BCP exam 2026: a two-week plan for the 45-minute paper
The BCP exam is 40 questions in 45 minutes with a 70% pass mark. Who needs it, the 8th Edition text, the chapters that matter and a two-week study plan.
The BCP exam, Basic Insurance Concepts and Principles, is 40 multiple-choice questions in 45 minutes, and you pass with 28 right, which is 70%. It's the first module of SCI's Certification in General Insurance, and SCI advises taking it before PGI or ComGI. Plan on 40 to 50 hours of study, the minimum SCI recommends per module, which two focused weeks can cover.
The BCP exam at a glance
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Format | 40 multiple-choice questions, closed book, on screen |
| Time | 45 minutes, a little over a minute a question |
| Pass mark | 70%: 28 correct, 12 wrong at most |
| Study text | 8th Edition, Version 1.1, for exams from 3 August 2026 |
| Fee | S$49.05 on a weekday before 5pm, S$54.50 after 5pm or at the weekend |
| After a pass | A result slip and 0.75 CPD hours |
A wrong answer costs nothing beyond the mark itself, so answer every question even when you're unsure. You can resit as often as you need, at the same fee each time. The BCP format and pass mark guide covers the scoring in more detail.
Who needs BCP, and why it comes first
MAS Notices 211 and 502 require anyone who sells general insurance, gives sales advice, handles claims or advises on claims to hold the right certification. That covers agents as well as staff at insurers, brokers and banks. The General Insurance Association and the Singapore Insurance Brokers' Association expect the same of their front-end staff.
There are two certifications, and BCP sits in both:
- Personal General Insurance Certification: BCP and PGI, for motor, home, travel, personal accident and similar cover.
- Commercial General Insurance Certification: BCP and ComGI, for business cover such as property, liability and marine.
SCI describes BCP as the foundation the other two modules build on. PGI and ComGI assume you already know what indemnity means and how an insurance contract forms. Learn that vocabulary here and the product papers become a matter of applying it.
The nine chapters
| Chapter | Topic |
|---|---|
| 1 | The insurance and reinsurance market |
| 2 | Regulation and industry frameworks |
| 3 | Risks and insurance |
| 4 | Principles of insurance |
| 5 | Law of contract and agency |
| 6 | Insurance documents |
| 7 | Claims |
| 8 | Reinsurance and co-insurance |
| 9 | Ethics, professionalism, data protection and cyber hygiene |
SCI doesn't publish how many questions come from each chapter. Chapters 3 to 5 deserve the most hours anyway, because they're conceptual, and the other six lean on them.
Chapters 3 to 5: where the thinking happens
Risks and insurance
Know the classifications: pure against speculative, fundamental against particular. Insurance is built for pure, particular risks, and a favourite question hands you a speculative one, like a business venture that could make or lose money, and asks whether it's insurable. Learn the features of an insurable risk too, and how group cover works: one master policy, with each member holding a certificate under it.
The six principles
Insurable interest, utmost good faith, indemnity, contribution, subrogation and proximate cause turn up in almost every chapter that follows, so learn them as tools rather than definitions.
One split settles a whole cluster of questions: indemnity against benefit. Property and liability policies are indemnity contracts: they put the insured back where they were before the loss, no better off. Life and personal accident policies pay an agreed sum instead. So subrogation and contribution, which only make sense when you're measuring a loss, belong with indemnity cover.
When two answer options both name a principle, ask which one the facts actually trigger. A question about two policies covering the same loss is contribution. A question about the insurer taking over the insured's right to sue someone is subrogation.
Law of contract and agency
An insurance policy is a contract, so you need what makes one valid: offer, acceptance, consideration and an intention to create legal relations. Then the three terms the exam likes to blur: a warranty, a condition and a representation, each with a different result when broken. The agency section covers how an agent binds the insurer and where that authority ends.
Chapters 1, 2 and 6 to 9: the faster marks
These chapters are mostly recognition.
- Chapters 1 and 2: who the market players are, how cover reaches customers, and what each Singapore regulator and industry body does.
- Chapter 6: proposal forms, how a policy is laid out, endorsements and renewals.
- Chapter 7: claims procedure and settlement. Learn excess against franchise. An excess comes off every claim. A franchise is a threshold: below it nothing is paid, above it the whole loss is.
- Chapter 8: treaty against facultative reinsurance, proportional against non-proportional, and co-insurance, where several insurers each take a share of one risk.
- Chapter 9: conduct, the PDPA when you handle personal data, and basic cyber hygiene.
Read each once, answer questions on it the same day, and come back only to the parts you miss.
A two-week BCP study plan
At 40 to 50 hours, two weeks means 20 to 25 hours a week. If you have less time than that, stretch the plan rather than cut the chapters.
Week 1: chapters 1 to 5
Read chapters 1 and 2 for context in the first two days. Spend the rest of the week on chapters 3, 4 and 5. Don't move past a principle until you can apply it to a situation you haven't seen before.
Week 2: chapters 6 to 9, then mocks
Get through the operational chapters by midweek, then sit two or three full papers on the 45-minute clock; after each one, go straight back to the chapters where you dropped marks and redo their questions before the next paper. Our BCP sample questions are a quick way to retest them.
On the day
Forty questions in 45 minutes leaves no time to stall. If a question fights you, put down your best answer and keep moving, then use any minutes left at the end to look again.
Most marks turn on precise pairs, so check them the night before: indemnity against benefit, excess against franchise, warranty against condition, and offer, acceptance and consideration. A calculator is allowed if you bring your own non-programmable one, though BCP is mostly concepts.
After you pass BCP
Book PGI if you'll handle personal lines, or ComGI for commercial ones. Pass all three and you can use the designation Cert SCI (General Insurance). SCI also lists Chartered Insurance Institute credit for the three passes, an exemption from the CII's Award in General Insurance unit, valid until 31 January 2028.
Our study plans for PGI and ComGI pick up from here.
Practise BCP before you book
Our BCP bank has 250+ questions across the nine chapters, full 40-question mocks on the 45-minute clock, and an explanation on every answer. When a mock ends, it names up to three chapters that fell below the pass mark, and the retest mode replays only the questions you got wrong. The BCP page shows a sample question, or start BCP as a single paper.
Sources
- SCI, Certification in General Insurance: BCP, PGI and ComGI exam details, fees and policies, read 11 October 2026
- SCI, release of new versions of study texts for regulatory examinations, read 11 October 2026
- SCI, examination rules and regulations, version 2.5, read 11 October 2026
Practise BCP now
250+ exam-style BCP questions with instant explanations.
Frequently asked questions
Basic Insurance Concepts and Principles. It's the first module of SCI's Certification in General Insurance, shared by the personal and commercial certifications.
Yes. SCI advises sitting BCP first because the other two modules build on it, and PGI and ComGI assume you already know terms like indemnity.
40 multiple-choice questions in 45 minutes. You need 70% to pass, which is 28 correct answers.
The 8th Edition, Version 1.1, for BCP exams from 3 August 2026.
Book PGI for personal lines or ComGI for commercial ones. Pass all three and you can use the designation Cert SCI (General Insurance).
