Are any Dopers familiar with Primerica?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Last night I went to an “open house” for Primerica. I was contacted out of the blue because my resume is on some job sites. When I was first contacted I explained that if it was a sales position I wasn’t interested, but the guy said it is never high pressure, more educational so come check it out. Well, that caused my alert level to rise a notch, but I do need a job, so off I went. I found the presentation to be even more disturbing, what with the loud vocal agreement at certain points made during the “sermon”. (Are they plants? If so, the evidence is mounting against them.) And of course, I very soon realized that they are not interested in employing me, but enlisting me.

However, despite the disquiet their methods left in me, I want to know more. I told them I was not going to drink the kool-aid, (not in those words), and no, I didn’t want a complimentary financial analysis (because literally there is nothing to analyze), and when pressed for my reasoning I told them that they sounded like the amway of financial management services, (in those words). However for a short time they did preach the message of debt relief, (and how do they get away with dissing credit cards when they belong to CitiGroup?), and the importance of investing and the utter stupidity of whole life insurance. All of which I do agree with. Also, they mentioned that they were the company working for teeny tiny small investors.

So, I want to know if any of you have had dealings with this company and if so were/are you satisfied with the results. As a client? As a broker? Do you really get all your (small) fees back when you complete training? What’s the straight dope?

ETA: I did google Primerica and multilevel marketing, but didn’t get any decisive answers.

2

I have to go out in a few moments so I will be brief for now. Your instincts and senses are correct. Primerica has not worked out for any of the people I have known who where involved with it. They put as much or more emphasis on recruiting new sales agents as they do selling the product. This smacks of Amway to me. Also they pay very low commissions compared to industry standards and almost no renewals. I guess that is because so much of the commission have to flow upstream to the management. They do very well.

3

Thanks for the response. I was afraid that might be the case.

4

Run awaaaaaaaay!

5

All my info is secondhand-ish, from my husband, so take that for what it’s worth. They got hold of his resume and called him, repeatedly, called ME at home and pitched their story to me and asked me to please relay this important opportunity to him, and sent him no less than five invitations to seminars over a period of a few weeks. He’s been in finance for 25 years, and was quite dismissive of them. Getting them to stop calling was a hassle, and I was left with a distinctly nasty feeling about the company.

6

Thanks for the confirmation. My instincts were indeed telling me to run away, but I still had a nagging feeling that just because I’m somewhat cynical it didn’t necessarily follow that they weren’t entirely on the up & up. Now I can just count it as another wasted evening and move on without doubts in my ability to smell out a rat.

7

I remember getting contacted by them 12 years ago.

A couple co-workers were involved with Primerica. (I later learned they spent their weekends hanging out at the mall and pitching their financial products to strangers.) One of them gave my office number to their Primerica supervisor - without asking me first. So the next day I get a phone call that goes, “Hello Crafter_Man! We are looking for supervisors, and heard you had an outstanding resume. We have a supervisor opening right now. We would like you to come in and talk with us ASAP.” After further prodding I discovered it was [del]Amway[/del] Primerica, and hung up on him.

8

Uggnh!!! A Primerica branch occupied the offices directly above where I work for several years (they finally moved out last fall, thank OG!). High pressure, multi-level marketing sales of iffy financial services was their thing.

Viewed from the outside, it looked like a real meat-grinder, and I rarely saw the same faces returning year after year. Those who did were inevitably high-energy, high-volume, in-your-face sales types with attitudes that oozed insincerity. We have limited parking for our building and they regularly had recruitment drives that would flood the lot with their marks’ cars which would cause absolute chaos and no small amount of fury when multiple idiots would double or even triple park. The foot stomping chants and cheers as they rallied around the cause of bilking their ‘clients’ just compounded the headaches (did I mention that they were directly above my office)?

The building manager hated their guts and would regularly complain about building doors being left unlocked overnight and the disgusting condition of the upstairs bathroom. After about the sixth time they clogged the toilet and flooded the bathroom he decided to rip out the toilet paper dispenser altogether and replaced it with those dispensers that distribute really thin tissues that are so low-grade you can still see chunks of wood in them. Never piss off a building manager.

I’ll give them credit for one thing though, they were smart enough not to try to hard sell any of the other tenants. That would have crossed a major line would likely have ended up with them getting booted from the premises. The only reason the owner put up with them in the first place was the huge rent they were paying. Of course, that only gave the weasels a monumental sense of entitlement to add to their already inflated egos.

Phew…did I mention that I’m really, really, really, happy that they’re gone?

9

Thirteen years ago, I got sucked into that organization for about nine months.

Their main pitch to customers was essentially sound, IMHO. They eschewed whole life insurance. Their philosophy was, “Buy term [life insurance] and invest the difference [in mutual funds].”

This is still a pretty good plan for anybody unfortunate enough to have been sold a whole life policy, which are basically ripoffs.

However, the term life insurance that they sold was just OK (not great), and I don’t know what kind of mutual funds they sold, or what kind of fees they charged. I rationalized it at the time as doing people a service who had crappy whole life policies.

Anyway, the focus of the whole organization is not financial services, but the “opportunity.” Getting recruits was 90% of the focus of meetings. It’s absolutely the Amway of the financial world.

I got sucked in by a group of fellow Navy officers (and former officers). I attended the meetings and made two whole sales in nine months, which I didn’t get credit for because (a) I wasn’t licensed, and (b) your up-level person gets credit for your first few sales, for some stupid reason.

Just like Amway, you end up alienating all your friends, relatives, and acquaintances because you are constantly urged in their meetings/pep rallys to hit up everyone you know.

For all of the effort you have to put into it, including attending meetings, taking classes, getting licensed, and constant networking, you don’t make any money unless you have a bunch of [del]suckers[/del] people under you. I did talk one guy into joining, but my up-level person stole him from me somehow, placing him on the same level as me instead of under me.

I finally broke free when I said to myself one day, “I hate sales, I hate financial crap, and I hate this multi-level marketing bullshit. I’m an engineer–I’m going to stick with engineering.” Plus, my up-level guy moved to another state.

I’d been strong-armed into buying a term policy from my up-level person, not because I needed it (I was single with no dependents), but because “if I didn’t, it would hurt my credibility with potential customers.” I dropped the policy and dropped out of the organization.

Today, I feel that I wasted a chunk of my life with them, and spent a lot of money on study materials and that useless term policy. Not to mention a bus trip to New Jersey for a really big pep rally. :rolleyes:

10

I used to sell Hartford Life. Here’s my take:

Insurance is NOT an investment. It’s insurance. Telling people to take inferior insurance and invest the difference is bad advice. If they need good insurance, they’ll have to pay for it like everyone else. Investments are investments, and are made with the money you have left after your obligations.

I really don’t like Primerica.

11

I know someone who tried this place.

Here’s a picture for all that needs to be said about it.

12

Agreed. That being said, did you sell whole life insurance? If so, why?

There’s a whole lot of insurance companies, including Hartford Life, who do indeed sell life insurance as an investment.

What about buying a quality term policy, and investing the difference in reputable mutual funds? As I stated above, I believe Primerica’s basic message is sound advice.

The disadvantages of whole life insurance are such that I have a hard time taking anybody seriously who advocates buying into such a scam. I would argue that Primerica’s offerings, though maybe not the best available, are still are far superior to any whole life policy.

Personally, I did take Primerica’s advice, but not with their products. I have term life insurance from USAA, and mutual fund investments with Fidelity.

I don’t particularly, either, but mainly because of the MLM crap.

13

Saying all whole life policies are bad is just as dogmatic as saying that purchasing term insurance is always correct.

All policies are in fact term insurance, and all policies develop cash reserves -except for annual renewable term. The terms of policies may be short or long, and the cash reserves may or may not be stated.

Term insurance is fine for young families. I do advanced estate planning for people with money nearing retirement. Insurance is usually the cheapest way to resolve their cash needs at death. These needs include paying off large capital gains bills, providing incomes to beneficiaries as desired, and keeping businesses solvent. Permanenet insurance is usually cheaper on a net present value basis than a sinking fund, paying with current reserves, or buying term and investing the difference. If it isn’t, we look at a different alternative.

14

I know it’s already been said, but definitely run away.

I got scammed into going to one of their meetings, too. Bah.

15

Why is necessary for “all policies to to develop cash reserves”? Isn’t that simply a case of mixing up insurance and investments?

My auto and home insurance don’t build up cash reserves. I don’t view them as investments, either. I view them as insurance.

I’m an engineer, not a financial expert, BTW. Everything I’ve read, though, tells me that all whole life polices are simply a way to obfuscate where the money is going, by mixing up the premium for the actual life insurance with the money going toward various investments, to the detriment of the policy holder.

Also, I’m genuinely curious why you think people nearing retirement need insurance, anyway. The simple purpose of life insurance is to replace future lost income for the deceased. If a person is retiring, and they provided for their retirement by judicious investing during their working years, why on earth do they need any sort of life insurance?

I’ve also met single people in their twenties with no dependents who were sold whole life polices. They were told to “get the policy while the premiums were low!”

Thank goodness the auto insurance industry hasn’t got into that game, or you’d find them selling auto polices to someone who doesn’t own a car. “Get your auto policy while the premiums are low!” :rolleyes:

16

When I first graduated from college I got an ‘interview’ with Primerica, and I didn’t do any real checking on the company (never again). The interview was a presentation by one of the managers on how cool the company was, and how they really weren’t ripping people off, and how they really weren’t a pyramid scheme. He brought in people who worked there and they testified on how cool the company was. Never asked me a single question. Then he told me that training would cost me $200, and further trainging, which I would be expected to attend, would be at a weekend conference and would cost $500. I said I had other offers to consider and tried to leave, and got repeatedly pressured to make up my mind then and there. It took almost 10 minutes to actually leave.

After I got home and took a nice long hot cleansing shower, I emailed the guy back and said I wasn’t interested, and cancelled the next ‘interview’. He responded by saying that it was unprofessional to cancel an interview over the phone. By this time I had done more research, learned exactly what these clowns were all about, and wrote him back expressing my true feelings.

17

The hell? What were you supposed to do? Send a formal notice by registered mail?

FYI, Citibank has a division that does the same sort of crap.

18

The good agents don’t. We didn’t. OTOH, our market was blue collar families who often weren’t doing any kind of investing other than the dad’s pension. I didn’t feel bad at all in getting them to set aside money in an account that was earning 5-7% a year. Literally, that money would have been video games otherwise.

If you need a term policy, then get one. Primerica essentially says that everyone needs one. That’s just not true. If you are concerned about your health changing and being uninsurable later in life, then don’t get term. Also, consider how much hassle it will be if your widow is supposed to get a payout. What time frame will the check arrive in, etc?

I think you’ve been listening to Primerica a lot. It’s a regulated industry, it’s not a scam. You don’t want to pay the extra for the ability to extend your insurance later after you get cancer. Then don’t do it. But don’t call that ability worthless or a scam.

19

Thanks everyone. I’m sure I’ve made the best choice, well, the best choice would have been not to waste the evening at all, but the second best choice anyway.

20

My girlfriend was briefly involved with them last year. What I took from it was:

  1. Their products (life insurance, mortgage refinancing, mutual funds, some financial planning advice) may not be the best options out there, but there didn’t seem to be anything blatently wrong with them. And Primerica did act as “one stop shopping” for various needs. The mutual fund company was one I recognized (but for the life of me, I can’t now remember what it was).
  2. Their “financial advice”, while fairly obvious to anyone who has done their own research, is well presented and could be useful to someone who hasn’t gotten to the point where they’ve considered retirement. It was basically “when do you want to retire”, “how do you want to live after retirement”, followed by “here’s the nest egg you’d need to support your desired lifestyle” and “how to get from here to there”. Their presentation did persuade me to expand my retirement plans from just a 401k to putting money into a Roth IRA. But I did it independently by just opening an account with Fidelity.
  3. Their “sales force” has a very strong whiff of MLM.

If anyone’s interested, I’ll see if I can dig up their commision breakdown later tonight (that paperwork may have gotten tossed, though), but IIRC it was something like this:

  1. For insurance policies (she never got to the investment or mortgage refinancing side of things) the sales commision was 50% of the policy’s first year’s payments. So if the year’s payments added up to $1000, $500 was paid as commision.
  2. But that $500 gets split between the person who did the sale and their “upstream” (I’m pretty sure they used a different term, but that’s what it boiled down to). As a bottom-level grunt, I think her cut would’ve been something like 5-10% commision ($50 to $100), with the other 40-45% going to her manager, her manager’s manager, and I’m pretty sure even one more level above that.
  3. As you got “promoted” (i.e. brought in more peons working under you, along with meeting certain sales quotas) you moved up the chain and got to keep a bigger chunk of your own sales commision, while also getting a cut from your “downstream” sales.

Before she broke off from them, they roped her into a “licensing” class for insurance sales. They even offered it at a “discount” (I think $250 to $300), and said that it would certify her to sell life insurance anywhere in the state, even outside Primerica. We never got around to validating that, but I’ve got my doubts.