UIIC Assistant Syllabus, Exam Pattern, Eligibility

One online test, and nothing before it. United India Insurance does not run a Preliminary and Main for this grade, which is what separates it from the other three public sector general insurers.

120 minutes for the lot, with no separate clock on any section. Because 200 questions carry 250 marks, each question is worth 1.25 marks and a wrong answer costs a quarter of that, 0.3125, not 0.25. Unanswered questions cost nothing. What goes into the merit list is the corrected score, the marks for correct answers less the penalty.

Every test except English Language is bilingual, in English and Hindi. Questions are multiple-choice and answered by clicking the option, which is then highlighted and treated as your answer.

The Regional Language Test

Candidates who qualify in the online test are called for it. It carries no marks, so it cannot lift a rank; it can only end a candidature. Final selection is on the online exam alone, subject to clearing it. There is no Preliminary and no interview anywhere in this recruitment.

The Company reserves the right to modify the exam structure, and the structure above is that of the December 2023 advertisement.

The advertisement publishes no topic list, only the five tests with their question counts and marks. Each heading below covers the standard ground for an Assistant grade paper of this shape in the general insurance sector.

Note the shape. Five equal sections, which puts General Knowledge and Computer Knowledge together at 100 of the 250 marks. In the two-tier recruitments run by the other insurers those two appear only in the Main Examination, so candidates routinely leave them until after the Preliminary. Here there is no Preliminary to leave them until.

Everything is reckoned as on 30 September 2023.

Qualification

A graduate from a recognised university, plus knowledge of reading, writing and speaking the regional language of the state of recruitment. That is the whole clause. There is no minimum percentage and no separate requirement to have passed English as a subject, both of which New India Assurance and Oriental Insurance impose at this grade.

The timing is strict, though: the qualification must have been completed by 30 September 2023. Candidates who sat the final examination by that date but whose results were declared afterwards are not eligible.

Age: 21 to 30

Born between 01.10.1993 and 30.09.2002, both days inclusive.

The Assam provision appears in no other insurer's Assistant advertisement in this sector, and it is written as an age ceiling rather than a number of years. One relaxation the advertisement originally carried was then withdrawn: the corrigendum of 16 December 2023 deleted the relaxation for persons ordinarily domiciled in the Kashmir Division during 1-1-80 to 31-12-89, the underlying Government of India provision having been extended only up to 31.12.2019.

Relaxations combine in full, capped at a maximum age of 45. That is more generous than the sister companies, which let the caste relaxation combine with only one other head.

Nationality, EWS and certificates

Applications are invited from eligible Indian citizens. EWS reservation runs on the usual income and asset test, with family taken to mean the applicant, their parents and siblings under 18, and their spouse and children under 18; EWS vacancies are tentative and the appointment is provisional until the income and asset certificate is verified.

Nothing is checked at application. Every certificate is produced at the Regional Language Test or any later stage, in the formats the Company publishes separately, and a candidate who cannot produce them is not allowed to sit that test. The format document also includes a character certificate, which few recruitments in this sector publish.

One choice on the form outlasts all of this: you may apply for vacancies in one state only, and that fixes the vacancy pool, the centre, the language of the qualifying test and the place of work.

Two stages, and only one of them produces a number.

The pattern of the online test is in the exam pattern section above. Meeting the eligibility norms does not entitle anyone to be called for either stage.

The merit list

Prepared state-wise and category-wise, in descending order of marks among candidates who qualified in the online test and then cleared the Regional Language Test. Those inside the vacancy count are provisionally selected subject to medical fitness and told through the Company's website, so check it regularly. A contingency list may also be prepared and used if selected candidates decline the offer.

Scribes and compensatory time

• Visually impaired candidates and candidates with benchmark disabilities whose writing speed is permanently affected may use their own scribe, at their own cost.
• The scribe may come from any academic stream but must be one step below the candidate's qualification, and a breach cancels both candidatures.
• One scribe may not serve two candidates, and both must give an undertaking that the scribe meets the conditions.
• Scribe users get 20 minutes of compensatory time for every hour of the exam.
• Compensatory time is system based, so only candidates who registered for it can receive it. It cannot be arranged at the centre.
• If the scribe is found answering independently at any stage, including on a report made after the exam, both candidatures go.

Where eligibility is actually checked

At the Regional Language Test. Certificates for age relaxation, category and qualification are all produced there in the Company's prescribed formats, along with the character certificate, and a candidate who cannot produce them is turned away. The Company issues instructions for that test and an RLT data sheet alongside the shortlist.

Scale of pay: ₹22405-1305(1)-23710-1425(2)-26560-1605(5)-34585-1855(2)-38295-2260(3)-45075-2345(2)-49765-2500(5)-62265.

It is the industry Assistant scale, identical to Oriental Insurance's and New India Assurance's for the grade. Total emoluments are roughly ₹37,000 a month at the initial stage in a metro, with allowances varying by posting; New India Assurance quoted about ₹40,000 a year later against the same scale. Benefits run to lump sum domiciliary medical cover, group mediclaim for hospitalisation, leave travel subsidy and the Company's other staff welfare schemes.

Probation, and the five year posting

Probation is a minimum of six months, extendable where performance falls short of expectation. Then the clause that matters most when weighing this against the other three insurers: a recruit must serve in the posted location for a minimum of five years. New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance and National Insurance all prescribe the same six month probation at this grade and state no minimum stay at all.

There is no service bond, which is the usual pattern in the Assistant cadre of these insurers and the clearest difference from their Administrative Officer recruitments, where four and five year bonds with liquidated damages of a year's gross salary are standard.

The Assistant is the clerical and front office grade in regional, divisional, branch and micro offices: policy issue and servicing, premium collection, document handling, claims paperwork and customer interaction. The regional language requirement follows from that work.

Online only, on the Company's own site. The window for the 300 post advertisement ran from 16 December 2023 to 6 January 2024, fees closing on the same date.

Two differences from the sister companies at this grade. The general fee is ₹1,000 where New India Assurance and Oriental Insurance charge ₹850. And Ex-Servicemen are not in the concession here, paying the full amount, where both of those companies give them the reduced rate.

What the form locks in

• The state, since you may apply for vacancies in one state only.
• The centre, which must be in that state. Once exercised, the choice is final.
• The category.
• Any request for a scribe and compensatory time, which is system based and cannot be arranged on the day.

The corrigendum of 16 December 2023 filled one gap in the advertisement: the scanned signature file must be between 10kb and 20kb.

Call letters are downloaded from uiic.co.in about 10 days before the exam, with intimation by e-mail or SMS, using your registration or roll number and password or date of birth. One step is easy to miss: you must affix a recent recognisable photograph to the call letter, preferably the one used at registration, before you leave for the centre. Keep the e-mail address and mobile number live, and check the website. Queries go to recruitment@uiic.co.in.

One employer, conducting its own recruitment.

United India is one of four public sector general insurers, alongside The New India Assurance Company, National Insurance Company and The Oriental Insurance Company. Each recruits its own Assistants and the rules differ between them, so a candidate moving from one company's process to another should not carry over assumptions about fees, concessions, identity documents or the number of papers. Even the geography differs: the largest state in this recruitment is Tamil Nadu with 78 of 300 posts, against Maharashtra with 105 of 500 at New India Assurance, Delhi with 66 of 500 at Oriental Insurance and Maharashtra with 57 of 500 at National Insurance.

Everything for this recruitment, from the advertisement and corrigendum to the regional languages circular, the information handouts, the shortlist, the Regional Language Test instructions and the cut-off table, is kept together in the Careers and Recruitment sections of the Company's website.

One exam means one centre list, and the centre follows the state: you may apply for vacancies in one state only and choose a centre in that state only. The corrigendum of 16 December 2023 published the final list, covering 32 states and union territories and more than 180 towns.

Tamil Nadu alone has 21 centres, matching its 78 of the 300 posts. Ladakh and Sikkim carry vacancies but no centre of their own, so candidates there are allotted the nearest the Company can offer.

The centre is not a right

You sit only at the venue on your call letter, and no change of centre, venue, date or session is entertained. The choice once exercised is final. The Company may cancel centres or add others at its discretion, may allot you a centre other than the one you chose, and may move candidates to an adjunct centre where a centre is under or over subscribed. Attendance is at the candidate's own risk and expense.

Although the test lasts two hours, allow about four hours at the venue for verification, document collection, logging in and instructions. Candidates who report after the time printed on the call letter are not allowed to take the exam.

The Regional Language Test is held separately, and its schedule, instructions and data sheet go up alongside the shortlist.

The Company was deliberately loose about the exam date, saying only that it would fall in February, that it might be on a weekday or a holiday, and that candidates should check uiic.co.in frequently for the exact date. Do not assume a weekend.

Three things turn on 30 September 2023: the age band of 21 to 30, and the degree, which has to have been completed rather than merely sat for. Three more turn on 6 January 2024: the application and fee, and with them the state, the centre and the category.

The corrigendum did real work

Published two days after the advertisement, it did three substantive things. It gave the final list of centres the advertisement had only promised. It added the signature file size of 10kb to 20kb that the advertisement had omitted. And it deleted an age relaxation, for persons ordinarily domiciled in the Kashmir Division between 1 January 1980 and 31 December 1989, because the underlying Government of India provision had expired. Read it as part of the advertisement, not a footnote.

The call letter is downloaded from uiic.co.in about 10 days before the exam, with intimation by e-mail or SMS, using your registration or roll number and your password or date of birth. Before you leave for the centre you must affix a recent recognisable photograph to it, preferably the same one used at registration.

What goes into the hall

1. The call letter, with the photograph affixed.
2. Photo identity proof in original, as specified on the call letter.
3. A photocopy of that same identity proof. Without both the original and the photocopy you are not allowed to take the exam.

Accepted: PAN card, passport, driving licence, voter's card, bank passbook with photograph, a photo identity issued by a Gazetted Officer or a People's Representative on letterhead with a photograph, a valid recent college or university identity card, Aadhaar card with a photograph, employee ID, or a Bar Council identity card with photograph.

Not accepted: e-Aadhaar and the ration card. The physical Aadhaar card is fine; the downloaded PDF is not, which is the reverse of the rule at National Insurance and Oriental Insurance, where the e-Aadhaar is a compulsory extra document at the officer exams.

The name must match exactly

The name on the call letter and the name on the photo identity must be identical, and a mismatch keeps you out of the hall. Candidates whose name changed after marriage are specifically warned: admission then depends on producing the original gazette notification, original marriage certificate or an original affidavit, carried to the centre rather than produced later. Identity is verified against the call letter and the attendance list, and a candidate whose identity is in doubt may not be allowed to sit.

Final selection rests on the online exam, subject to clearing the Regional Language Test. There is no second paper to recover on and no interview to change the order, so whatever you score in those two hours is your result.

The merit list is drawn state-wise and category-wise, in descending order of marks among candidates who qualified and then cleared the language test. With 78 posts in Tamil Nadu and one each in eight states and union territories, these are separate contests, and the published cut-offs show it: the unreserved figure ranged from 173.13 in Ladakh to 205.95 in Haryana out of 250.

What enters the list is the corrected score: marks for correct answers less the penalty, at 1.25 marks a question and 0.3125 for a wrong one.

The Company publishes the shortlist for the Regional Language Test, the instructions and data sheet for it, and afterwards the full state-wise and category-wise cut-off table. Candidates inside the vacancy count are provisionally selected subject to medical fitness and told through the website, and a contingency list may be used if anyone declines. All of it appears under Careers and Recruitment on uiic.co.in.

United India published a table of state-wise and category-wise cut-offs applied on total (out of 250) after the 2023 exercise, with the sectional cut-offs beneath it. These are actual marks, not estimates.

The sectional cut-off is five marks out of fifty

One row covers every section and every category, UR, SC, ST, OBC, EWS, Ex-Servicemen and PwBD alike: 5.00 out of 50 in Reasoning, English Language, Numerical Ability, General Knowledge and Computer Knowledge. Ten per cent.

Nothing else in this sector is set that low. New India Assurance's unreserved sectional gates were 17.50 of 30, 14.50 of 35 and 14.50 of 35; Oriental Insurance's officer exam ran to 33.50 of 45. Here the gate is a formality, so there is no reason to spend time in the hall defending a weak section instead of harvesting marks in a strong one.

The total decided everything, and it was high

Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, New Delhi and Sikkim had no unreserved vacancy, so no UR figure was published. Their OBC cut-offs were 188.75, 189.69, 199.07 and 193.76 respectively.

The unreserved range, about 173 to 205.95, is 69 to 82 per cent of the paper. 205.95 out of 250 is 82 per cent, as a corrected score after a quarter mark has come off every wrong answer. Calibrate against that, not against the ten per cent sectional gate.

Reserved category figures are not far below. Rajasthan's SC cut-off was 195.01 against a UR 203.13; Jammu and Kashmir's SC 197.82 against a UR 201.25; Chhattisgarh's SC 195.31 within six marks of UR. The Ex-Servicemen column sat much lower, roughly 135 to 198, and the Dependent Ex-Servicemen column lower still.

The Company's footnotes: a dash means no vacancy, a hash means no candidate qualified, an asterisk means all qualified candidates are merit listed so the list cannot be extended, and an at-sign means no candidate appeared. Mizoram and Nagaland recorded no candidate appearing in a PwBD category; Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh recorded none qualifying.

Two cautions. A small state is not a soft contest: Meghalaya had two posts and cut off at 198.44, and Ladakh's single post at 173.13 is one vacancy in one year. And these describe one cycle, moving with the vacancy count, the pool and the paper.

Aim at the total, not at the sections

The sectional gate is 5 marks out of 50, identical for every category, while the unreserved total ran to 205.95 of 250. Nobody who can reach the total fails on a section, so spend the two hours where the marks are rather than protecting a weak area.

Treat General Knowledge and Computer Knowledge as half the paper

Together they are 100 of the 250 marks. In the two-tier recruitments run by the other insurers these sections appear only in the Main Examination, so candidates habitually park them until after the Preliminary. There is no Preliminary here. Insurance sector awareness, covering IRDAI, the four public sector general insurers, the General Insurance Council and the government schemes, belongs in the General Knowledge preparation from the start.

Get the penalty arithmetic right

A question is worth 1.25 marks, so a wrong answer costs 0.3125, not 0.25. Unanswered questions cost nothing. At roughly four wrong answers to cancel one right one, a confident elimination is worth attempting and a blind guess is not.

Practise 200 questions in 120 minutes, undivided

There is no sectional clock, which is unusual in this sector. Most generic insurance mocks model a two-tier Preliminary and Main, so build your own to this structure and score it against the published cut-offs. Thirty-six seconds a question across the whole paper, allocated however you like.

Pick the state before you prepare, not after

You can apply in one state only, and the merit list is state-wise. Tamil Nadu offers 78 of the 300 posts; eight states and union territories offer one each. A small state is not an easy one: Meghalaya's two posts cut off at 198.44.

Do not neglect the regional language

Reading, writing and speaking the state's language is an eligibility condition, and the Company tests it after the exam. It adds nothing to your score and can only remove you from the list.

Sort the paperwork early

Everything is produced at the Regional Language Test, in the Company's own prescribed formats, including a character certificate. Those formats take time to obtain, and a candidate who cannot produce them is not allowed to sit the test.

No previous year or sample papers are published for UIIC Assistant. The Company issues an Information Handout on the test interface before the exam, and the cut-off table a few months after, on its recruitment pages.

The recruitment

• UIIC Careers and Recruitment, where every document for this recruitment is kept together
• Recruitment of Assistants 2023, the entry for this cycle
• Advertisement, Recruitment of 300 Assistants, 28 pages
• Corrigendum, 16 December 2023, with the final centre list and the deleted age relaxation
• Cut-off table, state-wise, category-wise and sectional

Before and after the exam

• Information handout, and the same in Hindi
• Regional languages circular
• Instructions for the Regional Language Test
• List of certificate formats, including the character certificate

Recruitment queries go to recruitment@uiic.co.in, the address printed on the cut-off notice.

Is there a Preliminary exam for UIIC Assistant?

No. United India Insurance runs a single online test of 250 marks in 120 minutes, followed by a Regional Language Test that carries no marks. National Insurance, Oriental Insurance and New India Assurance all run a Preliminary and a Main for the same grade, which is why mock series built for this sector often do not match this paper.

Can I apply for more than one state?

No. Candidates may apply for vacancies in one state only and may choose a centre only in that state. That choice fixes the vacancy pool, the centre, the language of the qualifying test and the place of work, and it cannot be changed afterwards.

What were the cut-offs?

For unreserved candidates in the 2023 cycle the total cut-off ran from 173.13 in Ladakh to 205.95 in Haryana out of 250. The sectional cut-off was 5.00 out of 50 in every section for every category, so the total is what decides selection.

What does a wrong answer cost?

0.3125 marks, not 0.25. A quarter of the marks assigned to the question is deducted, and a question is worth 1.25 marks because 200 questions carry 250. Unanswered questions carry no penalty.

What is the fee?

₹1,000 plus GST for most applicants, and ₹250 plus GST for SC, ST, Persons with Benchmark Disability and permanent employees of the Company. Note that Ex-Servicemen pay the full amount here, unlike at New India Assurance and Oriental Insurance, which give them the concession.

Is e-Aadhaar accepted at the centre?

No. An Aadhaar card with a photograph is accepted, but the downloaded e-Aadhaar is not, and neither is a ration card. That is the reverse of the rule at National Insurance and Oriental Insurance, which require the e-Aadhaar as a compulsory extra document at their officer exams.

What is the salary, and is there a bond?

The scale starts at ₹22,405 and runs to ₹62,265, with total emoluments of roughly ₹37,000 a month at the initial stage in a metro city. There is no service bond, but a recruit must serve in the posted location for at least five years, which the other three insurers do not stipulate at this grade.

When are certificates checked?

At the Regional Language Test, not at application. Age relaxation, category and qualification certificates are all produced there in the Company's prescribed formats, which include a character certificate, and a candidate who cannot produce them is not allowed to sit the test.