BrokerExam
Candidates call the RIBO Level 1 exam “open book”. RIBO never does. The phrase appears nowhere on RIBO’s Level 1 exam page, in its Exam Rules, or in the reference document itself. The reality is narrower, and worth getting right before you build a study plan around it: you may bring no reference materials into the exam, and the one reference you get, RIBO’s Consolidated Examinee Resource, reaches you through the exam platform, because the rules allow nothing else.
What the exam rules allow
RIBO’s Exam Rules (last updated January 15, 2025) prohibit outside materials outright. Rule 2.2:
Examinees are strictly prohibited from accessing physical or digital resources, including but not limited to, books, notes, cell phones, smartwatches, tablets, and headphones.
So no printout of the legislation and no annotated notes (and in a virtually proctored sitting, rule 3.2 bars multiple monitors too). Rule 2.5 defines what you may use:
Only tools and resources provided within the examination interface, such as an online calculator and/or note-taking section, may be used during the exam.
Everything you can consult during the exam lives inside the exam platform.
The Consolidated Examinee Resource
The document RIBO provides is the Consolidated Examinee Resource, which its own cover page says “consolidates various policies and regulations for the convenience of examinees during the exam”. As of August 31, 2026, the edition RIBO serves is dated May 1, 2026 inside the document. It contains:
- OAP 1, the Ontario Automobile Policy
- RIBO By-Laws No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3
- The Registered Insurance Brokers Act
- O. Reg. 308/98, 990 and 991
Two things are not in it. Your course textbook is not there, and neither is the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule as a standalone regulation. Absence from the resource says nothing about what is graded, though: nothing RIBO has published, on the exam page, in the Exam Rules, or in its SABS guidance, says whether the reformed SABS is exam content. The OAP 1 bundled in the May 1, 2026 edition is post-reform: it carries the optional accident benefits framing that O. Reg. 383/24 brought into force on July 1, 2026.
Can you Ctrl+F it during the exam?
The Exam Rules do not mention search, and neither does the Level 1 exam page. Only candidate report exists, and the reports conflict. In a public reddit thread from August 2026, one candidate said search worked in their online-proctored sitting, another believed there was no search function at all, and a third described reaching the resource through an information icon in the exam platform and asked the question again. No one in the thread could point to an official source.
Plan for scroll-only. If search happens to be available in your sitting, it is a bonus. At 100 graded and 15 pilot questions in 180 minutes, the format RIBO’s exam page states as of August 31, 2026, you have about a minute and a half per question. That confirms a section in the 167-page resource when you already know its location. It does not find one you have never read.
How to prepare for it
Learn the layout of the resource, not just the law. The automobile policy is OAP 1, broker conduct is O. Reg. 991 and the by-laws, and the licensing machinery is the RIB Act and O. Reg. 990. The legislation library on this site carries the same sources the resource consolidates, section by section, so you can practice finding a provision before exam day: OAP 1, the RIB Act, and O. Reg. 991 are the ones candidates look things up in most.
Then drill until the lookup is the exception. Treat the resource as a backstop for the two or three questions where exact wording matters, and answer the rest from preparation.