Alerts and Updates for Insurance Institute of India (III) Licentiate / Associateship / Fellowship

The three levels are cumulative, not parallel. Licentiate credits count towards the 250 needed for Associateship, and Associateship credits count towards the 490 needed for Fellowship, so the incremental work is 190 credit points and then 240. Candidates choose a Life, Non-Life or combined stream at Associateship level.

The December 2026 rows are marked tentative because the only source seen for them is ModelExam, a private preparation site, rather than a III page. III's own online examination page points to a yearly schedule document, which candidates should download and treat as authoritative over anything here.

Candidates routinely treat these as three separate exams to be sat in turn. They are not. III counts credit points, not passes, and the credits are cumulative: 60 for Licentiate, 250 for Associateship inclusive of that 60, and 490 for Fellowship inclusive of the 250. Missing that arithmetic is what leads people to underestimate the Associateship, which is by far the largest single jump.

Licentiate takes 60 credit points, typically three papers: IC-01 Principles of Insurance at 20, one of IC-02 Practice of Life Insurance or IC-11 Practice of General Insurance at 20, and an optional of 20, 30 or 40. Associateship then requires 250 in total, so 190 more, and Fellowship 490, so a further 240. Measured in incremental effort the Associateship is more than three times the Licentiate. With a ceiling of six papers per session and four sessions a year, and with most subjects carrying 20 or 30 credit points, a realistic Associateship plan runs across several sessions rather than one push.

III's handbook sets a five-year validity on credits at Licentiate and Associateship level and a maximum of seven years to complete Fellowship. Because credits are cumulative, a lapse does not merely delay a level, it can erase points already earned towards the next one. The practical discipline is to decide at the outset whether you are stopping at Licentiate or going on. A candidate who takes the Licentiate, pauses for four years, then decides to pursue Associateship may find early credits close to expiry just as the heaviest paper load begins.

The Life and Non-Life split is made through the compulsory choices, not by declaring a stream. At Licentiate it is IC-02 against IC-11. At Associateship it is IC-22 Life Insurance Underwriting against IC-45 General Insurance Underwriting, and IC-26 Life Assurance Finance against IC-46 General Insurance Accounts, each worth 30 credit points. III allows candidates to take Life, Non-Life or both combined. Someone working in general insurance who drifts into the Life compulsories because they appear first in the subject list ends up with 60 credit points of compulsory material that is irrelevant to their job.

Because enrolment is priced by paper, total cost scales with credit points rather than with levels. On the schedule in force since 1 April 2026 the rates for India and SAARC are Rs 600 for a 20 credit point subject, Rs 900 for 30 and Rs 1,100 for 40, plus applicable taxes, against Rs 3,000, Rs 3,900 and Rs 4,800 for overseas candidates. Registration is Rs 800 in India and SAARC and Rs 3,500 overseas, and a one-time Rs 1,100 registration with compulsory subjects applies at both Associateship and Fellowship, Rs 4,500 overseas. Reaching 490 credit points is a sustained outlay, not a single fee.

All papers are objective multiple-choice, two hours long, with a pass mark of 60 per cent and above. That is a demanding threshold for a multiple-choice paper and it rewards even coverage of the syllabus rather than mastery of favoured topics, since there is no choice of questions to exploit and no partial credit from a written answer. With up to six papers permitted in one session, the temptation is to bulk-book; the pass mark argues against it. New and revised study course materials apply from the September 2026 examination, so confirm you are working from the current edition before the December session.