ALU 101 exam — stuck around 64% and can't crack the risk classification questions
About halfway through my ALU 101 prep and the mortality table calculations and risk classification material are kicking my teeth in. I've been studying about 75 minutes a day for 5 weeks and my practice scores are stuck around 64–68%. The passing score is typically around 70% so I've got some ground to cover before I sit.
The conceptual stuff — adverse selection, underwriting philosophy, the basics of how life products are structured — I feel decent on that. It's when the questions get into numerical risk scoring, table ratings, and the specific factors that push a case from standard to substandard that I lose points consistently. I'm also weak on the reinsurance section, which I've been avoiding because it feels overwhelming.
How long did most people take to get through this course? I'm seeing everything from 8 weeks to 5 months depending on who I ask. I'm employed full-time in a life insurance claims role so I have some domain knowledge, but the underwriting side is genuinely different from what I work with day to day.
Anyone have a recommendation for approaching the numerical risk classification questions specifically? I'm not sure whether to memorize the rating tables or try to understand the actuarial logic well enough to reason through scenarios I haven't seen before.
For the risk classification questions, understanding the logic matters more than memorizing specific numbers. The tables change between editions and the exam tests reasoning over recall. Know the factors, know how they interact, and you can work through cases you haven't seen. I went from 66% to 74% in about 3 weeks using that approach.
10–12 weeks at 60–75 minutes a day is pretty typical if you're working full-time. The LOMA study materials are dense and the exam questions are scenario-based rather than straightforward recall, which slows prep down more than people expect.
Your claims background is actually a bigger advantage than you think for the policy interpretation questions. I stopped treating that section like new material and started connecting it to things I'd seen in actual cases. That shift moved my scores on those questions from around 60% to 80%.
The reinsurance section is shorter than it feels when you first open it. I spent 2 weeks avoiding it and then knocked it out in about 4 study sessions once I actually started. Don't let it loom — just get into it.
I was right where you are about two months ago, honestly ready to shelve the whole thing. The risk classification stuff felt like it was written in a foreign language and no matter how many times I read the chapter it just wasn't sticking. What finally helped me wasn't more reading -- it was stopping and rebuilding the classification logic from scratch on paper. Like, I'd take a case and literally write out which factors pushed it into each category before checking the answer. Tedious? Yes. But it's the only thing that broke the cycle for me.
The mortality table calculations get way less scary once you stop treating them as math problems and start treating them as lookup exercises. You're not solving equations, you're learning where to look and what the numbers mean in context. I passed on my second attempt sitting at about 65% on practice tests right up until the last week, so don't let that score psych you out -- it moved fast once things clicked. Keep going.