No production means no income. This is the norm in the insurance business. Now you have a basic understanding of how Primerica is not a scam, but a heavy recruiting operation, let me give you my opinions on working with Primerica.
What follows are my opinions on what I think the biggest problems are working at Primerica, and how you can avoid these problems. People working for Primerica are especially zealous about their product and company in my experience. For example, for my agents I teach to sell final expense , I almost never advise them to sell a term insurance policy. Many seniors in my market are health-compromised and looking for final expense coverage they cannot outlive.
This is why blind faith in one product is not a good idea, whether working for Primerica or selling any other insurance product. For example, my new insurance agents with no experience literally start at commission levels 4 times as high as Primerica!
Definitely quiz Primerica on all of this. If you like what you hear, you may find the offer of partnering with Primerica or another agency appealing, despite lower starting commissions. What I have found is that there are many strong organizations that offer similar levels of support, mentorship, and training, yet offer compensation levels at a higher amount than Primerica offers.
Anytime you work with only one carrier, you pigeonhole your ability to maximize your sales. This limits the number of prospects you can help.
You see, not all insurance companies take the same set of health conditions. And not all insurance companies price their product the same. You have increased odds of selling an noncompetitive policy that could cost you in reduced new business written.
For example, you lose new business opportunities because of non-competitive pricing and tougher underwriting. And having access to multiple companies increases the odds your client receives both competitively-priced coverage with the best value intact.
This is why the independent agent insurance sales model is usually the best outcome for our clients. Better selection at better prices! In essence, they operate very similarly. Both are multi-level marketing oriented insurance agencies focusing on recruitment. Symmetry Financial Group is an insurance marketing organization based out of Swannanoa, North Carolina.
SFG specializes in several life insurance markets, primarily the mortgage protection insurance market. Bankers Life was established in in Chicago, Illinois.
Bankers Life offers life insurance, long-term care, annuities, Medicare Supplements, Advantage Plans, Part D prescription drug coverage , critical illness insurance, as well as vision and dental plans. It targets the senior market, typically people age 60 and older who are near retirement. People Helping People was established in in Northridge, California. The company serves the middle markets for insurance-based financial planning.
It focuses on term insurance, index universal life insurance, and fixed indexed annuities. American Income Life , a wholly owned subsidiary of Globe Life Insurance, is a major provider of supplemental life insurance. The company was founded in and is headquartered in Waco, Texas.
Its insurance products include life insurance and supplemental health. New York Life , established in , is the largest mutual life insurance company in the country. It offers premium life insurance, long-term care insurance, retirement income insurance, and investment plans, including annuities, mutual funds, and ETF saving plans.
It specializes in marketing innovative and affordable health coverage plans. The company is focused on providing healthcare solutions to individuals and families, as well as self-employed and small business owners. Equis is a marketing organization for independent insurance agents and agency builders.
Its main product is mortgage protection life insurance, designed to reduce or eliminate the threat of foreclosure or eviction if the insured passes unexpectedly.
The company also offers final expense, living benefits, and indexed universal life insurance products. Freedom Equity Group , based in Arroyo Grande, California, is an independent marketing organization IMO that contracts with insurance companies to promote and distribute a range of life insurance products. Freedom Equity Group focuses on selling life insurance and annuities.
Its main product is indexed universal life insurance, a form of permanent coverage that provides a cash value in addition to life insurance.
Thank you for reading this article on answering whether or not Primerica is a scam, pyramid scheme, or multi-level marketing organization. I hope you learned some important lessons on how the company operates, and what other agents think about it, so that you can decide if Primerica career is a good long-term decision for you.
Also, check out my many Agent Success Stories and my highly-reviewed insurance sales books. Your article has moved me closer to ending this Primerica thing. You are dead on with everything about Primerica as this is how I first was introduced to my insurance career. After just 9 months I was closed to getting RVP Regional Vice-President status, and instead ended quitting Primerica due to everything you described, but more importantly I was losing a lot of client's due to not being taught to best qualify them before to see if they are a fit to PFS product.
I feel blessed for becoming an independent agent since leaving PFS and now I continue to stride in my own book of business that I continue to create.
If anyone is reading this response. Do it for your family and future to researching and moving forward to becoming an independent agent to better assist your clientele with multiple carriers that will insure them and then reap the rewards in the future in getting referrals from these same clients that will amaze you. Day 1 you are vested with your own book of business with all of your client's and then you will see the rewards of residual income in building a book of business, something you will never see in PFS or any other MLM IMO.
Finally, I am blessed in finding David as my mentor back in December David is a Diamond gem as it has taken me trials an errors since May to finding the my mentor who truly cares about me achieving my success.
If you want to become a top producer it is very important that you find a mentor as it will propel you to your future success and reaching all of your dreams and goals, by working hard and having guidance along the way.
Every successful person in all walks of life if you study them will tell you they had a mentor and continue to have a mentor to assist in successes and in failure to reach the top. Again I am blessed to have David as my mentor and friend. I had the same recruitment experience with Primerica — you were spot on.
I just got off a zoom meeting with a Primerica recruiter and he had me input my credit card info for the license fee. I have no doubt that i will get the reimbursement for it, as many places online state this in their reviews but I am very concerned with the fact that I was essentially pushed into signing on to being a recruiter when I am pretty bad with getting people to buy things.
Is it worth it to stick around to get my license for selling insurance and then leaving for individual work?
Or should I ask my credit card company to cancel the charge and go ahead and cancel my account? I thought I was just in an interview but i ended up with a weird commission job…it leaves me with bad vibes. Hi David interesting article, you bring a lot of valid points about Primerica, however as a representative of 6 years.
I must tell you that I find the concept of selling elderly people just enough money to get buried thoroughly unscrupulous. Not that your motives aren't pure as indeed we all hope they are.
My goal personally when I was recruited was to help people avoid the same pitfalls that troubled my own family. Thanks Chris. Can you explain why helping seniors with affordable burial insurance so family doesn't have to pay out of pocket is, in your words, "thoroughly unscrupulous? Very interesting article. I just had and interview with Primerica and there were a ton of red flags. When I told him that I needed to think things over, he seemed irritated.
Hey I was invited to join Primerica recently but now that I have read your article about am stuck in between now.. Thanks for this article! I joined Primerica a few months ago, truly interested in helping families with their insurance needs. However, only after one week, I realized that emphasis was more on recruitment giving my upline my contacts and family members names than learning about the product.
I started feeling like I had made a mistake, as I was trying to learn and pass my licensing course, which was my main goal. Just before my 30 day deadline to get my money back, I quit. No trainings about the insurance products, but focused on recruitment only. Glad I am out of Primerica. This guy barely knows about the Company.
He uses another company to get people in his Company how to listen to someone who has never been in the company. I have friends in the company that are successful in the company.
Hi Mary, thanks for the comment. Just because you know of several agents that are successful, doesn't mean it's a great choice for every agent considering joining. That's the purpose of this article: to give potential agents considering Primerica some additional points to think about before making their decision to join.
What's wrong with that? Actually Mary, MLM is like asking McDonald's staff to pay for the cooking oil and utilities used to make french fries, as well as paying for the lease on their building, while also suggesting that consuming their own fries is the path to financial freedom. David, honselty even though I dont work for you, I do read up on your articles, I loved the article specifically about bankers life and honselty myself, I did back out of it after knowing what process they use with the cold calling, I did go with primerica for now based on your article and based on the interview I recently had with them.
Later on down the road if things don't pan out you may expect a call for me, ive looked a tons of info for different companies and I always thank you so much for your in detail descriptions of what you've gone through. With captive agencies like primerica and the hart group, they do make the start easy for at least gaining experience and just getting comfortable with selling in general, they do make it even easier by providing you with free leads to call yourself.
They do promise they are direct leads and not cold calling, but after I get a few sales in myself and see what this game is all about, one day id love to give you a call and talk some business about me possibly joining on your team.
Hope you have a great and everyone who sees this, I wish you luck on the sales guys. Oh and last thing, David, if you can tell me how the numbers change has been in insurance since covid start in vs the start of this , that would be cool. Hi Jose! Hi David, I agree with many other respondents I didn't read them all that this is a very interesting article. Full disclosure, I have been with Primerica since and have been in the business longer than you. I am also securities licensed and have been since Therefore my opinion will be somewhat bias but also a testimony to the potential success.
Primerica does emphasize recruiting and passive income. That is what you are doing as well. If you were to research the reason why the company was founded as a term Insurance only company you would find that the founders truly believe that Whole Life has its downfalls in the long term and Universal Life is a dangerous product.
Additionally, Primerica does not target the "Senior Market" so making that a talking point seems a little misdirection. Much of the training issues, etc. My agents definitely know products as well as the sales process. I understand that there are bad apples in the barrel but not all of us are and we can be successful as professionals. Just my thoughts. Thank you. Hi Eli, thanks so much for your contribution, and congratulations on achieving RVP. For most of the organizations I review, the issue with training usually comes down to the local office or direct upline the agent is affiliated with.
In other words, who you work with makes a huge difference. I had weird experience with Primerica. I was very seriously considering it. However, when I started asking legit questions the representative completely quit communicating with me, and what questions were answered were always vague responses.
There was a "deadline" to enroll to get a certain "deal" off of the joining fee's which they claim are just for your background check. Anyhow I decided rushing into something was a bad idea and when I didn't jump to sign by Feb 1 she was done with me I guess.
They are offering you a business opportunity as an agent on their platform. Why not be forthcoming with that? Why lie and act like you're presenting a job opportunity vs a business opportunity. For me the was my first red flag, my second red flag was they called themselves Arrizon in the presentation and didn't mention Primerica once, but I continued on to see what it was about. It was my own research that connect the two, I literally had to ask my reps if they were Primerica.
I had set through a Primerica presentation about 20 years ago and decided no then but I had since changed so why not hear it out, I thought, and so I let it continue. I told her a warm lead marketing style would not be a good fit for me but she continued to try to sell me on the idea. So I did some research, started asking questions, and then as I mentioned above the representative just stopped communicating with me.
It may very well be working for some people but I was lied to twice right off the bat. I personally can't support that type of business model. Naturally it feels scammy, I'm not sure how agents don't see that but I guess they are taught to believe in this dishonest, unforthcoming business model. The only good that came from it, is it prompted me to start doing research into insurance sales and what type of company I want to work for and or build an agency with.
I want them to be comfortable and SURE. If this were not the case I would not be setting them up for success. However with Primerica it didn't feel, in the case of the agent I was working with, that she cared anything about my success or if I was a good fit, she just wanted to get me signed and signed fast.
This has not been the case with Duford or a few other agencies I have been researching. They are not pushing me, they are not giving me a deadline, they seem very open to my questions and actually encourage them. Up front and honest. I am still researching the best fit for but Primerica was the first to be cut! Thanks for your detailed comment, Pixie. I really appreciate it and so do those who are in the middle of doing due diligence.
The Good: Primerica let me get licensed part-time while in the Navy, learn about the industry from the inside, and meet the gentleman who helped me in the intermediate steps to where I am today. The Bad: Dave was charitable in his discussion of Primerica's balance between recruiting and training you for insurance sales as a well-rounded professional from my experience.
My experience, and experience of more recent "Primerica refuges" I've talked with is it's recruit first, second and third and then minimal time given to anything more than very basic insurance training, plus a very broad portfolio of other products including variable annuities a very complex, risky, fee laden product NOT to be sold or recommended by new and inexperienced agents imo. Also, at least when I was a Primerica agent, you had to "give your upline" your most productive leg-in an MLM focused business.
What kind of long-term culture do YOU think that creates? My recommendation: If you are an MLM person and love recruiting, maybe find a different type of MLM with less licensing and complexity and build a huge network. Dave provides a good service here objectively covering a number of well-known agencies, and there are other growing companies like my current one that treat the clients with respect, allow you to build an agency if you want to or just personally produce.
Best wishes for success! I just signed up with primerica 30 days ago and was told leads would be provided. Most top teams are couples.
I really thought my training appointments were for me to gain knowledge. Yes it is but, its to offer our products or business to family and friends. Know my understanding is I have to build business partners get 15 family and friends contact info and thats how I get my sales. I was explained you can make per a sell up to around there. In order to do that you schedule 8 to 10 appointments a week which take 1 to 2 hours and you may only get one sell.
I dont want to sell to family or friends. Also they always have you in trainings and meetings. Now I appreciate the motivational stories but, its the same every week.
I am just disappointed. I manange to get a life policy to before I understood what term ment. I just finished my lincense course and next will be taking my test. I wish I had seen your article before I joined primerica in other words I am going to get my license so I can get my refund and my bonus and look in to FFL or any other insurance.
This was spot on. I didn't know a lot of people, therefore had little credibility, and didn't do too well other than selling some term life insurance and retirement plans and after 4 years, became inactive, and transferred my licenses to MetLife Auto and Home as a captive P and C agent that sold some term life.
I did well with Met, becoming top producing agent in my state 4 years in a row, and going to annual conference in Fast forward, I grew tired of "sales" and in , persued a career in pharmacy and became a registered pharmacist. As a hospital pharmacist in rural NM, I see the great disparities between the "haves" and "have nots", the treatment they receive, and the health outcomes.
Although I am compensated well, and also have a part-time consulting pharmacy business, I have decided to get back into Primerica part time, with no expectations. I've seen firsthand, with co-workers, and patients, the difference between having a financial road map for retirement, and relying on a hope and a prayer that social security will provide in the golden years.
My Primerica RVP from is still in the business, he's not hugely successful, but he gets to work when he wants to and spend time with his family when he wants to. He's a decent, honest, low key person, and probably the main reason I want to get back into Primerica. He's also knowledgable about the insurance and investment products he's a former CPA. Are there pushy, unscrupulous RVPs and leaders in Primerica? Sure, but I'd rather focus on the good than the bad.
What's wrong with talking to family and friends about getting out of debt, having the right kind term for young families with financial responsiblities and proper amount of life insurance, and saving money for emergencies and retirement?
No where did you mention the FNA financial needs analysis that is provided at no cost. I'm not doing this for the money I make well over 6 figures , I'm doing this to get the word out that people are hurting financially out there, especially now. I just started with Primerica. I didn't fully read your article, mainly because a lot of it seems far more than biased, but I did skim through it. I don't feel that you're being fair with a lot of the things you said, but, since you have no actual experience with Primerica, I'm not too worried about it.
In my experience so far, Primerica is so much more than just an insurance company. They help people to get out of debt and prepare for the future. The manual suggests you start your business by contacting your 'warm market': Hot Prospects - Are people in your very close circle of friends and family. You see them often know their spouse and family, and probably know a lot of their other friends Warm Prospects - Are people you are familiar with, but aren't in your close circle.
They might be work colleagues or members of a common club. Cold Prospects - Are people you've never met. Once you are familiar with prospecting, you'll learn the most important skill, recruiting. The manual describes recruiting as ' the life blood of Primerica' , stating that is a ' better way to sell', and a ' better way to prospect'.
So we guess that means your prospecting in the first 90 days is actually recruiting. Some recruiting techniques suggested by this 'time tested method', include ' looking at everyone as a potential recruit'.
It doesn't matter if people say 'no' because it's all part of the process of finding the next yes. Remember to play the numbers game because recruiting is ' an all the time activity' and 'the engine of your business'. Like all network marketing companies, the motivation for the constant recruitment, is money. If you have a downline, you will earn an 'override commission' on any sales generated by them and whoever they recruit for several layers.
Advancement through the ranks, and access to the higher pay scales in Primerica requires recruitment. The commission you make from your own insurance sales, and the override you are entitled to, are both dependent on your rank in the Primerica hierarchy. We constructed the below table to illustrate how your Primerica commission is calculated at each level qualification requirements are from a Primerica team page :.
Maximum commission override paid on direct recruits, differential applied to deeper layers. Primerica pays override commission based on a 'differential' basis. This means that if a new member is sponsored by someone in your team, you earn the difference between their maximum override, and your own. If you pass your insurance licensing and become a representative, you can start selling insurance.
When you are starting out in Primerica, your upline will earn 2. Your upline will try and use this big difference in pay to motivate you. They might say something like ' keep recruiting and one day you'll get here too. Nobody should earn more than you for the work you do , but that's just the opinion of someone with several years financial planning experience. We'd question the true motives of a 'mentor figure' who will get most of the reward from your work.
We have written a detailed review of the Primerica Business Opportunity. We already know that this is part of the 90 day plan, but for more information, we found a copy of the Primerica fast start manual. This is a 90 day plan to help get you up and running as fast as possible. Once again this document was provided by active Primericans and not directly by Primerica. Again a key to success is buying an insurance policy from Primerica. This manual also has versions of warm market lists, prospecting sheets, and of course scripts, which include objection handling.
In a previous version of the 90 day plan, which has now been removed from the internet, we learned a few things too. Maybe the Primerica agents who posted it quit, maybe they changed their website. Before the link was removed, we did read the document and the research below is from it. We found:. If you follow the Fast Start guide then 'every goal or dream you have, can and will be accomplished'.
There is a 4 point game plan, which basically involves focusing on recruiting, and making sure that you buy Primerica products yourself. With all the focus on recruiting, we can assume that most of the money comes from inside the MLM network.
This is problem because it means that only the people at the top of the system can turn a profit. The first step is to book 15 ' kitchen table' appointments for your field leader in your first 30 days. This is something the Finance Guy disagrees with. This former financial planner would suggest only approaching people you know after you've got some experience and built up enough confidence in the products and how they work.
The manual then provides a telemarketing script for booking appointments. The script involves calling people you know and telling them that you are 'very excited' about working for a new company and asking them to 'help you out' by letting your 'trainer' come and show it to them, as part of your learning. The script then goes over a few possible scenarios, all of which end with you asking what time you can come over and show them Primerica.
We found it odd that script instructs you not to confirm appointments. They suggest you tell your friend that the appointment is in your diary so unless you hear from them, you'll see them at that time. People sometimes forget, or circumstances come up. Professionals confirm every appointment even if it's just via a text message. If you don't confirm appointments then you will waste a lot of time showing up to cancelled appointments.
It is our opinion that they don't want you to confirm the appointments because this would give the prospects a chance to cancel. If a client can't keep an appointment then your confirmation call is a chance for you to reschedule. If they are simply disinterested, then they were never going to buy so cancelling the appointment saves you time.
The manual explains that the best results come from the 'right market'. They suggest focusing on married couples who are employed with financially dependent children. Clients also get points for having a mortgage and being aged Now find 15 people from your warm market who best tick the boxes. You can also improve your results by ticking boxes on the company side of the appointment.
These include being motivated, wanting more money, being competitive, have people skills and you must be credible. Some more tips for success from the fast start manual include: - Show up to all training and meetings - Bring guests to the 'opportunity meetings' - Listen to Primerica recommended CDs - Read Primerica recommended training and books - Plug In. Theses tips for success including the phrase 'Plug in' remind us very much of Amway.
This is not good thing because we believe that you can't make money with Amway. The fast start guide gives an overview of the different ranks in Primerica and how to achieve them. Your points must include at least 4 insurance sales. You can also get points for attending meetings and coaching sessions, and generally plugging in. We know that it is possible to make money with Primerica. We've been told that this is ' a time-tested method of building a business and earning a potentially unlimited income '.
While these statements sound good, we thought we'd find out how much Primerica agents are earning now. After all that should give us an indication of how likely it is that we can make money with them. We were unable to find a full version of their income disclosure statement, but there was a reference to personal incomes on the general page. We have no doubt that some representatives earned a lot more than this, but that also means that a large amount of representatives also earned absolutely nothing.
Maybe the vast majority who join, never follow the fast start program. It's also possible that the Fast Start Program is all hype and no delivery. The main reason people aren't making money is because they aren't making sales. We learned this from the Primerica Annual Report.
In , Primerica agents sold an average of 0. That's only 2. The same report shows that this was a good year. The figures in and were even lower!
We know that some representatives made a lot more sales, but this also means that several made no sales at all. We believe that the constant focus on recruiting is part of the problem. Like all network marketing companies, Primerica teaches representatives to 'recruit everyone'.
The problem is that while everyone is focused on recruiting, nobody is focused on finding retail customers. This makes it very difficult for representatives to turn a profit because not enough money is coming in from outside of the MLM network. To find out how well the Primerica representatives grew their teams in , we again looked at the annual report. We constructed the table below using information found in it:.
We see that at the end of , Primerica had a total of , licensed representatives across USA and Canada. During , they managed to sign on a total of , recruits, or around 2. It turns out that only 44, Only commission based and must build clientele. Which is better Primerica vs Wfg? One major difference is WFG is able to offer top quality financial products from over highly recognized Financial companies nationwide, whereas, Primerica only offers limited products by their own company - Mainly Term Insurance, Roth IRA's and Mutual Funds.
Is investing with Primerica a good idea? Is Primerica a bad company? Primerica actually doesn't have a bad reputation, if you consult reputable sources. Primerica is the largest distributor of financial products and services in North America. They had the most successful IPO as determined by independent review of What do they do at Primerica?
Our mission is to help families earn income and become properly protected, debt free and financially independent. Primerica provides an entrepreneurial business opportunity for individuals to become licensed and distribute our financial products. Who is the founder of Primerica? Arthur L. Williams Jr. What company has the most 6 and 7 figure earners?
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