The §34d Versicherungsvermittler Sachkundeprüfung is the exam insurance intermediaries in Germany sit to advise on and sell life, health, property, and liability policies under § 34d of the Gewerbeordnung. Unlike some of the other Sachkundeprüfungen in the same family, its format is not fixed nationwide, only its pass rule is. Here is exactly what the regulation guarantees and what it leaves to your chamber.
How many questions are on the §34d exam?
There is no fixed nationwide question count. The Versicherungsvermittlungsverordnung (VersVermV), the regulation that governs this exam, never states a number of questions or a time limit for the written part. Instead, § 4 Absatz 9 hands those details to the Industrie- und Handelskammer (IHK) you register with, which sets its own written-exam format under its own Satzung. If a prep guide quotes a specific question count as the official figure for every candidate, that number belongs to one chamber’s practice, not to the regulation.
What score do you need to pass?
This part is fixed nationwide, and it is stricter than a flat 50 percent pass mark across the board. Under § 4 Absatz 7 VersVermV, the written part is passed once a candidate reaches:
- at least 50 percent of the attainable points in four of the five subject areas, and
- at least 30 percent in whichever one area turns out to be the weakest.
The catch is that “weakest area” is not fixed in advance: it is whichever area you scored lowest in, and that only becomes clear once your paper is marked. A candidate cannot know beforehand which subject gets the lower 30 percent bar, so treating all five areas as needing the full 50 percent is the safer way to prepare, even though the law allows a little more slack in one of them.
What five subject areas are tested?
§ 2 Absatz 1 Nummer 1 VersVermV names five areas, and every written question falls into one of them:
- Rechtliche Grundlagen (legal foundations): contract and insurance contract law, the rules governing intermediaries themselves, information duties, competition law, supervision, and money-laundering prevention.
- Sozialversicherung und Vorsorge (social insurance and retirement provision): the statutory pension system, private life, pension and disability insurance, and company pension schemes.
- Unfall-, Kranken- und Pflegeversicherung (accident, health, and long-term care insurance): statutory and private cover for accidents, illness, and the need for care.
- Hausrat- und Gebäudeversicherung (contents and buildings insurance): the combined household-contents policy and the combined buildings policy.
- Haftpflicht-, Kraftfahrt- und Rechtsschutzversicherung (liability, motor, and legal-expenses insurance): private liability cover, motor insurance including the compulsory element, and legal-expenses cover.
Neither the regulation nor any chamber publishes an official question count per area. Any breakdown you see, including in RiverMap Learning’s own practice mock, is an estimate of how much each area is worth studying, not a published quota.
Is there a practical part too?
Yes. The Sachkundeprüfung has a written part and a practical part, and you only sit the practical part after passing the written one. The practical part simulates a client-advice conversation, and you choose between the retirement-provision topic or the property-and-liability-insurance topic for that conversation.
You are exempt from the practical part alone, not the written part, if you already hold a permit or proof of competence under § 34f, § 34h, or § 34i of the Gewerbeordnung (the investment-intermediary, fee-based investment-adviser, or mortgage-credit-intermediary Sachkunde rules).
Who does not need the exam at all?
If you have worked continuously as an insurance intermediary or adviser since 31 August 2000, you need no Sachkundeprüfung. The regulation also sets out transitional rules for anyone whose permit application was filed before 1 January 2009. Outside those two cases, the exam applies.
Can you study from real past questions?
No. The exam questions are selected by a single nationwide committee and are never published, not even after the exam sits: candidates only see them during the exam itself. Any legitimate prep material has to be built independently from the statutes the exam draws on, not from leaked or retired papers, since none exist to draw from.
Every fact above comes directly from the Versicherungsvermittlungsverordnung, freely available at gesetze-im-internet.de, plus the federal statutes it examines (BGB, VVG, GewO, SGB VI among them). RiverMap Learning’s §34d practice app drills all five subject areas with original questions citing the specific provision behind each answer, and its mock applies the stricter 50 percent bar to every area rather than gambling on which one the real exam would relax.