Last week I wrote about why I hate MLMs (multi-level marketing companies). It seems I’ve ruffled a few Primerica feathers with my comment on the company. I received two emails from Primerica agents last week – one who I know has been reading for a while and another I’ve never heard from before.
Both emails essentially said that I don’t understand what Primerica stands for or the value of “network marketing”. (By the way, that’s just another name for multi-level marketing. You get your family, friends, and neighbors to buy from you and recruit them to work under you. Then they do the same and so on. You can make a little money selling products directly, but the big bucks come after you’ve developed a huge down-line or “organization” as Primerica calls it.)
Now I don’t want to end up in a saga like Lazy Man and Money’s with MonaVie where people start threatening to kill me or blackmail me because of my opinions. But I do want you all to be aware of the truth about Primerica before working with them. My concerns about Primerica can also be applied to many other brokerage companies and insurance companies, but Primerica seems a little more dangerous to me because of the focus on recruiting you for their business opportunity and not just selling you their financial products.
So I thought it might be worthwhile to do a bit more digging to see what I can learn about Primerica – their products, their “business opportunity”, their training, and so on. Since I’ve been trained in financial planning and have experience in the industry, I can cut through the jargon for you and plainly explain what’s going on.
Unless you all have objections, I’ll begin writing some posts where I look at the different aspects of Primerica and help you understand what you need to know about the company. Here’s how you can help.
If you’ve had an experience/encounter with Primerica, please share your story in the comments or contact me directly. This includes learning about the “business opportunity”, meeting with a friend of yours who started working for Primerica, or any other experience you’ve had with the company. I only have one limited experience with Primerica, and finding accurate and comprehensive information online about the company can be difficult.
Also, if you’ve got some questions about Primerica that you need answered now, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me. I may use your question as the subject of a post, or I might just write you back with an answer/analysis.
My goal is to give you the most honest, objective, and accurate information I can about Primerica, its products, and its business opportunity. My hope is that this information will help you make a good, informed decision so you won’t waste your money or your time. Until I have more information on here, I can only advise you to question everything. Thanks for helping me as I try to help you!
I don’t have any experience with Primerica, but I am looking forward to seeing what you dig up.
Thanks, Katie! We’ll see what I can find out.
Paul this is great stuff and it’s awesome you’re looking into this. After I read the first few sentences of this post, I immediately thought of LazyMan and MonaVie. I hope they don’t come after you!
Thanks for commenting, Andrew! I just want to learn more about what Primerica does, how they do it, and share that information with others. I’m trying to keep an open mind and remain unbiased, but there are a number of reasons I don’t prefer Primerica even without an in-depth knowledge of the company. Being an MLM doesn’t help them in my eyes, but there’s also the issue of compensation methods, experience, education & training, and conflicts of interest. We’ll see what I can find out!
I’ll be keeping an eye out. Definitely think it’s the most fair t keep an open mind going in. That’s fair to them. We’ll see what happens!
I definitely have some strong feelings about Primerica having known friends, family also, who became agents and I’ve also sat down for one of their presentations. One of my main problems is that their shiny folder that they show to prospective clients have a lot of pretty charts, graphs and numbers that do NOTHING to educate the people about their products. They just say ‘we can do it cheaper than the other guy’, but they never explain what IT is! AND I personally believe that they prey on a certain ‘class’ of people – they were a part of Citigroup, the kind of people that are better informed and prepared for investments would go directly to Citi, not Primerica.
Hey, Sherrian! Thanks for sharing your comment! If you have information you got from the presentation that you could share with me, that would be great. I’d like to be able to look some of this stuff over to get a better idea of what it is and what they’re doing. I’m sure I’d have to do some more digging to find all the info I need, but it would be a start.
I do know from talking with one Primerica agent that practices can vary from office to office and region to region. That’s supposed to be changing now that they’ve gone public under their own name but we’ll see. Again, if you can get me any specific info I’d really appreciate it!
Hello Mr. Williams!
My name is Wendy and I am one of the newer Primerica Financial Services recruits (30 days and going) here in Yuma, AZ. My line of work has always been management and coming into Primerica at the request of a business associate I was thinking pyramid scheme all the way to the presentation. Needless to say that although I am usually the first to cry BS I left that presentation feeling empowered. Not from minipulation but from the understanding that I knew only I could determin how much I made and that I could do it. Primerica does not advertise so I went online for answers and saw the negs, but checked with the BBB for a better diagnosis and accepted that PFS is an A+ Accredited Business. As a business professional we all know the larger the company or organization the larger the list of complaints will be… To keep this short yes, PFS is a referral based business and yes it does work BUT that doesn’t meen that this kind of work is for everybody. 2nd Because PFS employees are in business for themselves that doesn’t meen that they’re following the protocal for the company’s guidelines by the book. This leaves consumers at risk for bad experiences and potential fraud. It really does depend on the “home office” you recruit with what type of experience you are going to have as a “recruit”. 3rd You HAVE to work to make it work for you. If you just wait for the clients or recruits to come to you, you cannot complain when you have no progress. I advise anyone interested in PFS to make sure that if you meet with a recruiter request that it is done at the home office location and ask that a Regional Leader or (even better) a Regional Vice President be present. If you are told that neither are available then I would advise you to decline. Our RVP is 2 1/2 hours away, yet is here at our local office at the least twice a week and that is why PFS is working here in Yuma Arizona. I hope this information is helpful! Good Luck on your quest for answers because consumers do deserve them!
Thanks for your comments, Wendy! I agree with both of your main points. Primerica offices do seem to differ based on where you are. So consumers still need to be careful and do their own research on a Primerica agent before assuming everything’s great just because they’re a friend. And like any business, I’m sure Primerica won’t be successful for you if you’re not going to work at it.
I’d be glad to share any more information you can provide as you work with the company. Obviously, I don’t have a high opinion of Primerica because of what happened with my mom, but I’m trying to give respectable agents a chance to prove their worth.
They are no longer with Citi…THANK THE LORD, you should go to an “overview” meeting, or just dig into the BBB and other reputable insurace raters etc. I personally think it is amazing, they teach basic principle, buy term & invest the difference…as Dave Ramsey teaches, he actually use to work with Primerica. I say you will find a whole slu of opinions, but everyone gets one right? HAHA. We have one man who did a kitchen table visit on a Wednesday, gave a reciept after getting first premium, the man had a brain anerisum 4 days later…he is covered, now to any other company he might be uninsurable, but not now because he had the policy reciept, this is why we do what we do, you just never know. As far as the MLM…I hate those things too, but to be honest…that is corporate america… CEO COO CFO etc…its all a pyramid, just usually in MLM you take your family or recruit friends to be your co-workers…at least you get to pic. The thing I love about Primerica is there is no product to buy first then sell…like scentsy or avon or whatever. We are publicly traded on the stock market PRI is the ticker symbol. We paid ALL of our claims after 9-11 unlike a TON of other insurance companies. We teach a God first, Family second, Business Third mentality. I hope over the last year you have found great information.