Texas grants an English as a Second Language accommodation on the insurance licensing exam: one and a half times the standard length. On the General Lines Life, Accident and Health exam that turns 150 minutes into 225.
It is free. It is in the official candidate handbook. And almost nobody uses it, because it lives on page 12 of a PDF that nobody reads.
How to request it
Fill out the ESL Request Form
It is called the English as a Second Language (ESL) Request Form, and it goes to Pearson VUE. There is no fee for requesting it.
Attach the letter
The handbook is specific: a letter from either your English instructor or your sponsoring company, on official letterhead if it comes from a company, stating that English is not your primary language.
Wait for the approval email. Do not schedule yet.
This is the step people get wrong. The handbook says not to make a reservation until Pearson VUE notifies you by email that the additional time was approved. Schedule first and you sit the standard exam.
Then book, and use the time
The approval lasts one year from the date of the request, for the level you requested. Book the exam after it lands.
The one that costs people the accommodation
Do not schedule the exam before the approval email arrives. The handbook says it plainly, and it is the easiest instruction in the whole process to miss, because scheduling is the thing you are impatient to do. Request first, book second.
Why it matters
General Lines Life, Accident and Health, English
57%
General Lines Life, Accident and Health, Spanish
34%
Life Agent, English
47%
Life Agent, Spanish
24%
First attempt pass rates, Texas, calendar year 2025. Twenty three percentage points separate the English and Spanish versions of the same exam, on the same outline, with the same time limit.
Nobody has published why. What is documented is that the standard clock is the same for both, and that an accommodation exists which almost nobody claims. Seventy five extra minutes will not close a gap that size on its own, but it is free, it is yours by right, and leaving it on the table makes no sense.
The other half is what you do with the study time. That part we can help with.
The handbook states that the length of the examination will be equal to one and a half times the length of the examination. For the General Lines Life, Accident and Health exam that means 150 minutes becomes 225 minutes. For the Life Agent exam, 120 minutes becomes 180.
No. The exam fee is the same either way. The Spanish version of an exam also costs exactly the same as the English one: $49 for General Lines Life, Accident and Health, $39 for Life Agent.
The handbook is explicit: no other accommodations are granted for ESL. No separate testing room, no reader, no marker. Those exist only for candidates who qualify under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is a different process.
Yes, and this is worth knowing before you decide which version to take. The handbook says candidates taking a Spanish version can switch back and forth between Spanish and English at any time during the exam. You are not locked into one language when you sit down.
The ESL accommodation is about English not being your primary language, and the handbook does not tie it to which version of the exam you sit. The two things are separate: the language of the exam is one choice, the additional time is a separate request.
The handbook does not publish a processing time. What it does say is that you should not schedule until the approval email arrives, so request it well before the date you have in mind rather than the week of.
Accommodation process, exam lengths and fees quoted from the Texas Insurance Licensing Candidate Handbook, Pearson VUE publication 124400. Pass rates from examination pass rates published by Pearson VUE for the Texas Department of Insurance, January to December 2025. This page describes a public accommodation and is not legal advice. Confirm the current process in the handbook before you file. Updated Aug 2026.
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