Earning your CPCU® designation can help you advance your insurance career, but you must first complete a number of courses that can be quite challenging. In this post, we’ll go over everything you need to know about the CPCU 552 course and give you tips on how to pass this exam.
What’s in this post
- About CPCU 552
- What is the CPCU program?
- What is CPCU 552?
- How difficult is CPCU 552?
- About the CPCU 552 exam
- Topics covered in CPCU 552
- Topics you are most likely to see on the CPCU 552 exam
- Tips for passing CPCU 552 exam
- Buy our CPCU 552 study guide bundle
CPCU 552 Study Guide e-Bundle – $44.99
What is the CPCU program?
The Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU®) is a professional designation offered by an organization called The Institutes. After completing the program, you will have a solid understanding of how insurance industry works and can display the CPCU designation on your business cards, resume, etc.
Having this designation shows that you have done extra education, which can make you a stronger candidate for hire or promotion. Also, this might give customers, colleagues, and business partners more confidence in working with you because they know you have this foundational knowledge.
What is CPCU 552?
CPCU 552 is one of four concentration courses you may choose from earn your CPCU designation. Whether you are pursuing the traditional CPCU path or the ARM to CPCU path, all students must choose between completing the commercial lines concentration courses or the personal lines concentration courses. CPCU 552 is one of the two commercial lines concentration courses.
This particular course is about the various types of insurance policies available for commercial liability exposures. The knowledge you gain from this course will help you understand what types of commercial policies are avaialble, how coverage typically applies for each of those policies, and what are the key considerations that producers and customers must think about when deciding on their policy terms and coverage options.
How difficult is CPCU 552?
The content in CPCU 552 is not inherently difficult to understand, but there are a few things that add to its complexity:
- The Institutes’ course is written almost as if it assumes you have some preexisting knowledge about commercial insurance and/or legal concepts. There were instances where we felt that The Institutes should have taken the time to more fully explain certain concepts or terms that not all students will be familiar with.
- Many types of policies do cover similar categories of exposures, but the extent of that coverage varies widely. For example, many policies offer some sort of coverage for cyber-related exposures, but what exactly that policy type covers and what kinds of exclusions apply will vary widely between those policy types. Students will need to know the limitations of each type of policy and be able to identify which policy is best suited to cover certain situations, but it is all too easy to mix up those details.
- Chapter 5 covers excess and umbrella policies, and students will be expected to know how to determine how much an insurer will pay out in certain scenarios.
Our study guide bundle and bonus printables are the perfect supplement to The Institutes’ course, and serves as the perfect tool to help you effectively review everything you need to know:
- Comprehensive 50+ study guide
- Policy summary sheets
- Cheat sheets for BACF covered auto symbols and endorsements
- Visual explanation of excess and umbrella policies
- Extra lessons to give you helpful background knowledge that will improve your understanding of the materials
About the CPCU 552 exam
In order to demonstrate that you have understood the material from this course, you will need to pass an online exam administered by The Institutes.
You must go through The Institutes' website to purchase and formally register for your exam. When registering, you must indicate which test window you plan to take the exam during. The four test windows that are available every year are:
- January 15 to March 15
- April 15 to June 15
- July 15 to September 15
- October 15 to December 15
You may pay for your exam fee at any time, and those who register before the test window opens will usually receive a discount. However, you can only launch the exam and complete it during the test window you chose at the time of purchase. If you need to reschedule your exam, a new fee will apply.
The exam consists of 50 questions that cover all the chapters from the course, with a time limit of 65 minutes. The exam is done online, and you must get a score of 70% or better to pass. You may retake the exam (and pay a new fee) if you do not pass, but please check The Institutes' policies regarding how often and how soon you can retake the exam, as that may change from time to time.
CPCU 552 Study Guide e-Bundle – $44.99
- Based on CPCU 552: Managing Commercial Liability Risk [1st edition]
- Delivered by email after purchase as downloadable PDF
- For buyer's personal use only (non-transferrable and not for resale)
- (NOTE: this will be the only IEG product available for CPCU 552 as we will not be developing a full study program for CPCU 552)
Topics covered in CPCU 552
- Commercial general liability (CGL)
- Commercial auto policies
- Cyber exposures
- Workers compensation coverage
- Employers liability coverage
- Directors and officers liability
- Employment practices liability
- Excess liability coverage
- Umbrella policies
How IEG can help: We have a comprehensive study guide bundle that covers every chapter from CPCU 552. We use plain language and helpful examples to help you truly understand the content.
Topics you are most likely to see on the CPCU 552 exam
The following list is based on student feedback regard what topics they felt were most heavily-featured on their exam.
Please remember that this is not a comprehensive list of all the topics that will be tested, and each person’s exam may different. Any of the material covered in the course may potentially appear on your exam, so you should prepare accordingly.
- Commercial general liability
- Differerentiating between premises liability, operations liability, products liability, and completed operations liability
- Coverage for mobile equipment
- Coverage B exclusions
- Coverage C provisions
- Commercial auto policies
- Covered auto symbols
- Who qualifies as “insured”
- Auto-related endorsements
- Cyber exposures – Limitations of various types of policies for covering cyber-related losses
- Workers compensation – Info Page; Part 1
- Directors & officers liability – differences between Coverages A, B, C
- Excess & umbrella policies
- Differences between excess vs. umbrella coverage
- Calculating how much an insurer will cover for a given scenario
- Duties of insurer, insured, and claimant with respect to liability losses
How IEG can help: Our comprehensive study guide summarizes all the key details of these topics. We also provide cheat sheets and comparison charts as part of our bonus materials, to help you nail down the finer details that matter.
CPCU 552 Study Guide e-Bundle – $44.99
- Based on CPCU 552: Managing Commercial Liability Risk [1st edition]
- Delivered by email after purchase as downloadable PDF
- For buyer's personal use only (non-transferrable and not for resale)
- (NOTE: this will be the only IEG product available for CPCU 552 as we will not be developing a full study program for CPCU 552)
Tips for passing CPCU 552
1) Take CPCU 551 before taking CPCU 552
This is a smart strategy for two reasons:
First, CPCU 552 mentions a lot of concepts & policies types from CPCU 551, usually to illustrate how a policy type being discussed in CPCU 552 is different from or similar to the ones covered in CPCU 551. If you can go into CPCU 552 already being familiar with the policies from CPCU 551, the comparisons will be far more meaningful to you and you will understand.
Second, there are lots of general insurance concepts that are elaborated on in CPCU 551, but barely explained in CPCU 552. It is almost as if CPCU 551 was written with the assumption that you aren’t familiar with commercial insurance, but CPCU 552 assumes you have some working knowledge.
How IEG can help: Our study guide bundle, includes some introductory lessons that cover the basics of how insurance policies are structured and some other key terms that you will see repeatedly in CPCU 552. That way, you have the relevant background information you need to make more sense out of the course content.
2) Take CPCU 530 before CPCU 552
Among the topics discussed in CPCU 530, a few will come up in CPCU 552 (negligence versus strict liability, different types of damages, and the parties to a lawsuit/claim). It is nice to go into CPCU 552 already understanding these terms, although admittedly the overlap between CPCU 530 & CPCU 552 nowhere near as extensive as the overlap between CPCU 551 & CPCU 552. Still, if you haven’t already taken CPCU 530, you might as well get that out of the way and go into CPCU 552 being already familiar with those basic legal concepts.
How IEG can help: We have study materials for CPCU 530, including a full online study program that comes complete with video lessons, a streaming audio-only option, tons of practice questions, and our comprehensive study guide.
3) Take the time to master the content on excess & umbrella policies
We can guarantee that you will encounter several questions about this topic on your exam, which will mainly test your knowledge of the differences between excess vs. umbrella policies. You will also have to apply your knowledge to actual scenarios and determine how much the insurer will pay for that loss. This will require you to understand whether the excess or umbrella policy would even provide coverage in the first place, how the excess or umbrella coverage would be affected by the limits of the underlying policy, and whether a self-insured retention will apply.
Because you will get numerous questions from this chapter, you should invest extra time in learning the key differences and policy applications.
How IEG can help: Our study guide bundle includes a bonus handout on how excess and umbrella policies work, with helpful visual illustrations that show you exactly how these policy coverages would apply.
CPCU 552 Study Guide e-Bundle – $44.99
4) Look up actual policy forms to see how different clauses are specifically worded
The Institutes’ paraphrases most of the standard policy terms and sections, but it can sometimes be more helpful to see how things are worded in the actual policy form itself. Most commercial policies are based on standard starting templates that nearly all insurers use, and it is pretty easy to find samples online. Just search for the policy type as a PDF (ex: “business auto coverage form pdf”) and take a look at real language used.
5) Don’t waste too much time on long questions or questions that you are stuck on
Every test question is worth only one point, no matter how simple or complex it is. If you find that you are spending a lot of time on one particular problem, you are better off guessing for now and using the option to flag the question so you can return to it later. You don’t want to spend so much time that you run out of time before you can get to all the other questions that might have been easier for you to score points on.
6) Put an answer for every question
You do not get minus points for getting a question wrong, so don’t leave any questions blank.
CPCU 552 Study Guide e-Bundle – $44.99
- Based on CPCU 552: Managing Commercial Liability Risk [1st edition]
- Delivered by email after purchase as downloadable PDF
- For buyer's personal use only (non-transferrable and not for resale)
- (NOTE: this will be the only IEG product available for CPCU 552 as we will not be developing a full study program for CPCU 552)
7) Get as much practice as possible
The best way to ensure that you know how to apply the concepts you learning is to practice doing so, and practice quizzes are the perfect way to do this. On top of that, doing practice questions gets you comfortable with seeing the concepts in the same question-answer format you will see on your exam.
The Institutes’ online course includes tons of practice questions and you should do them all. The Institutes’ also offers a separate Smart QuizMe app that includes an entire bank of practice questions for every course. The app is free to download but you need to pay a small fee (about $10 per course at the time of this writing) to access the full bank of questions for any particular course.
NOTE: As of this writing (December 28, 2023), the Smart QuizMe app has not been updated yet to reflect the updated content in the latest version of CPCU 551. To the best of our knowledge, The Institutes has not confirmed when the app will be updated, but we do recommend utilizing it once the updated practice questions are available.
How IEG can help: The step-by-step walkthroughs we provide with our study guide bundle include sample problems you can work through, with the detailed explanation right there that you can use to immediately check your answer and approach.
8) Aim to understand the practice questions and not just memorize them
The questions on the actual exam are not made up of the practice questions, so you cannot just rely on memorizing those answers for any practice quizzes and simulated exams you take. Read each explanation and re-review the material until you understand why you got a question wrong.
9) Don’t rely solely on The Institutes’ study materials
The Institutes’ way of explaining things is not necessarily the best way, so take advantage of other resources available to you. Some students don’t use The Institutes’ study materials at all and prefer to go with another study option, such as our comprehensive study materials. We use plain English to explain all of the concepts, include helpful examples so you can see how they apply in real life, and show you how different elements of something relate to one another.
You can also turn to Google and YouTube to look for explanations and examples from other sources too.
10) Join the CPCU Candidates Facebook group
One of the best things you can do during your CPCU journey is to join the CPCU Candidates Facebook group, which is a wonderful community of current and former CPCU students. Here, you can get help with test questions that might be stumping you, ask for advice on propelling your insurance career, and find a healthy dose of moral support and motivation.
CPCU 552 Study Guide e-Bundle – $44.99
Why Our Study Guides Work
Learning the material is just the first step. You need a way to refresh yourself on the content because there is so much to remember.
We created our signature study guides to help you quickly and easily review everything you've learned:
Focus on the right things
We condense every chapter to a few pages each, so you can focus on what you need to know.
Understand the key concepts
We provide extra examples & bonus materials to help you understand the trickier concepts.
See how it all relates
Our outlines are super organized and make it easy to see how the concepts relate to each other.
About your instructor
Insurance Exam Guides (IEG) was founded by Stacy Trinh, CPCU®, who first started her teaching journey at the request of her co-workers who were preparing for their CPCU exams. Because of her reputation as an adept trainer and motivator, Stacy's co-workers had asked her to lead a class. The feedback on her sessions and study materials was overwhelming positive, and her students encouraged her to share what she had to offer with the rest of the CPCU community.
Since then, Stacy created a library of study materials for both CPCU® and AINS® that have helped thousands of students pass their exams. As an accounting major and former claims adjuster, her style of instruction incorporates both a financial and operational perspective that makes her study materials well-rounded. She looks forward to helping many more students continue to succeed, including you!
Disclaimers: The Institutes, CPCU®, and AINS® are trademarks of the American Institute For Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, d/b/a The Institutes. InsuranceExamGuides.com is not affiliated or associated with The Institutes in any way, and The Institutes do not endorse, approve, support, or otherwise recognize InsuranceExamGuides.com or its products or services. CPCU® and AINS® are registered trademarks of The Institutes. All rights reserved.