Primerica Financial Services (PFS) is the name of a division of Citigroup, which engages in multi-level marketing of financial services, particularly life insurance.

A Primerica agent will typically approach a person to engage in a free "financial needs analysis" (FNA), where the person provides paystubs, bills, retirement plan information, etc. They are evaluated as to how they are saving money, how much debt they have, and what their goals are. Agents then recommend plans for managing their money -- some non-profit strategies such as the speediest way to pay down credit card debt, others involving products provided by branches of Citigroup, such as life insurance from Travelers Insurance, investments from Smith Barney, refinancing through the $MART loan program, personal loans through Citibank, long term care insurance policies through GE Capital, pre-paid legal services and more. Agents are licensed separately for each area of business with the appropriate state and federal authorities.

Agents are paid by Citigroup for the business they write, not by the consumer. They also make money by overriding business written by their downlines (agents they have recruited), as in other multi-level marketing companies.

History

This MLM distribution network business was originally called A. L. Williams after its founder. It was one of the first group of agents to aggressively sell term life insurance, heavily criticizing other forms of life insurance, especially cash value insurance. Its motto was "Buy term and invest the difference". This approach angered many large insurance companies, prompting many years of vicious attacks on the company and on the MLM method itself.

Later, A. L. Williams was bought by the insurance and brokerage firm Primerica. After A. L. Williams left the company, the MLM division was named simply "Primerica". The Smith Barney investment company became part of the portfolio. Sandy Weill's company Commercial Credit then purchased Primerica in 1988, for $1.5 billion. In 1992, Weill paid $722 million to buy a 27 percent share of Travelers Insurance, and Primerica adopted the Travelers familiar "red umbrella" logo as part of their own. By the end of 1993, the merged company was known as Travelers Group Inc., and was wholly owned by Weill. In September 1997, Travelers acquired Salomon Inc., (parent company of Salomon Brothers Inc) for over $9 billion in stock, and merged it with its own investment arm to create Salomon Smith Barney. (The name later reverted to Smith Barney after the Salomon name was tarnished in a series of scandals.)

In April 1998 Travelers Group announced an agreement to undertake a $76 billion merger between Travelers and Citicorp, creating the largest single company in the world. (It now claims over a trillion US dollars in assets.)

The company is American in origin, but now has branches in Puerto Rico, Canada, the UK, and Spain, and plans for further worldwide growth.

What Primerica says about itself

Primerica says is in the best position to educate consumers about finance because they have so many products that it is in their best interest to do what is right for the customer, not to sell any individual product. Their mission statement is "to help families become debt-free and financially independent", and claims that their goal (and vested interest) is use their other products as stepping-stones to move all clients out of debt and into appropriate savings and investment vehicles(including retirement funds and college funds), thus building up enough wealth so that the need for insurances and repeated refinancing is eliminated. They also claim to be one of the few investment companies that cater to small (working class and middle class) investors, not requiring a large amount of money up front to open an account. (In practice, some agents focus solely on the lucrative life insurance business, do not even bother getting a securities license, and neglect to enact a long-term plan for their client's financial freedom.)

What others say about Primerica

Primerica has attracted criticism due to what some describe as dubious practices, unscrupulousness and aggressiveness in client relationships and excessive usage of religious practices. Accusations range from unethical business practices to being a cult. These accusations date back to mid-80s, when A. L. Williams entered the insurance business with previously unheard-of MLM techniques. It is difficult to say how much these problems might have been systemic, and how much may have been due to the failings of individual hierarchies -- certainly some agents have been censured, had their licenses removed, and even had criminal charges filed against them. However, they seem to be a small minority among the sales force (which as of 2004 approaches 100,000 agents).

The company's leadership is still strongly Christian; official policies of inclusiveness towards all religions (and genders and races and sexual orientations) have not prevented prayers and praise of the Christian God from being included in company events.

Ironically, while some of these accusations might be true, Primerica was seen as leading the fight against the dubious practice in the rest of insurance industry to aggressively sell whole life insurance.

External links

• Primerica (http://www.primerica.com)
• Primerica responds to accusations of being a cult (http://ww3.primerica.com/public/who/articles/metamorphosis2.html)