CII IF1 Revision: 4-Week Plan, Highest-Mark Topics and Free Questions

Our CII IF1 revision plan spends your hours where the marks are, while still covering the whole syllabus. The IF1 syllabus gives a number of questions to each of its fourteen learning outcomes, and five of them, regulation, the insurance market, good faith, risk, and contract and agency, carry 58 of the 100 questions. The CII’s IF1 unit page gives the unit 60 study hours. This page turns those two facts into a 4-week plan: what to cover each week, which outcomes deserve the most time, when to sit the CII’s specimen exam, and how to use your results to spend the last week where the marks are. The 2027 syllabus, which the CII published in October 2026, keeps the same learning outcomes and question numbers, so the plan works for an exam in either year. ProSyllabus is an independent study site. It is not affiliated with the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), and nothing here is official. Every exam fact below is quoted or summarised from the CII’s IF1 unit page, syllabuses, supporting information and examination guides, and its assessment information, results information and “Understanding your exam result” pages, read on 7 November 2026; the plan itself is our suggestion.

CII IF1 unit page and the 2026 and 2027 IF1 syllabuses, read 7 November 2026.

For how the exam works, the pass mark and a description of every learning outcome, see our IF1 exam format and syllabus guide. Before you plan, see how IF1 questions are worded with three free questions:

The CII’s IF1 examination guide contains a specimen examination with its answer key, and says how to use it: “Ideally, students should have completed the majority of their studies before attempting the specimen examination. Students should allow themselves two hours to complete the examination. They should then review their performance to identify areas of weakness on which to concentrate the remainder of their study time.” The same guide warns that the specimen “is typical of an IF1 examination”, but that no single exam can test every aspect of the syllabus, so candidates should cover the whole syllabus.

Three CII facts shape the plan below. First, the syllabus question numbers are a guide: the number of questions on each outcome “will generally be within the range plus or minus 2 of the number indicated.” Second, your result feedback shows, for each learning outcome, the percentage of questions you answered correctly. Third, the unit page’s testing position says legislative and industry changes are generally not examined until three months after they come into effect; it names one for 2026, the Financial Ombudsman Service award limits, in effect from 1 April 2026 and examined from 1 July 2026.

The plan follows the syllabus order, which is also the order the topics build on each other: risk and insurance first, then the legal principles, then regulation and consumer protection. Weeks 1 to 3 end with questions on that week’s outcomes only; week 4 adds full timed mocks. The 60 hours are the unit page’s study hours for IF1; if you have already read the study text once, the same plan works at fewer hours a week.

This is the heaviest week, 33 questions, because it holds the market outcome (LO4, 14 questions). LO1 asks you to describe risk and risk perception, the risk management function and process, the categories and components of risk, which risks can and cannot be insured, frequency and severity, and the difference between a peril and a hazard. LO2 applies those ideas to different sets of circumstances; the CII’s supporting information gives home, motor, commercial and pet insurance as examples, with physical and moral hazards. LO3 covers the need for insurance, insurance as a risk transfer mechanism, how it benefits policyholders and society, coinsurance and its two distinct uses in the market, dual insurance and self-insurance, the main classes of insurance, and the purpose and current rates of Insurance Premium Tax. LO4 covers the structure of the market and its five main groups of people, categories of insurer by ownership, Lloyd’s and the London Market, distribution channels, the purpose of reinsurance, the key roles of professionals, and the main functions of the principal market organisations. Our suggestion: make your own one-page table of market participants and practise telling their roles apart.

Week 2 holds 27 questions. Contract and agency (LO5, 9) comes first because the legal principles build on it: the essential elements of a valid contract, conditional and unconditional acceptance, consideration, how contracts can be cancelled or terminated, how an agent and principal relationship is created, the duties of each, the consequences of an agent’s actions for the principal, and what a Terms of Business Agreement (TOBA) between insurers and intermediaries should include. Insurable interest (LO6, 5) covers its definition and components, its timing, how it can arise, and how it applies to property and liability insurance contracts. Good faith (LO7, 11) deserves the most time of the week: how good faith applies to insurance contracts, how the duty of fair presentation operates and how it can be altered in the policy, material circumstances, physical and moral hazards in relation to a proposal, the insurer’s right to information, what does not require disclosure, and the consequences of non-disclosure or a breach of the duty. Proximate cause (LO8, 2) is short: learn both what it means and how to apply it to non-complex claims.

Week 3 has 26 questions and the single biggest outcome, LO11, regulatory and legal requirements (15). Do indemnity first (LO9, 7): the principle, the settlement options, indemnity and benefit policies, agreed value, first loss and new for old cover, and calculating a non-complex claim payment subject to the pro rata condition of average. Then contribution, and how it shares claim payments between insurers in straightforward property cases, and subrogation, and why it may or may not be pursued in simple circumstances (LO10, 4). Give LO11 at least half the week. Its assessment criteria run from compulsory insurance, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999, through the regulators’ role in authorising, supervising and regulating insurers and intermediaries, the regulatory principles for businesses and the FCA’s and PRA’s regulation of individuals, and the Consumer Duty and positive customer outcomes, to discipline and enforcement, reporting, record keeping and training and competence, ICOBS, and solvency and risk-based capital requirements.

Days 1 and 2: finish the syllabus. LO12 (6) covers the main provisions of the current data protection legislation, and of the current Money Laundering Regulations and how they apply to insurers and intermediaries; LO13 (4) the regulatory requirements for handling complaints, the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme; LO14 (4) the five main principles of the CII Code of Ethics, applied to non-complex scenarios, with positive and negative indicators of ethical behaviour. The one change the unit page’s testing position names belongs here: the Financial Ombudsman Service award limits changed on 1 April 2026 and are examined from 1 July 2026, so learn the limits that apply on your exam date. Day 3: sit the CII specimen exam, timed at two hours, as the guide suggests. Days 4 to 6: go back over your weakest outcomes ranked by marks at stake (below). Day 7: a second full, timed mock, to check that the weak outcomes have moved.

Ranked by the syllabus question numbers, five learning outcomes hold 58 of the 100 questions. They have the largest question allocations, so they deserve the most time; use your own weak spots as well as these numbers to decide where it goes, and, our suggestion, skip none: the syllabus says the number on each outcome “will generally be within the range plus or minus 2”.

The two specimen exams show the rule at work. The 2026 examination guide’s specimen has 10 questions on LO1 and 3 on LO2; the 2027 specimen has 9 and 1. LO12, given 6 questions in the syllabus, has 4 in the 2026 specimen and 7 in the 2027 one. Every outcome in both specimens is within 2 of the syllabus figure.

Halfway through the plan? Check where you stand with three free IF1 questions:

Questions do two different jobs in a revision plan, and it helps to keep them apart. During weeks 1 to 3, short sets on the outcomes you have just studied check that you understood them; time does not matter yet, and the explanation of each answer matters more than the score. In week 4, full timed exams show whether you can do 100 questions in two hours and, through the per-outcome results, where your remaining marks are.

Two habits make mock results more useful. Mark by learning outcome, not just in total: the answer key in each examination guide names the outcome for every question, so you can work out your own percentage per outcome as the CII’s feedback does. And, our suggestion, space out repeat attempts at the same mock: if you remember the answers, the score tells you less about what you know.

The examination guide’s technique advice is short: work methodically, read the question and all four options before answering, watch words in bold such as maximum, minimum, main, most, normally and usually, and negatives in capitals such as NOT and CANNOT. Do not spend too long on one question; leave it and come back. Use any time left to check every answer, since “altering just one incorrect response to a correct response could make the difference between passing and failing.”

The 2027 IF1 syllabus and the 2027 examination guide, both published in October 2026, cover exams from 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2027, and the unit page also links supporting information for the 2027 syllabus. We compared the two syllabuses on 7 November 2026: the fourteen learning outcomes, their assessment criteria and the question numbers are the same, with small wording changes (for example “coinsurance” for “co-insurance”). The 2027 examination guide has a new specimen exam. Use the 2027 edition of the study text, and check the IF1 unit page’s qualification update and testing position for any law changes it names.

The ProSyllabus CII IF1 practice test is written to the 2026 syllabus, which has the same learning outcomes and question numbers as 2027. Its two full 100-question mocks fit day 7 of week 4, or a second week-4 attempt if you take longer. They are independent practice questions, not CII specimen or exam questions. Our IF1 practice questions guide works through three of them.

Before you start week 1, try three free IF1 questions: