BrokerExamRIBO’s Exam Rules set a two-week wait before a rewrite, two attempts per exam provider, and an 8-month lockout after a second fail with the same provider. Those rules (last updated January 15, 2025) are what this page walks through, because the fail story candidates in public threads describe over and over is a near miss: strong mock scores, then a result just under the pass mark of 75 out of 100 (RIBO’s exam page, as of August 31, 2026).
The two-week wait
Rule 2.18:
Examinees are not allowed to retake an exam for two weeks after their failed attempt. Doing so will result in nullifying your exam results.
The nullification clause matters as much as the wait. Rule 2.15 provides that an examination determined to be null and void automatically forfeits its fee; reading the two rules together, a rewrite squeezed in early risks costing a sitting’s fee while producing no result.
Two attempts per provider, then eight months
Rule 2.20 gives you two attempts with each exam provider:
Candidates are eligible to write the exam twice per exam provider. After two failed attempts they are subject to an 8-month waiting period following their second failed attempt with the same service provider.
The rule has two consequences. First, the waiting period attaches to the provider you failed twice with. RIBO’s approved providers are the Insurance Institute of Canada (which RIBO’s exam page also calls the Insurance Institute of Ontario) and the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario, and rule 1.5 names them as the only two, so the rule as written leaves a candidate who has failed twice with one provider able to register with the other. RIBO has not published guidance on whether it permits that switch during the lockout, so confirm with RIBO before booking a third attempt on the strength of this reading. Second, writing with the same provider during the lockout has its own price: the rule says the waiting period resets from the most recent attempt, the results are nullified, and additional restrictions might apply.
There is no remark
Rule 2.19 rules out a remark:
All exams with 100% multiple choice questions don’t qualify for a remark or an appeal.
The Level 1 is entirely multiple choice, so a one-mark miss stands. The route back is a rewrite, and each sitting costs $325 as of August 31, 2026 (the fee RIBO set on January 1, 2026).
Find where the marks went
RIBO’s exam page states the weighting, as of August 31, 2026: 25 questions on general insurance and industry knowledge, 25 on personal lines habitational, 25 on personal lines automobile, 20 on commercial lines, and 5 on travel health. The page adds that 15 piloted questions do not count toward the grade. A near-miss result means a handful of questions across those sections, so the highest-value work is finding which sections carried the miss and drilling those. The diagnostic here scores you by section against the same weighting, so the two-week wait goes into the sections that failed you.
The same threads describe a second pattern: 80 to 90% on the mock exams a candidate prepared with, then a miss by a mark or two on the real sitting. That is a report about the practice material, whatever its source. If your mocks felt comfortable and the sitting did not, harder practice questions are the correction.