BrokerExamRIBO runs no prep course of its own and puts no course above another. Its Level 1 exam page names two organizations and sends you to their websites:
RIBO doesn’t offer any courses but organizations like the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario (IBAO) or the Insurance Institute of Ontario (IIO) have some that you can take. Please visit their websites for more information.
That is the whole of RIBO’s position on the Level 1 exam page, read on August 31, 2026. What follows is what those two organizations publish about their own courses, and nothing past it.
What RIBO says about courses
The two organizations named are also the only two that run the exam. RIBO’s Level 1 licensing page, read on August 31, 2026: “RIBO exams are administered by only two approved exam service providers: the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario (IBAO) and the Insurance Institute of Canada (IIC).”
The second name moves between RIBO’s own pages. The exam page calls it the Insurance Institute of Ontario, the licensing page the Insurance Institute of Canada, and both link to insuranceinstitute.ca. This page just calls it the Insurance Institute.
One thing both providers state plainly, and it is easy to miss when comparing prices: the course and the exam are separate purchases. Neither provider’s course price includes the exam sitting.
IBAO: Broker Launchpad and the Exam Clinic
IBAO’s Broker Launchpad page, read on August 31, 2026, describes the course as “our RIBO Level 1 licensing course”, offered “In-Person or Online” and made for “individuals with limited industry experience”. It publishes three delivery options and a price for each, quoted as a member price and a non-member price:
| Option | Length | Member | Non-member |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekday, Monday to Friday | 2 weeks | $810 | $1,035 |
| Weekend, 3 consecutive weekends | 3 weekends | $775 | $985 |
| On Demand, self-paced | 180-day access | $580 | $640 |
The page states that the weekday option runs online or in person and that the weekend and on-demand options are online. On the textbook, it says course content “has been updated to align with RIBO’s Level 1 Competency Profile and Exam Blueprint, which came into effect January 1st”, and that “the 3rd Edition textbook should be used when preparing for any 2026 exams”. Hardcopy, digital and bundled textbook options are listed as self-study items without a price on that page. On the exam, it says: “Please note the exam fee isn’t included in the course fee.”
The second IBAO offering is narrower. The Exam Clinic page, read on August 31, 2026, describes a two-day online clinic running 8:30AM to 4:00PM, “designed for those who have already attempted the RIBO Level 1 exam or prepared for it independently”. It is a review session rather than a first pass through the material: “Bring your study questions and ask for insight and advice from our instructor to help you on your next exam attempt.” It also sets a prerequisite, that students “must have a current version of the Becoming An Insurance Broker (1st Edition, 2020, or 2nd Edition, 2023) or Fundamentals of Insurance textbook (4th Edition, 2011)”. No price for the clinic is published on that page.
The Insurance Institute: kits, lectures and a tutorial
The Insurance Institute’s Level 1 Broker page, read on August 31, 2026, publishes prices for four study products:
| Product | Price |
|---|---|
| Pre-recorded lecture package | $350 |
| Self-study kit | $301 |
| Self-study kit plus online tutorial | $351 |
| Online tutorial on its own | $50 |
The lecture package gives “120-days of unlimited access to recorded lessons, and a variety of additional resources”, is “specially designed to be taken at your own pace”, and is ordered by contacting the Institute rather than through the cart. The self-study kit contains the “Ontario Insurance Broker Licensing Manual (Volume 1 & 2)” plus sample policy wordings, and the page adds that candidates “need to be familiar with the legislation governing Brokers in the Province of Ontario”, pointing at the documents on RIBO’s website. The online tutorial is listed as the 2025 edition and carries 120 days of access, a glossary, and “additional practice exam questions based on the actual exam”.
The page also lists scheduled licensing classes. Its own filters count eight classes for 2026, all of them under the online learning mode, with none listed as in-person, independent study or hybrid. The schedule of individual classes is not reproduced here; check the Institute’s own listing for what is running and what it costs. On the exam, it says: “Please note, the licensing class packages below do not include the exam product.”
Nobody publishes a comparison
RIBO names the two organizations and stops. Nothing on its Level 1 exam page or its Level 1 licensing page compares them, reports pass rates by provider, or endorses a course, both read on August 31, 2026. Neither provider publishes a pass rate either.
What fills the gap is word of mouth, and word of mouth about a course is one candidate’s experience of one instructor, one cohort and one sitting. The providers do say who each product is for, and they do not name the same person: IBAO builds Broker Launchpad for “individuals with limited industry experience” and the Exam Clinic for those who “have already attempted the RIBO Level 1 exam or prepared for it independently”. Those descriptions are published, so you can match yourself against them. No source publishes a ranking.
What can be compared is set out above: format, length, what is included, what the exam costs on top. Past that the choice runs on your schedule and your budget, and no published source narrows it further.
Studying without a course
Self-study is a route RIBO’s own documents treat as normal. The Level 1 Entry Level Broker Competency Profile and Blueprint says of itself that “it should also help applicants who choose self-study in preparation for their examination”. The exam page carries a Self Study heading with a list of material, noting only that “the list is not exhaustive”:
If you consider self-study, use the following resources OAP 1, RIBO By-Laws No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, RIB Act, Ontario Regulation 989, 990, 991.
All of those are free. RIBO publishes the by-laws, the Exam Rules, the sample questions PDF and the Consolidated Examinee Resource, the reference document you get inside the exam platform, on its own site. The Act and the regulations are on Ontario’s e-Laws at ontario.ca/laws, in the version currently in force. The legislation library on this site prints the RIB Act and the regulations in full, section by section, and links OAP 1 and the by-laws to RIBO’s own published documents. Free practice questions are at /practice, and the rest of the guides and case notes sit alongside them.
None of that replaces an instructor for someone who wants one. It does mean the reading list has no price on it, and that a course is a way of getting through the material faster, not a way of getting material you cannot otherwise reach.