NIACL Apprentice Syllabus, Exam Pattern, Eligibility

One paper, 100 questions for 100 marks in 60 minutes, in four equal sections.

Note the shape. Four sections of exactly 25 marks, no sectional timing, and Quantitative and Reasoning Aptitude compressed into a single 25-mark section where the Company's Assistant paper gives them 100 marks between them. Computer Knowledge carries as much weight as Quantitative and Reasoning together. Sixty minutes for a hundred questions is 36 seconds a question.

What actually decides the result

The shortlist and the tie-break

Candidates successful in the written test are shortlisted in descending order of marks, and the top candidates equal to three times the training seats in each state and in each category go forward to the Regional Language Test and document verification. In a state with a single training seat that is three candidates. On equal marks, candidates are ranked by age in descending order, the older placed higher.

The Company does not state a penalty

The advertisement's selection-process section sets out the four tests, their question counts, their marks, the composite duration and the medium, and prescribes no negative marking. That differs from the Company's Assistant and Administrative Officer papers, both of which deduct a quarter mark, so read the current advertisement's own wording and the information handout issued with the call letter. Do not take it that a penalty carries across.

The advertisement gives no topic list. It gives four section names with 25 marks each, a composite duration of 60 minutes and a medium for each. That grid is the specification, and the section names are descriptive enough to work from.

The weighting is the useful part

Quantitative and Reasoning Aptitude share a single 25-mark section. In the Company's own Assistant recruitment those two subjects carry 100 marks between them at the Main Examination. Here they are a quarter of the paper, so a candidate arriving from a banking or Assistant preparation is carrying a great deal of material for a small return.

Computer Knowledge carries as much as Quantitative and Reasoning together, on a subject that is finite, learnable and commonly under-prepared. It is the best use of preparation time on this paper.

A hundred questions in sixty minutes is 36 seconds each with no sectional timing, so the candidate allocates the hour themselves. That is faster than the Company's Assistant Preliminary, which gives 100 questions the same hour but splits it into three sealed 20-minute blocks. Three of the four sections are set in English or Hindi; General English is in English.

The Regional Language Test has no syllabus. It tests reading, writing, speaking and understanding of a specified local language of the state applied for, and a candidate who can show that language on a 10th or 12th standard mark sheet does not sit it at all.

The fresher conditions, which are the ones that exclude

1. A candidate must be a citizen of India.
2. A candidate should not have undergone apprenticeship training earlier, or be pursuing it, under the Apprentices Act in this Company or any other organisation.
3. A candidate must be a fresher with no prior training experience.
4. A candidate must have completed and hold a passing certificate for their graduation between 01.01.2022 and 01.06.2026, both dates inclusive. Candidates passing before 01.01.2022 or after 01.06.2026 will not be considered.

Read the fourth twice. The graduation window is closed at both ends: a candidate who graduated in 2021 is out however young, and so is one whose result comes after 1 June 2026. Nothing else matters if the degree falls outside those four and a half years. The second and third conditions bar anyone who has already been an apprentice anywhere, under the Act, in any organisation. An apprenticeship is offered once.

Age, as on 01.06.2026

Minimum 21 and maximum 30, so born not earlier than 02.06.1996 and not later than 01.06.2005, both days inclusive. The maximum applies to General and EWS candidates.

That last row is an age ceiling rather than a number of years. And the cumulative rule is the restricted one: relaxation for SC, ST and OBC candidates is allowed on a cumulative basis with only one of the remaining categories for which relaxation is permitted. OBC candidates in the creamy layer are treated as General.

The only document that proves age

A marksheet or certificate from the Board of Secondary Education for Matriculation (Class X), or a birth certificate from a competent authority. The advertisement says these are the only acceptable documents in support of age, and the same document is required again at verification.

Applying without a reserved seat

Candidates of a category for which no seat has been declared in a state are free to apply, provided they meet all the eligibility criteria of the unreserved category, including the unreserved age limit. Creamy-layer OBC candidates may likewise apply as unreserved, on unreserved criteria.

Certificates, and the undertaking that goes with the fee

Candidates seeking age relaxation must submit copies of the necessary certificates at any subsequent stage the Company asks for them, failing which the candidature is cancelled. OBC candidates need a certificate carrying the non-creamy-layer clause, and must additionally submit at the time of remitting the fee an undertaking in the prescribed format regarding non-creamy-layer status as on the closing date of registration. That undertaking is required at application, not later.

And the fee is part of eligibility: the process of application is complete only when the fee is deposited, online, on or before the last date. An application without a completed payment is not an application. The cut-off date for all of this is 01.06.2026.

There is no interview. The written test is described in the exam pattern section above: 100 questions in 60 minutes, four equal sections, shortlist at three times the seats per state and category, ties broken by age with the older candidate higher.

The Regional Language Test, and the way out of it

Candidates applying for the training seats of a state should be proficient in reading, writing, speaking and understanding one of the specified local languages of that State. Unlike the Company's Assistant recruitment there is an exemption, and it settles a lot before you apply: candidates who produce a 10th or 12th standard mark sheet or certificate evidencing having studied the specified opted local language will not be required to undergo the language test. For everyone else it is conducted at document verification, and candidates who fail it will not be engaged as an apprentice.

Document verification

Shortlisted candidates are called subject to the number of seats in the respective Regional Office, and bring originals with a self-attested copy of each: a photo ID (Aadhaar, PAN, Voter ID, driving licence or passport); the 10th or Matriculation certificate as proof of date of birth; the Class XII marksheet and semester-wise or year-wise graduation mark sheets with the degree or diploma; a CGPA to percentage conversion certificate where applicable; and caste, disability and caste validity certificates where claimed, with the non-creamy-layer certificate for OBC. Originals of the caste, disability or validity certificate must be produced whenever the Company asks, failing which the candidature is cancelled.

The apprenticeship contract, which is a separate step

Selection does not itself engage anybody. Candidates found suitable after verification are issued digital apprenticeship contracts through the government portal at nats.education.gov.in, with the link coming from the BFSI SSC, and must accept it within the stipulated time. The rule that makes it mandatory: no candidate shall be engaged as an Apprentice unless and until he or she enters a Contract of Apprenticeship with the Company and the same is approved by the Authorities of the respective Portals. Only then, with the physical and medical fitness certificate in order, is the candidate invited to enter into the Contract.

The individual result appears in the My Applied Opportunities section of beep.bfsissc.com, with an email from the BFSI SSC about reporting dates and place of reporting. Final selection is subject to verification of eligibility and of the information furnished in the application, and to qualifying in the regional language test where applicable.

Stipend: ₹12,300 per month. That figure is the entire financial content of the advertisement. No pay scale, no basic pay, no dearness allowance, no house rent allowance and no gross figure, because an apprentice is not on the Company's pay roll.

What an apprentice does not get

The advertisement is explicit: the Apprentices will not be entitled to receive any benefits which are available for the employees of the Company. No deduction shall be made against statutory benefits (Provident Fund, Staff Mediclaim etc.) from the stipend payable to the apprentices. The apprentices shall not be entitled to any statutory contribution from the Company.

No provident fund, no mediclaim, no gratuity, no employer contribution of any kind. The ₹12,300 is paid whole and nothing is built on it. For every absence beyond approved leave, pro-rata stipend is deducted.

Leave

• One day a month, credited at the start of the following month, and taken only with the Company's prior permission.
• Unused leave carries forward to the next month. No other kind of leave is granted.
• An apprentice is entitled to the holidays the Company observes.
• Not more than 2 days may be granted at a time, and accumulated leave is exhausted automatically on termination or completion of the contract.

Twelve days in a year, one at a time or at most two, and none of it encashable.

The period, and what leaving early costs

The engagement is twelve months. An apprentice who drops out or absconds during a month is liable to refund that month's stipend. That is the whole of the financial exposure, and it compares with the Company's Administrative Officer recruitment, which carries a four-year bond with a year's gross salary as liquidated damages.

In all matters of conduct and discipline the apprentice is governed by the terms of the contract under section 17 of the Apprentices Act 1961, not by the Company's service rules, which do not apply.

What the year produces

An assessment and a certificate. Theory assessment is conducted by the BFSI Sector Skill Council of India and the practical assessment by the Company, and on the marks scored an Apprenticeship Certificate is awarded by the BFSI. Not a job, and the advertisement nowhere suggests one follows.

The application is not made on the Company's own website. It goes through nats.education.gov.in first, where the profile is completed and Apply is clicked against The New India Assurance Company Limited, and then beep.bfsissc.com, the BFSI Sector Skill Council's portal, where the application is completed and the fee paid. That second portal is also where the call letter and the result appear, under My Applied Opportunities.

The fee, which differs by gender

The fee is not incidental: the process of application is complete only when the fee is deposited, on or before the last date. Once submitted an application cannot be withdrawn, and the fee is neither refunded nor held in reserve for any other examination. OBC candidates must file the non-creamy-layer undertaking at the time of remitting the fee, not at verification.

What the form fixes

The state whose training seats you are applying against, which also fixes the local language to be tested; and the category, where a creamy-layer OBC candidate must indicate UR.

Two instructions about your own appearance and signature

• Candidates are advised not to change their physical appearance till the apprenticeship selection process is complete. Failure to produce the same photograph at the time of the online test may lead to disqualification.
• Signatures appended in the call letter, attendance sheet and all future correspondence should be identical, with no variation of any kind.

The Company is free to reject any application at any stage if the candidate is found ineligible, and its decision on eligibility, the stage at which scrutiny happens, qualifications, documents and any other matter relating to engagement is final and binding, with no correspondence or personal enquiries entertained. The condition does not lapse on joining: wrongdoing or suppression of antecedents detected after joining makes the contract liable to be terminated.

The New India Assurance Company Limited engages these apprentices itself. There is no consortium and no pooled list: the seats belong to the Company and the training happens in its offices.

The rule that shapes everything else is the state choice. Candidates must opt only one State while applying. Within that state the Company decides which of its offices the apprentice reports to, and it may be any office under the relevant regional office, not only the regional office itself, subject to need and the availability of seats.

The 28 Regional Offices and the states they cover

Three things that table tells you and the seat table does not. A large state is served by several regional offices: Tamil Nadu three, Uttar Pradesh three, Maharashtra five, so a candidate does not know in advance which part of the state they will be sent to. Seven north-eastern states share one office at Guwahati, and verification for all of them runs through it. And some regional offices cross state borders: Chandigarh covers four territories, Dehradun two, Patna two.

The three bodies involved

For a candidate's own state the contact point is Annexure II, the list of Nodal Officers at the Regional Offices, published alongside the advertisement.

The online test is held on a single date, 12-07-2026 for the current cycle, and the venue reaches the candidate on the call letter issued through the BFSI SSC portal. The advertisement publishes no separate centre list, because the state opted for in the application governs where the candidate is examined and engaged.

Training seats are declared state-wise, and a shortlisted candidate is called for verification and engaged subject to the number of seats in the respective Regional Office. The Company's map of its 28 Regional Offices to the states they cover is in the participating institutes section above. Note that Maharashtra alone has six Regional Offices, four of them in Mumbai, consistent with its 138 of the 550 seats, while Guwahati administers seven north-eastern states holding a handful between them.

The Regional Language Test does not happen at the examination centre. It is conducted when the candidate is called for document verification, at the Regional Office responsible for the state applied for, and is skipped entirely by candidates who can produce a 10th or 12th standard mark sheet evidencing having studied the opted local language. The officers who handle it are listed in Annexure II.

The cycle is short: two weeks to register and six days from the close of registration to the examination. A candidate who is not ready when the advertisement appears has very little time.

The graduation window is the condition most likely to disqualify, and it works in both directions. A degree from 2021 is too old; a result declared in July 2026 is too late.

How the scheme has run

The Company keeps the earlier rounds on the same page. FY 2024-25 engaged 325 apprentices, with its own shortlist and nodal officer list. FY 2025-26 ran an advertisement, then a revised advertisement, the Apprenticeship Contract and the shortlist. FY 2026-27 is the current one, for 550 seats. The scheme runs annually by financial year and it has grown, which is the Company's own record rather than a projection.

All of it appears on the Engagement of Apprentices page, which carries the current advertisement, the shortlists, the contract format, the nodal officer list and the text of the Apprentices Act, with earlier years alongside and an Archive button for older ones.

The call letter for the online test is issued through beep.bfsissc.com, the BFSI Sector Skill Council portal where the application was made, rather than from the Company's own website. Intimations also reach the candidate by email through the BFSI SSC.

Two rules about the candidate's own identity can each end a candidature, and the Company states them directly. Candidates are advised not to change their physical appearance till the apprenticeship selection process is complete. Failure to produce the same photograph at the time of the online test may lead to disqualification. And a candidate should ensure that the signatures appended by him or her in all the places, in his or her call letter, attendance sheet etc. and in all correspondences with the company in future should be identical and there should be no variation of any kind. Fix a signature when you apply and use that one.

Eligible PwBD candidates who registered for it in the application form get compensatory time of 20 minutes per hour.

The documents needed later, at document verification, are listed in the selection process section above, and the officers who handle it are in Annexure II.

There are two published lists, not one. The first is the shortlist for document verification and the Regional Language Test, drawn at three times the seats in each state and category, which the Company publishes as Annexure I on its Engagement of Apprentices page. The second is the final merit list after verification.

The individual result is not on the Company's website. All candidates who are finally selected will be able to see their result in the My Applied Opportunities section of beep.bfsissc.com, and successful candidates also receive an email through the BFSI SSC about reporting dates and place of reporting.

What final selection still depends on

• Verification of eligibility and of the information furnished in the online application.
• Qualifying in the regional language test, where applicable.
• A physical and medical fitness certificate, the candidate having been declared medically fit by a medical practitioner.
• Acceptance of the digital apprenticeship contract on the government portal within the stipulated time.

And a result can be withdrawn after joining: if any wrongdoing or suppression of antecedents is detected even after joining the apprenticeship training, the apprenticeship contract is liable to be terminated.

What the result is a result for

A twelve-month training seat, and no more. The advertisement says so four separate ways: it is not obligatory on the Company to offer employment to an apprentice who completes the training, nor on the apprentice to accept it; the apprentice shall have no right to claim employment in the Company after completion of the training; the Company has no obligation to offer regular employment during or after the apprenticeship; and apprentices are not treated as employees and get none of the benefits available to them.

Twelve months on, there is a second examination: a theory assessment by the BFSI SSC and a practical assessment by the Company, on which an Apprenticeship Certificate is awarded by the BFSI. The certificate comes from the Sector Skill Council rather than the Company, which is what makes it portable across the sector.

The Company publishes no cut-off for this scheme, and never has. What it publishes instead is Annexure I, the list of candidates provisionally shortlisted for document verification, one each financial year. It carries names and roll numbers, no marks and no score.

The threshold here is a ratio, not a mark: the top candidates equal to three times the training seats in each state and in each category. No national cut-off, no sectional qualifying mark, no overall qualifying mark. Rank alone decides, with ties broken by age.

So the variable that matters most is which state you apply against, and only one is allowed. A state with a single seat shortlists three candidates for the whole state, however few apply. A state with twenty-four seats shortlists seventy-two across the categories.

Decide eligibility before you prepare

More candidates are eliminated by the conditions than by the paper, and every one can be checked in five minutes.

1. Is your graduation dated between 01.01.2022 and 01.06.2026? Outside that window, at either end, you are not considered. This is the commonest disqualifier.
2. Have you ever been an apprentice anywhere? Under this Company or any other organisation, completed, terminated through your own fault, or currently pursuing one. Any of these ends it.
3. Do you have a year or more of work experience after qualifying? Candidates with one or more years of job experience after completing their educational qualifications are not eligible.
4. Which single state will you opt for? You get one, and it decides the seat count, the size of the field and the local language you must satisfy.
5. Can you produce a 10th or 12th mark sheet showing the state's language? If so, the Regional Language Test does not apply to you.

Prepare for the clock before the content

A hundred questions in sixty minutes is 36 seconds each, with no sectional timing to protect you from over-spending on one part. The paper rewards speed and recognition far more than depth. Practise whole 60-minute papers rather than sections, and learn to leave a question rather than solve it.

No past papers exist, so drill the components on papers with the same subjects: the Company's own Assistant Preliminary for English, reasoning and numerical ability at speed, and any public sector insurance or banking clerical paper for awareness and computers.

Spend your time where the marks are

Candidates arriving from bank and insurance preparation habitually pour time into arithmetic and reasoning, which here are worth 25 marks between them, and skim Computer Knowledge, which is worth the same 25 on its own and can be covered in a fraction of the time. General and Financial Awareness is recall rather than reasoning, which suits a 36-second clock, and General English has a stable syllabus with quick marks in grammar and vocabulary.

Aim the financial awareness at the right target. This is a general insurance company: cover the IRDAI and its role, the public sector general insurers, basic general insurance products, the difference between life and general insurance and between insurance and reinsurance, and recent developments in the sector.

Plan for a six-day gap

Registration closed on 06-07-2026 and the examination was held on 12-07-2026. There is no preparation runway after the advertisement appears. Anyone seriously intending to apply next cycle should be ready before it is published, and should watch the Engagement of Apprentices page.

Prepare the documents, not just the paper

Before the closing date have ready: the 10th certificate as proof of date of birth, which is the only acceptable proof of age; all semester or year mark sheets plus the degree; a CGPA to percentage conversion certificate if your university uses grades; and, if you claim a category, the certificate in the prescribed format, with the non-creamy-layer clause for OBC and an Income and Asset Certificate for EWS.

Know what you are signing up for

Twelve months, ₹12,300 a month, one day of leave a month, no provident fund, no mediclaim, no statutory contribution, and no claim to employment at the end. What it produces is an Apprenticeship Certificate from the BFSI Sector Skill Council and a year inside a public sector general insurer. Judged as a job it disappoints; judged as a credential and an entry point it is a reasonable year. Decide which you are applying for before the closing date, not after the result.

No previous year papers or answer keys are available for NIACL Apprentice. Neither the Company nor the BFSI Sector Skill Council releases them.

The exact specification of the paper is in the advertisement, usually published in June.

The Company's own pages

• Engagement of Apprentices, the page carrying every document in this scheme, current and past, with an Archive button for older cycles
• Advertisement, Engagement of Apprentices FY 2026-27, 550 seats, the source for this page
• Annexure I, candidates provisionally shortlisted for Document Verification and the Regional Language Test, FY 2026-27
• Annexure II, List of Nodal Officers at the Regional Offices, the correct contact point for a candidate's own state

The earlier cycles and the governing documents

• Revised Advertisement FY 2025-26
• Apprenticeship Contract 2025-26, the actual contract an apprentice signs
• Detailed Advertisement, Engagement of 325 Apprentices for FY 2024-25
• The Apprentices Act, 1961, the statute the engagement is made under

The two portals

• nats.education.gov.in. Apply here first. Log in, complete the profile, and click Apply against The New India Assurance Company Limited. The digital apprenticeship contract is also issued and approved here.
• beep.bfsissc.com. Then complete the application here, upload documents and pay the fee. The call letter, intimations and the final result under My Applied Opportunities all appear here.

Candidates who want employment with the Company rather than a training seat should watch its recruitment pages for the Assistant and Administrative Officer examinations, which are advertised separately, carry pay scales rather than stipends, and are governed by the Company's service rules.

Is the NIACL Apprentice scheme a job?

No, and the Company states it in those terms: this is not an employment in the Company. Nor the same is contract employment. Candidates engaged as apprentices are not treated as employees and receive none of the benefits available to them. It is a twelve-month engagement under the Apprentices Act 1961, paying a stipend, ending in an Apprenticeship Certificate.

Does the apprenticeship lead to a permanent post at the end?

No, and there is no waiting list or preference either. The apprentice shall have no right to claim employment in the Company after completion of the training. The Company is under no obligation to offer employment and the apprentice under none to accept any.

How many seats are there and how are they distributed?

550 training seats for FY 2026-27, distributed state by state: 64 SC, 32 ST, 114 OBC, 43 EWS and 297 unreserved. A further 43 seats are horizontal PwBD reservations: 36 Visual Impairment, 5 Hearing Impairment, 1 Locomotor Disability and 1 Intellectual or Multiple Disability. The numbers are tentative and may vary. FY 2024-25 engaged 325 apprentices, so the scheme has grown.

What is the stipend, and what else is paid?

₹12,300 a month and nothing else, paid by the tenth day of the following month. No Provident Fund, no Staff Mediclaim and no statutory contribution from the Company, and no deduction for those. Absence without approved leave is deducted pro rata, and an apprentice who drops out or absconds during a month must refund that month's stipend.

Who can apply, and which graduation dates are accepted?

A citizen of India holding a degree passed between 01.01.2022 and 01.06.2026, the window being closed at both ends. The candidate must never have undergone or be pursuing apprenticeship training anywhere, must not have been terminated from one through their own fault, and must not have one or more years of job experience after completing their educational qualifications. The scheme is for freshers and the Company enforces that in three separate clauses.

How many states can I apply for?

One. That choice fixes the number of seats you compete for, the size of the field, the local language you must satisfy and the Regional Office that handles your verification and training. Within the state the Company assigns the office.

What does the examination look like?

A single online paper of 100 questions for 100 marks in 60 minutes, in four equal sections of 25: General and Financial Awareness, General English, Quantitative and Reasoning Aptitude, and Computer Knowledge. Every section except General English may be taken in English or Hindi. Quantitative and Reasoning share one 25-mark section while Computer Knowledge has 25 to itself.

How is the shortlist decided?

By rank, not by a qualifying score: three times the training seats in each state and in each category. Ties are broken by age in descending order, the older candidate placed higher. The Company has never published a cut-off score for this scheme, only the shortlist of names in Annexure I.

Do I have to take the Regional Language Test?

Only if you cannot prove the language on paper. Candidates who produce a 10th or 12th standard mark sheet or certificate evidencing having studied the specified opted local language will not be required to undergo the language test. Everyone else sits it at document verification, and candidates who fail it are not engaged.

Where do I apply, and what does it cost?

On two portals in sequence: nats.education.gov.in first, to complete the profile and apply against The New India Assurance Company Limited, then beep.bfsissc.com, where the application is completed and the fee paid. Registration for FY 2026-27 ran from 23-06-2026 to 06-07-2026. The fee is ₹944 for General, EWS and OBC men, ₹708 for women of those categories and ₹236 for SC, ST and PwBD candidates, including GST. It is not refundable and an application once submitted cannot be withdrawn.

What leave does an apprentice get?

One day a month, credited at the start of the following month and taken only with the Company's prior permission. Unused leave carries forward, but not more than 2 days may be granted at a time, and accumulated leave is exhausted automatically on termination or completion. No other kind of leave is granted. Apprentices get the holidays the Company observes.

What do I actually get at the end of the twelve months?

An assessment and a certificate. Theory assessment by the BFSI Sector Skill Council of India, practical assessment by the Company, and on the marks scored an Apprenticeship Certificate awarded by the BFSI. It comes from the Sector Skill Council rather than the Company, which is what makes it recognised across the sector.