Primerica Life Insurance Review

With 4 million active life-insurance policies, A+ ratings with Best Business Bureau and A.M. best, and a slew of financial products at your disposal, Primerica (otherwise known as “Prime America”) has made quite a name for itself despite its relative newness in the world of life insurance coverage. The company started in 1977 and has become well-known for its unorthodox approach to selling life insurance policies. But just how useful is Primerica to its buyers and how well does it keep its promises? That’s what we’re here to find out.

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How Primerica Life Insurance Operates
What Does Primerica Sell?
Primerica as Multi-Level-Marketing Organization
About Primerica’s Recruiting Agents
Pros of Choosing Primerica
Cons of Choosing Primerica

How Primerica Life Insurance Operates

At first glance, Primerica Life Insurance aka (Prime America) is advertised towards the average middle-class American. It’s received a decent amount of positive ratings and feedback plus its legitimacy has been proven through its large partnerships with AXA and Lincoln Financial. Primerica pledges to help its buyers not just with insurance, but with investing and debt help.

Although many of these things seem particularly appealing to those looking to purchase life insurance, let’s adopt a more critical look here.

What Does Primerica Sell?

Primerica is mostly known for its Term Life Insurance policy, however, they sell a lot of other products, too. They include:

• Auto, homeowners and long-term care insurance (provided by other insurers)
• Investment accounts
• Other financial surfaces
• Prepaid legal / identify theft services (provided by other companies)

Before we get into the Pros and Cons of choosing Primerica, let’s take a closer look at how the company is run.

Primerica as Multi-Level-Marketing Organization

Primerica markets itself as the largest financial service marketing company in America. Take note of one specific word in that phrase: “marketing.”

Don’t be fooled by the numerous sales campaigns you’ve witnessed — Primerica functions primarily as a multi-level-marketing (or MLM) organization. This can be found on many official company documents, including prospectuses.

So what, exactly, does this mean?

Multi-level-marketing organizations receive the bulk of their revenue from non-salaried employees selling the company’s products. If you encounter a salesperson from an MLM organization, they’re likely to sell their products via word-of-mouth (or digitally marketed) referrals.

About Primerica’s Recruiting Agents

Maybe you’ve heard of Primerica from friends or family who have been acting as independent representatives to sell the company’s policies. Primerica’s agents are encouraged to sell products to friends and family and are commissioned for whatever they sell. Because they’re an MLM, remember, they make money based on the sales of the recruited agent. Anyone can become a licensed agent with Primerica. Remember that these agents can help you with life insurance policies, but ultimately they’re being paid a commission by Primerica directly. 

Agents are, first and foremost, independent contractors. Their role is one of a recruit; their primary job is to recommend Primerica to others and then to be your personal agent and a whole suite of other services, including DebtWatchers, navigating pre-paid legal fees, identity theft insurance, and more — which, of course, will cost you more money.

Pros of Choosing Primerica

1. The multilevel marketing business models allow buyers a more personalized experience, however, keep in mind that the majority of the company’s critique comes from its commission-based multi-level marketing structure and limited product options.

2. There is only one kind of insurance offered through Primerica which makes deciding on a plan significantly easy.

3. With one click to Primerica’s website, you can access lots of resources for people who don’t know that much about finance or who find the prospect of navigating their financial assets challenging. This kind of client help database makes the company look approachable and customer-oriented.

4. Primerica’s payback policies are perhaps its most important pros. Primerica’s website proudly states that 94% claims rare paid back to clients w/in two weeks. A.M. Best rates the financial strength of the organization as A+, backing up the claim that this insurer can pay claims in excellent time. This is important to note when you’re selecting a life insurance provider because it can oftentimes take years for claims to be paid off.

Cons of Choosing Primerica

1. Despite all agents having licenses, keep in mind that Primerica’s multilevel marketing business models can lead to conflicts of interest. The company’s agents only know of Primerica’s policies in detail so you should be wary when seeking their help and advice. Do your research on other options available before settling on a plan.

2. Primerica has a lack of permanent options for policies. After your policy expires, you are given a chance to renew without going through the entire process again (including a medical examination) but keep in mind that premiums can change upon renewal.

3. Primerica is one of the most expensive life insurance providers out there and it costs more than most of the alternative companies on the market today. There is also a suite of better life insurance products and policies available on the market so do not settle until you’ve done your research into the other options. It doesn’t exactly provide the best bang for your buck.

4. Primerica’s life insurance representatives make just over 5.5 K per year; this makes for an incredibly poor turnover. Because many of Primerica’s life insurance agents aren’t making that much money, a large number of agents leave the company. This means that, every year, there is a large number of new hires. Your personal agent may change twice, even three times.

5. Primerica has no high-risk policy options. If you’ve had health complications in the past, you may find the pricing extremely unreasonable — you may not even qualify for coverage.

6. On J.D. Power Life Insurance Study regarding Customer Satisfaction, Primerica scored average or lower in the categories of overall satisfaction, billing and payment, price, policy offerings, interaction.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Primerica isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Make sure to do your research into life insurance policies and know exactly what you want before you commit to one.

With lower-than-average customer satisfaction ratings, agents that are more on the company’s side than yours, and record-high prices, you might be better going with an alternate option.