PGI exam 2026: a 3-week plan for personal lines insurance
The PGI exam is 50 questions in 75 minutes with a 70% pass mark. Who needs it, what each of the 7 chapters tests, the maid insurance rules and a 3-week plan.
The PGI exam, Personal General Insurance, is 50 multiple-choice questions in 1 hour 15 minutes, and 35 correct answers, 70%, is a pass. Its 7 chapters are the policies people buy for themselves: motor, home, personal accident, travel, personal liability, a little health cover, and maid and golfer's insurance. Sit BCP first, then plan three weeks, with most of your attention on what each policy doesn't cover.
PGI exam essentials
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Questions | 50, multiple choice, closed book |
| Time allowed | 1 hour 15 minutes |
| To pass | 35 correct (70%) |
| Chapters | 7, one per family of personal cover |
| Fee | S$109.00 weekday daytime, S$119.90 evening or weekend |
| Study hours | 40 to 50 at least, by SCI's own recommendation |
| CPD on passing | 1.25 hours |
A wrong answer and a blank both earn nothing, and nothing gets taken off, so never leave a gap. The fee includes GST and a S$10.90 registration fee, and a resit costs the same. For how the paper is scored, see the PGI format and pass mark guide.
Who has to pass PGI
PGI and BCP together make up SCI's Personal General Insurance Certification. MAS Notices 211 and 502 require it of anyone who sells personal lines, gives sales advice on them, or handles or advises on their claims. That takes in agents, broker and insurer staff, and bank employees who sell these products.
The cover it qualifies you for:
- private motor and motorcycle insurance
- householder, houseowner and other personal property insurance
- personal accident and travel insurance
- personal liability insurance
- critical illness and hospital cash cover
- domestic maid and golfer's insurance
PGI also matters if you're heading toward health insurance. SCI's HI page says that if the only health products you handle pay critical illness or hospital income benefits, BCP and PGI excuse you from HI. Anything wider needs the HI paper.
Why BCP comes before PGI
SCI advises sitting BCP first, because PGI is a products paper built on BCP's ideas. Indemnity, subrogation, utmost good faith and how a claim is settled all turn up in PGI without explanation. Our BCP study plan gets you through that module in two weeks.
What each chapter asks of you
Private motor
Third party only, third party fire and theft, and comprehensive: know what each pays for. Then the no-claim discount, how it builds and what a claim does to it, and the excess, the first part of each claim the policyholder pays. Questions like to combine all three in one scenario.
Personal property
Householder policies cover contents; houseowner policies cover the building. The distinction worth drilling is named perils against all risks. A named-perils policy pays only for the events it lists. An all-risks policy pays for anything not excluded. Underinsurance and average turn up here as well.
Personal accident
PA pays set amounts for accidental death, permanent disability and medical expenses, rather than measuring an actual loss. Know how the policy defines an accident and what falls outside it.
Travel
Overseas medical costs, cancellation and cutting a trip short are the main benefits. The marks often sit in the conditions: when a baggage or cancellation claim fails is as testable as when it pays.
Personal liability
Cover for your legal liability if you injure someone or damage their property. This is where subrogation earns its place: after paying, the insurer can recover from whoever caused the loss, so the insured isn't paid twice.
Critical illness and hospital cash
Critical illness pays on diagnosis of a defined condition. Hospital cash pays a daily amount for each day in hospital, whatever the bill. Learn how waiting periods and pre-existing condition clauses limit early claims.
Domestic maid and golfer's insurance
The maid cover in this chapter ties to MOM's rules for employers. Before a helper arrives, an employer must buy medical insurance and personal accident insurance for her, and post a $5,000 security bond unless she's Malaysian. The medical insurance needs an annual claim limit of at least $60,000. Since 1 July 2023, insurers pay 75% and employers 25% of claim amounts above $15,000. The personal accident cover needs a sum assured of at least $60,000 a year.
Golfer's insurance is the smallest topic. Know its standard sections, including the hole-in-one benefit.
A three-week PGI study plan
Forty to fifty hours over three weeks comes to about two hours on a weekday and a longer block each weekend.
Week 1: motor, property and personal accident
Start with motor, since it's the cover you'll quote most once you're working. Then property and PA. By Friday you should be able to say, for any loss, which of the three policies would respond.
Week 2: travel, liability and health
Tie each product to a real situation as you read: a delayed flight, a neighbour's broken window, a three-day hospital stay. Cases stick in a way lists don't.
Week 3: maid and golfer's cover, then mocks
Read chapter 7 early in the week and then switch from reading to testing, with two or three full timed papers and the days between them spent only on what you got wrong. Our PGI sample questions cover motor, travel and home scenarios.
One habit runs through all three weeks. For each product, write the standard exclusions on a single page. PGI asks what isn't covered again and again, and those answers are dependable marks.
On exam day
You get about 90 seconds a question, which is generous, so use it to read every stem to the end. Words like "excluded", "not covered" and "claimable" flip answers, and they're easy to skim past.
Before you sit down, make sure four pairs are automatic: excess against franchise, named perils against all risks, indemnity against fixed benefit, and what subrogation lets an insurer do.
Practise PGI before you book
Our PGI bank covers all 7 chapters with 180+ questions, timed 50-question mocks on the 75-minute clock and a worked explanation for every answer. Each mock's results show up to three chapters where you fell under the pass mark, and a retest round brings back only your wrong answers. Visit the PGI page for a sample question or start PGI as a single paper.
Sources
- SCI, Certification in General Insurance: BCP, PGI and ComGI exam details, fees and policies, read 11 October 2026
- SCI, Health Insurance (HI) exam details, read 11 October 2026
- MOM, insurance requirements for migrant domestic workers, read 11 October 2026
- MOM, security bond for migrant domestic workers, read 11 October 2026
Practise PGI now
180+ exam-style PGI questions with instant explanations.
Frequently asked questions
Personal General Insurance. With BCP, it makes up SCI's Personal General Insurance Certification for selling and advising on personal lines.
Yes. SCI advises sitting BCP first, because PGI is a products paper that assumes you already know indemnity, subrogation, utmost good faith and how claims are settled.
50 multiple-choice questions in 1 hour 15 minutes. You pass with 70%, which is 35 correct answers.
Only if the health products you handle pay just critical illness or hospital income benefits. Advising on wider health insurance needs HI.
With BCP, PGI covers private motor, personal property, personal accident, travel, personal liability, critical illness and hospital cash, and domestic maid and golfer's insurance.
