction. Learning outcome 4 (14 recall questions on market structure) rewards straightforward memorisation of who does what — insurer, broker, agent, reinsurer, loss adjuster, Lloyd's, the trade bodies. Learning outcomes 7 and 11 demand that you can take a scenario and reach the right legal or regulatory conclusion, which is a different and slower skill to build.

These figures come from the published 2026 syllabus, not from estimation. The 2025 pass rate of 79.65% describes that year’s exam outcomes, not an individual candidate’s probability of success — but the paper is not a formality, and the regulation and legal-principles questions in particular reward precise, syllabus-aligned answers rather than general industry knowledge.

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Recommended Study Load

The CII specifies 60 study hours for IF1. Spreading that over 6 to 10 weeks is an editorial planning example, not a CII-required timetable. Use the official study text, syllabus and specimen examination guide to identify gaps, then adjust the schedule to your background. Specimen questions illustrate assessment style; they are not a disclosure of live questions.

This free OpenExamPrep guide is original practice material that maps to the same syllabus. It is not a substitute for the official CII study text, but it is a structured way to revise the same content and to practise the style of multiple-choice questioning the exam uses.