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Primerica has long been a household name as a provider of financial services for middle-income Americans. As of April 2010, the company took its  name public as ticker symbol “PRI” on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The former Citigroup Inc. subsidiary made the bold decision to proceed with an IPO during a time when many companies were less concerned with growth and more preoccupied with simply staying afloat.

“Citigroup clearly was executing a strategy to focus more on its core banking business.” explains John Addison, co-CEO of Primerica.

“Therefore, a strategic decision was made by us and Citigroup that Primerica, which is not in the banking business, did not fit into that model. Becoming our own company has not been easy, but it was the right course and the right direction for our business.”

The IPO was a four-year process that culminated on April 1, 2010, with Addison and Co-CEO Rick Williams ringing the NYSE closing bell, under the new Primerica logo and its tagline, “Freedom Lives Here.”

“In March 2010, we met with 200 institutional investors in five countries. Of those 200 potential investors, 96 percent chose to invest in Primerica, including eight of the 10 largest mutual funds in North America,” Addison recalls.

“April 1 was one of the most exciting and gratifying days in my career. For our more than 2,000 employees and 95,000 representatives, it signaled not the end of a process, but the dawn of a new era – the re-founding of Primerica.

“Over our 34-year history, the world has changed a great deal, as has our industry,” he continues. “The advancements in technology over that time and its impact on our business is mind-boggling. And while we continue to adapt and move forward as a company, our core principles have not changed. The foundation of our business is building a distribution force and giving motivated people a unique business opportunity both part-time and full-time, who deliver financial products to middle-income families. We are a Main Street company that delivers for Main Street families.”

Since 1977, Primerica has built a business around its term life insurance mainstay under its now familiar slogan “Buy Term and Invest the Difference.” According to Addison, there is less life insurance sold today than in 1975 and many people are not covered at all or have inadequate coverage through employers. However, Primerica, which paid out close to $1 billion in death claims in 2010 alone, offers an average face amount of more than $280,000 of term life insurance protection per customer.

In addition to its core life insurance products, the company also offers a range of other complementary products – all designed to provide greater financial security for families.

These include: 

Debt consolidation loans
• Primerica DebtWatchers™
• Mutual fund investments
• An auto and homeowner’s insurance referral program
• Variable annuities
• Long-term care insurance 
• Pre-paid legal services

“Term-life insurance will always be the cornerstone and core of our business, but it is also critical to help people learn how to develop meaningful savings plans,” Addison says. “The combination of those things offers a tremendous upside opportunity for the people who are introduced to our products because not only are most middle-income families not protected adequately with life insurance, they also lack meaningful savings and investment programs. Primerica’s ability to deliver greater financial security and an outstanding business opportunity at the same time provides us with a distinct competitive edge.”

Addison is referring to the middle-income bracket – a group ignored by many financial institutions that target the very wealthy. It’s a unique model within the financial services industry that has been in place since Primerica was founded by Arthur L. Williams. Addison says it’s ever more crucial during a nationwide state of financial uncertainty. “People right now are more stressed in this economy than at any other time that I can remember in my business career,” he says. “In order to help more families achieve greater financial security, we are working harder than ever to improve our products, our technology, our client service and of course, our business opportunity.”

Instead of peddling the latest financial fad products, Primerica comes alongside its customers to deliver real financial solutions. For instance, Primerica offers a Financial Needs Analysis (FNA) that is “complimentary, confidential and customized” for each Primerica client. The company says it applies to anyone with children or debt or anyone who plans to retire or lacks a strategy for financial independence, which covers just about anyone. “We build our products for the underserved middle income market,” Addison says. “We’ll go to see someone who makes $60,000 not just $600,000.”

‘I Found a Home’

Addison began his career with Primerica in 1982 when it was still a start-up. “I answered a want ad in the Atlanta paper, and I found a home,” he says.

It’s a home where he has worked tirelessly to excel, driven by a sense of mission that Primerica did “what’s right” for average and ordinary people. Addison came to the company as a business systems analyst, and as it goes with small companies, he was able to gain valuable experience in nearly every department and served at every level in his eventual route to president and finally, as co-CEO.

“The three rings in our new logo represent three key parties to our past and future success: one ring stands for our sales force, the other two represent our clients and the company,” Addison says. “Art Williams, who founded Primerica 34 years ago, worked to build opportunities for people who come from ordinary backgrounds to grow, and to this day, this seemingly simple concept remains one of the cornerstones of our business.” 

For representatives in the field, this means an opportunity to build a career or earn extra income on the terms of each individual. For the clients, it equates to a stable financial resource. For the corporate employees, it means there is a financial services company that doesn’t shun those without Ivy League degrees – instead Addison says the company looks for sharp, hardworking people. 

“We are much more Main Street than Wall Street,” he says. “And that’s the kind of people we want to attract – people with ordinary backgrounds that have extraordinary dreams.”

Aligning Forces

Primerica’s IPO solidified this belief. The company’s venture into the public realm has opened up more opportunities for its independent Regional Vice Presidents and other representatives to become significant shareholders in company stock. “Providing a meaningful stake for our sales force has created a unique ownership structure in the financial services industry,” the company says. “We are proud of our equity incentive programs which help build both short- and long-term alignment for all of our stakeholders. Most importantly, the sales forces’ reaction to becoming a public company exceeded our expectations.”

Primerica has more than 20,000 field leaders who have been with Primerica for at least 10 years, and 7,000 of those leaders have been with the company for at least 20 years. In 2010’s fourth quarter, the company announced a four percent recruiting increase compared to the same period in 2009. Addison says Primerica is continually focused on its distribution channel in a way that is beneficial not only for the corporation but also its sales force, as it is an integral part of Primerica’s success.

He also explains that having the right sales representatives and employees must be combined with the leaders who set the tone. In his view, as leader, he must be a steward of the agents, employees and clients who depend on Primerica for their livelihood, not just a person seeking individual gain.

In his earlier years with the company, after its founder, Arthur L. Williams, left Primerica, Addison would take stands against leadership when he felt Primerica was being pushed in a direction that didn’t reflect its business model.

“I was the kind of person who stood up sometimes and put myself in a little bit of an unpopular position on what the company needed to do,” he explains. 

“Management may have wanted to go in one direction, but if I knew that wasn’t the right direction for the company I took a stand.”