How to Pass the Adjuster Exam

Passing the state adjuster exam is one of the most common roadblocks to becoming an adjuster. 

A common question we receive is: Is the adjuster exam hard? The answer is: It’s not an “easy” test, but if you’re prepared, you can pass on your first try.

We’ve arranged this guide in two sections: Adjuster Exam Study Guide and Exam Taking Strategies. If you follow them diligently, you’ll pass the exam, get your adjuster license, and be well on your way to becoming an adjuster!

Adjuster Exam Prep Course

Before getting into the best ways to study, it’s important to mention what you’ll be studying. 

Back in the day, studying for the exam meant buying a textbook (a quite expensive textbook, actually), reading it from front to back, then taking the exam with the hope of retaining enough to pass.

Thankfully, things have improved quite a bit over the years. Almost all adjuster study material is in the form of an online course. This means you get a combination of video, text, practice exams, vocab sheets, and other study tools all in one place.

To best understand what’s on the test, take a look at the exam outline for Georgia’s adjuster exam.

Check out our review of the Best Adjuster License Courses of 2026!

Adjuster Exam Study Guide

Now that we’ve discussed study materials, we move into the study guide section with the assumption that you either have purchased, or are intending to purchase an adjuster exam prep course.

There are many different methods of studying out there, but we’re going to focus on just a few areas in order to keep things simple, and make the most of your time. 

First, memorize this phrase: Competence breeds confidence.

Competence breeds confidence

Interestingly, many people, especially those that weren’t ‘A students’ in school often cite “testing anxiety” as a major issue when it comes to these exams. And while testing anxiety is a real thing, we think something else might be a bit more common…

The #1 reason people fail this exam is they come in without proper preparation. When they read the questions and just can’t seem to remember the answers, it’s more likely that they didn’t spend enough time studying than a true case of testing anxiety.

Your job is to know the material well enough to overcome any butterflies in your stomach.

Step 1: Set a Study Schedule

The most important part of studying is making sure you spend enough time doing it. Setting a schedule is how to get there.

Your study schedule should be consistent, right-sized, and realistic.

• Consistent
  Set your study times at a similar time each day, and on similar days each week. Don’t schedule multiple days between study sessions, as your data retention will fall if you spend too much time not thinking about the subject.
• Right-Sized
  Right-sizing your study sessions means choosing a proper session duration, a proper pace, and a reasonable total time. Setting sessions that aren’t too long or too short will maximize your intake of new information, while allowing your mind to properly “soak” up what you’ve covered.
• Realistic
  A realistic study schedule is one that you can stick to for as long as you need to get it done. If you say you’re going to study 4 hours, twice per day, as yourself honestly if that’s possible in the context of your life schedule. Alternatively, if you schedule 10 minute sessions, twice per week, you won’t realistically be able to carry information from one session to the next.

Example Study Schedule

Your personal study schedule may look similar to this example, or it may be totally different.

Many factors go into setting this schedule, including: how fast you complete modules in the test prep course, your work/life schedule, your attention span and ability to retain information, etc…

This example might be for you, and it might not. Just be sure that your schedule is consistent, right-sized, and realistic.

Step 2: Focus on Vocabulary

This may sound like an odd suggestion, but understanding the vocabulary is a massively important part of creating a foundation for learning.

As you’re going through your course, write down any words you don’t understand – preferably in a physical notebook, not on a computer. After you’ve written the word, keep an eye out for the definition in the material.

Courses like Kaplan’s do a great job of ensuring that new words or concepts are explained, so you should never have to wait too long for a definition to come up.

Once you’ve found the definition, write it out next to the word in your notebook. After a while, you’ll have your own personal dictionary of terms. Hand-writing words and their definitions activates different parts of your brain than just reading. This leads to considerably higher retention of information.

Adjuster Flashcards

After completing each section of your study course, we recommend creating flashcards of your written terms. 

Take a notecard, write the word on one side, and the definition of the word on the other side. The benefits of creating your own cards are threefold: 

1. You’re writing these terms out again, which supports retention. 
2. You now have a study tool that you can use anywhere, any time.
3. Using flashcards for a few minutes on non-study days will help you to stay in the study mindset, and make your next session even more productive.

Take your flashcards with you to work, for a long trip, or any other situation where you might have a few spare minutes to flip through them!

Step 3: Adjuster Practice Exams

Practice Exams are the last step in our study guide. They are the most powerful mechanism to ensure you’re on the right track.

There are several phases during your exam prep course that allow you to take practice exams:

• The end of each module
• The end of each section
• The end of the course

Take these tests seriously, as they give you the feedback you need to ensure you understand the material.

We recommend you score 95% or better on each quiz before moving on to the next module – even if the software lets you move forward with a lower score.

Each module in a section builds upon itself, so if there are any parts that are unclear to you, moving forward will compound the misunderstanding.

Similar to vocabulary, ensuring that you have a strong understanding of the basics creates a strong foundation of knowledge to build upon.

Once you’ve completed the full course, consider taking the final practice test a few times. If there are any weaknesses in your scores, go back to the sections where that information was introduced and go through it again.

Scoring highly on practice exams shows your competence. And you know already, that competence breeds confidence!

Strategies for Taking the Adjuster Exam

By far, the most important step to take in order to pass the adjuster exam is to study your test prep course thoroughly. With that being said, you still need to actually take the exam, which can be a stressful situation for some.

These three strategies will help you to tackle the exam in a smarter way, further increasing your chances of passing on the first attempt!

Competence Breeds Confidence

You already know this one, but it bears mentioning again.

At this point, you’ve gone through the prep course and taken multiple quizzes and practice exams. Your scores on these tests show your knowledge – so trust them.

If you’re consistently scoring well on the practice tests, go into the adjuster exam with confidence!

Read the Last Sentence First

This test is a lot like the tests you took in high school and college – a standard multiple-choice exam. This means the questions are also written like you’ve seen before – long, wordy, and meandering. This can create confusion and muddle our thought process while reading the question.

The best way to combat wordy questions is to read the last sentence of the question first, then go back and read the whole question again.

The advantage this creates is that you now know exactly what you’re looking for in that data-filled mess of a question. Here’s an example.

Adjuster Exam Sample Question

In this question, there are lots of buzzwords: dwelling, ACV, provision, etc…Reading it from top to bottom, how do you know what matters and what doesn’t?

If, however, you read the last sentence first, you know exactly what information you’re looking for.

Read the question this way instead:

This gives you a massive advantage over the standard reading. Do this on every question during the exam and you’ll have a much better chance of scoring well.

By the way, the answer is: B) $200,000

Skip Questions You Don’t Know

Skipping unknown questions is a well-known test-taking strategy, and that’s because it’s a good one.

You only have a limited amount of time to answer all of the questions in the exam, and as we’ve already discussed, these questions can be pretty wordy.

The common knowledge of this strategy is that if you waste time not answering questions, you may not have time to answer the questions you do know the answer to.

We agree with that conclusion, but there’s another benefit to this strategy. One we’ve seen ourselves many times while taking insurance exams: sometimes you’ll find an answer to a question written in the wording of another question!

These exams are written question-by-question – not as a whole exam. In fact, there are generally multiple versions of the exam with totally different questions shared between versions.

This means that every once in a while, you’ll get lucky and see an answer to a skipped question sitting right there in front of you. It won’t happen all the time, but just keep an eye out for themes of questions you’ve skipped.

After Taking the Adjuster Exam

Once you’ve taken the exam, there’s one of two paths in front of you: 

• If you didn’t pass, you’ve got to get right back up on the horse! It’s not uncommon to fail on the first attempt. Take the exam results and study up on the sections you didn’t do well on – then sign up and again and come back with even more confidence!
• If you passed, then finish the rest of the steps to get your adjuster license. You’re one big step closer to becoming an independent adjuster or staff adjuster!

Adjuster Exam FAQ