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Life License Qualification Program Examinations
EXAM SCHEDULE • REGISTRATION • TERMS/POLICIES/CONDITIONS
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Life License Qualification Program Examinations
EXAM SCHEDULE • REGISTRATION • TERMS/POLICIES/CONDITIONS
CERTIFICATE REQUIREMENTS
The Ontario Regulators designed a standard format for all course provider certificates to be used in Ontario. The use of ANY other certificate for entrance into the provincial LLQP exam will not be permitted.
Each certificate must contain the following information and must be completely filled in and signed before arriving at the exam centre
Exam session staff cannot witness the candidate's signature nor can the candidate sign a certificate after entering the exam room.
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General Information
The Life License Qualification Program was created by the insurance industry to ensure a standard of quality across Canada for all life insurance agents. Additional information may be found at the Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators (CCIR).
Durham College administers the PROVINCIAL LLQP exam for various provincial regulators. The exam questions, content, and rules are all supplied by the provincial regulators. Many of the rules are in place (and or being adjusted) to ensure uniformity across all of the provinces.
There are 2 types of licenses under the LLQP program:
A candidate may attempt each type of exam 3 times. After the third attempt, a candidate must wait 6 months between each additional attempt. Should a candidate register for an exam and not attend the exam, it will not count as an exam attempt but the exam fee will be forfeited.
Typically within 2-3 business days of writing the exam, candidates are notified via- e-mail of their exam score, and when they are next eligible to book another exam attempt. This process takes into account any exams the candidate may already have booked. For example, if you have written twice and have another exam already booked, you will be informed you are eligible to book another exam 6 months from the scheduled exam date of your currently booked exam.
As of November 1, 2003 the score required to pass the provincial LLQP exam is 60%. No rounding of marks is permitted, therefore you must score 60% or higher in order to pass (i.e. 59.29% is not a pass).
The LLQP administration centre at Durham College is open to the public from 9am - 3:30pm Monday - Friday (Ontario time) and may be contacted by:
If you are seeking a special accommodation, DO NOT REGISTER BEFORE YOUR SPECIAL ACCOMMODATION REQUEST HAS BEEN APPROVED. If you register before your request is approved and the request requires a change in location, date or time you will forfeit the pre-booked session fee.
Cost/Fees
The LLQP fees are as follows:
| Exam Fees | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Province | Paper Exam | Computer Exam | |||||||||
| Ontario | | N.B. | Yukon | P.E.I. | |
| Fees for Services | |
|---|---|
| Exam Review Report | $30.00 (+HST) |
| Manual Remark of an exam (within 6 months) | $30.00 (+ HST) |
| Manual Remark of an exam (after 6 months) | $55.00 (+ HST) |
| Official Mark letter (4 copies) | $25.00 (+ HST) |
| Duplicate payment receipt (within 6 months) | $10.00 (+ HST) |
| Duplicate payment receipt (after 6 months) | $40.00 (+ HST) |
| Rebooking fee for medical cancellation in Ontario * | $40.00 |
| Rebooking fee for medical cancellation all other provinces * | $50.00 |
| Service fees are based on cost recovery | |
Confirmations
Once a registration request has been processed, an e-mail confirmation will be sent to the e-mail address supplied at registration time. Normally, this will occur one business day after the candidate registers.
Final confirmations will be sent by e-mail to all candidates one week before the scheduled date of the exam. In the event the candidate does not supply an e-mail address with their registration request, we will attempt to contact the candidate by fax or phone once. Durham college can not confirm the validity of the e-mail addresses supplied, therefore can not accept responsibility for a candidate not receiving a confirmation e-mail.
In the event of a holiday, the confirmation may be sent out on the next business day following the holiday.
If you requested an exam and do not receive a confirmation, you may go to the exam session at the scheduled date and time and you will be permitted to write the exam providing you are listed on the class list and have the appropriate documentation. If you are not on the class list, or do not have the appropriate documentation, you will not be permitted to write the exam.
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Cancellations/Rescheduling
Once booked, an exam session can not be cancelled or rescheduled by the candidate.
In the event that an exam session does not meet the required minimum seat requirements, the candidates will be contacted in order to reschedule their exam. Exam fees from a cancelled session must be applied against a new session within 60 days or the fee is forfeited.
This policy came into effect to resolve an issue where candidates would book sessions to effectively “hold a spot” and then start canceling them once they decided which date they really wanted. As this activity was not fair to the other candidates, we were forced to develop the "no cancellation" policy.
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Appeals
The candidate may ask that we verify their exam, which will involve a manual verification of the exam version to the physical exam cover sheet. We can also manually remark an exam (see the Re-Marking and Exam Terms/Policies/Conditions).
We can not change a score for "rounding", or add bonus points to compensate for any issues during the exam (i.e. noise from outside the exam room).
If the candidate wishes to challenge the questions or content of the exam, they must do so with the provincial regulators since the regulators own and supply the exam content.
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Applying to Other Provinces
If you wish to become licensed in a province other than the Ontario, N.B., PEI or the Yukon you will need proof that you have passed the LLQP exam. This may be in the form of an official "Verification of License" from the provincial regulator in the province you are currently licensed in, or an "Official Mark" letter from Durham College.
If you wish an Official Mark letter from Durham College, please send an e-mail to LLQP.ADMIN@Durhamcollege.ca requesting a letter. Include the date you wrote the exam, and your current home address for the letters to be sent to. Note that we can not send the letters directly to employers or provincial regulators.
Please check the Cost/Fees Terms/Policies/Conditions for this service.
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Being prepared to write
It is expected that the candidate will arrive at the exam centre prepared to write the exam under the normal examination conditions unless special arrangements are made prior to the exam session. While every effort will be made by the testing centre to minimize any distractions that may occur during the exam session, the candidate must be prepared to accept that minor distractions may occur from time to time during the exam session.
The candidate must be prepared by ensuring they bring the correct documentation to the session, studying the appropriate material, being physically rested and emotionally prepared for stress and anxiety that an examination may cause. Once the candidate begins the exam, the attempt will be considered valid except under extremely unusual conditions which would prevent the candidate from completing the exam.
Any pre-existing medical condition, for which the candidate has not made prior arrangements with the administration centre to compensate for, will not be considered a valid reason for voiding the exam attempt.
It is the candidate's responsibility to be prepared for the exam session.
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Candidate Conduct
The LLQP exam is a professional certification exam and it is expected that the candidates will conduct themselves accordingly.
The following will not be tolerated either during the exam sessions or while communicating with any of the administration staff:
Candidates are expected to follow the proctor's instructions and show the proper level of respect for the proctor's authority.
During the exam, candidates are expected to restrain from making distracting noises and actions that may be considered in poor taste by the general public.
Violation of the expected conduct may be reported to the candidate's course provider and/or the provincial regulator.
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Computer Based Exam Issues
While the exam site will make every practical effort to ensure that a computer based exam is not interrupted, technical issues may occur. It is the candidate's choice to write a computer based exam and therefore they must accept the limitations of control that exist when using computers.
Durham College will try and minimize the impact of any technical issues; however in many cases the issue may be outside our control. For example, if the computer seems "slow" or there is a hardware failure, every attempt will be made to correct the issue so the exam may proceed. Additional time may be allotted if the interruption is sufficient; however we can not assign "bonus marks" to compensate for any delays or interruptions.
Additionally, any dispute over the exam will be reviewed by the project manager who will decide if any form of financial assistance will be provide for the candidates next attempt. In the event that a candidate is offered assistance, and chooses to again write a computer based exam, no further assistance will be made available.
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Course Providers
Durham College does not offer any courses for the LLQP, we administer the provincial exam only. A candidate must select a course provider on their own as we are not permitted to recommend or provide information on the pass rates of specific course providers.
The following is a list of the current (as of Jun 2006) LLQP course providers:
Email Issues
It is the candidates responsibility to ensure that their e-mail provider does not censor e-mails in a way that would prevent the candidate from receiving our correspondence.
Hotmail accounts may move emails from an unknown sender to your "junk" folder.
Yahoo/Rogers email services CENSORS emails and has been by default deleting emails before the receiver is able to read them. Although we have spoken to Yahoo about the issue, they refuse to assist us in resolving the issue. We have used the same format for our confirmation e-mails for the past two years without any issues. However, Yahoo started to tag our confirmation e-mails in Oct 2007 as "bulk" which they delete by default. We tracked the final trigger to our use of 60% in the email (usually it is a combination of words or a word repeated several times that gets tagged as a trigger). When we removed the numeric score and used a text score instead (sixty percent) the confirmation was no longer considered bulk or spam. During further testing, we discovered that two identical test mails sent 15 minutes apart resulted in one being flagged as "bulk" and one was not flagged.
Since the service provider obviously changes their tagging criteria at will, we can not ensure that the issue will not arise again. Therefore, if you are using a Yahoo/Rogers email account be sure to change the default setting on your "bulk" email folder to retain the e-mails from the default of automatically deleting them.
You should also inform your email service provider that the censorship of vailid correspondence is a practice you, their client, does not approve of.
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Exam Format
The provincial LLQP exam is a multiple choice exam. Each exam will contain a number of questions with four (4) answers per question. In all cases, only one answer is correct. As of November 1st 2003 the required score to pass the exam is 60%
The exam is designed to test not only the candidates knowledge, but also their ability to apply the knowledge using industry standard "best practice" rules. In order to test the application of the knowledge, some scenarios are long (1/2 - 3/4 of a page) and will require good reading abilities to comprehend.
| Exam Questions & Times | ||
|---|---|---|
| Questions | Time | |
| Accident & Sickness | 2 hours | |
| Full Life | 4 hours |
The exams are offered in Ontario in both paper and computer formats. The content of the exams is the same and as of April 1, 2010 computer based exam scores will no longer be shown at the end of the exam; instead the score will be released via e-mail within 2-3 business days after the exam. Before choosing a computer exam please be sure that you are comfortable with using a computer and read the "Computer Based Exam Issues" Terms/Policies/Conditions.
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Exam Question Content
Durham College does not have any control over the questions or content used in either the provincial exam or the LLQP courses.
Each month a series of reports are provided to the regulators indicating the performance of the candidates for each question. The questions where a significant number of candidates performed poorly are reviewed for content and correctness.
Any concerns about the exam or course provider material should be directed to both the provincial regulator and your course provider.
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Exam Registration
Candidates must register for their exam at least seven (7) business days in advance (exam sessions close to booking at 7:00AM each business day). This is to allow sufficient time to process and confirm all of the registrations and make the necessary arrangements at the test site.
Registration may be done:
NOTE: All registration requests are subject to availability and there is no guarantee of availability of any specific exam session.
Before any registration request is processed, payment must be received.
Once registered there are no refunds or cancellations permitted.
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Exam Schedules/Locations
Exams are scheduled at various dates, times and locations. There are over 700 sessions run each year however some locations fill very quickly so you should book as early as possible. Both Accident & Sickeness and the Full Life exam types are available at all exam sessions.
The available exam sessions are listed on our website at www.durhamcollege.ca/llqp and updated every 5 minutes.
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Payment Options
Note that until your payment has been received and processed in our offices, you will not be registered into any exam session and no seat will be reserved for you.
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Provincial Regulators
The following is a list of the current (Aug 2010) provincial regulators:
Ontario: FSCO, Financial Services Commission of Ontario 1.800.668.0128 or 416.250.7250 ask for the Licensing & Registration Processing Unit ( elicence@fsco.gov.on.ca )
New Brunswick: Department of Justice, Insurance Branch 506.453.8548
Re-Marking an Exam
A candidate may request that their exam be re-marked manually. In this case, the answer sheet is rescored by hand. Unless the answer sheet is damaged, or heavily smudged the likelihood of an altered score from a manual remark is very remote.
The remark is performed manually by verifying the answers selected to the answers provided by the provincial regulator. The question details are supplied by the regulators and verified before being released into the exam pool, as such we do not review the question content. However it is important to note that reports are generated monthly for the regulators indicating questions which have performed poorly and these questions are reviewed by the regulators. To date we have not had any questions changed due to content errors.
There is a fee for this service as outlined under the Costs/Fees section. If you wish to proceed with a re-mark of your exam you will need to e-mail LLQP.ADMIN@durhamcollege.ca to request the remark and provide a credit card number and expiry date for the charge.
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Refunds
Once booked, there are no refunds available.
Your exam fee will be forfeited if:
Required Id/Documents
The provincial regulators require appropriate identification and documentation in order for a candidate to write the exam.
Identification
The candidate must supply a valid government issued photo id along with a signed secondary piece of id. Both the primary and secondary id MUST have the candidate's name contained within the document (i.e. embossed or printed and laminated)
| ACCEPTED IDENTIFICATION FOR LLQP EXAMINATIONS Note: Expired documents are NOT considered valid | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passport (Canadian) | Any Primary ID document may be used as a secondary ID
| Drivers License | Major Credit card | Visa, Master Card, American Express Health Card (photo version) | Credit card from a major department store
| Citizenship Card | Transit identification card (signed with a photo)
| Permanent Residence Card | Bank Debit Card
| Health card (non-photo version)
| | ||
Documentation
The candidate must supply an original valid (expired documents are NOT considered valid) and approved certificate proving competency from thier course provider.
The standard approved certificate is a full 8 1/2 X 11 page and contains ALL of the following information:
Candidates who fail to provide the appropriate ID or documentation will not be permitted to write the exam and will forfeit the exam fee.
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Rewrite Policy
The regulator rules for the provincial LLQP exam state that the Full Life and Accident & Sickness exams (type of exam) may each be attempted three (3) times. After the third attempt for any given type of exam, a six (6) month waiting period is required between each additional attempt for that type of exam.
This policy crosses provincial boundaries; therefore you may not simply attempt the exam in another province to circumvent the regulation.
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Rules during the exam
The LLQP exams are certification exams and therefore subject to a number of regulator supplied policies and rules. These rules have been developed over time to ensure a fair and equal treatment of all candidates as well as the security and integrity of the exam process.
None of the exam material may be copied, transcribed or removed from the exam room. If a candidate does not follow this rule, the provincial regulator and their course provider will be notified. In addition the candidate will face a suspension from writing the exam, and administrative fee for their next exam attempt, possibly be held financially responsible for the creation of a new set of exam questions at a rate determined by the provincial regulators (currently $400 per question) and may be denied a license on grounds of suitability should they eventually pass the LLQP exam and apply to the regulator.
Appropriate documentation, including an original valid qualification certificate from a course provider, government issued photo-id plus an acceptable second piece of identification must be shown each time the exam is written.
Cell phones, PDA's, Pagers, Watch alarms, etc are not allowed to be turned on during the exam. Even on "vibrate", the noise will be distracting to the other candidates.
A non-programmable calculator may be brought to the exam session by the candidate; however the candidate will only be allowed to use it if the exam site does not have enough basic calculators for all candidates. A basic calculator as defined by the provincial regulator is a calculator with addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, and percentage capabilities. The calculator may not have built-in programmable, financial, or scientific functions.
Once the exam begins, there are no breaks allowed. This includes washroom breaks. If the candidate has a documented medical issue that requires breaks during the exam, they must provide proof of the condition to Durham College a minimum of 2 weeks before the exam (please see the Medical Issues Terms/Policies/Conditions).
The exam is a closed book exam; therefore no manuals or notes are permitted at the desks during the exam.
Candidates are strongly encouraged to leave all cases, hand bags, backpacks, etc at home or in their cars. These items are not allowed to remain at the desk during the exam and therefore will need to be left at a "holding location" during the exam. Durham College and the test centres can not accept responsibility for the security of these items.
The invigilators/proctors over-seeing the exam have the authority to terminate an exam in the event the candidate is not following the rules for the exam or is causing a disturbance to other candidates. In the event an exam needs to terminated, the candidate forfeits their exam fee and will score a zero on the exam. In addition, the regulator and course provider may be notified of the candidate's actions.
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Scoring the Exam
Each exam is scored and the marks sent to the candidates and regulators as soon as possible after the exam session. Typically this is within 2 - 3 business days. Marks will be sent via e-mail or if no e-mail address was supplied, we will try to contact the candidate by fax or phone once.
Each question is scored as either correct (1 point) or wrong (0 points). The number of correct answers is then divided by the number of questions to obtain an exam score. No penalty is given for wrong answers. (i.e. 140 questions, 84 correct, 56 wrong... 84/140 = 60%)
The exam answer sheets are processed electronically once received at Durham College's LLQP office. The computer scanning equipment is supplied by a manufacture that is considered the "standard" for manufacturing of optical scanning equipment.
Each answer sheet is matched against the LLQP database to ensure the sheet is coded correctly for id number, date, name, and exam type and version. If a match is not made, the answer sheet can not be scored automatically and manual intervention is required.
If the scanner can not make a clear distinction of which answer the candidate chose, or if the candidate chose more than one answer for a question, or if the candidate did not choose an answer for a question the exam will not score automatically and manual intervention is required.
In the event the computer can not score the exam, the answer sheet is reviewed and the questionable answers corrected manually.
Once the manual corrections have been completed, the answer sheet is again processed electronically.
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Special Accommodation Requests
Under certain circumstances you may request special arrangements to be considered for candidates writing the provincial LLQP exam. While it is our intent to accommodate valid medical conditions, the security of the exam process and fairness to all candidates will remain paramount.
DO NOT REGISTER BEFORE YOUR SPECIAL ACCOMMODATION REQUEST HAS BEEN APPROVED. If you register before your request is approved and the request requires a change in location, date or time you will forfeit the pre-booked session fee.
Examples::
The required information may be sent to Durham College by fax (905.721.3345) or e-mail (LLQP.ADMIN@DurhamCollege.ca) and must include the name of the candidate, date and location that the accommodation is being requested for.
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Wait Lists
Due to the volume of exams, and to ensure fairness to all candidates we do not maintain a wait list. Once the session is fully booked, we will not accept any more registrations for that session.
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