Primerica Financial Services (PFS) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Citigroup, which engages in direct marketing of financial services, notably term life insurance, long term care insurance, mortgage refinancing, mutual fund investing, and prepaid legal services.

History

Founded February 10, 1977, the company was originally called A.L. Williams after its founder, Art Williams. Their business model closely resembles the real estate structure but models itself after a modified form of a general agency. A.L. Williams marketed term insurance for Massachusetts Indemnity Life Insurance company (MILICO).

In the mid-1980s the owner of American Canning company, Jerry Tsai, unsuccessfully attempted to convince Art Williams to sell his company. Unable to purchase A.L. Williams, Tsai purchased MILCO, whose term insurance A.L. Williams marketed. Later, the company was renamed Primerica. Sanford I. Weil of Citigroup, later purchased both Primerica and A.L. Williams.

The division was named "Primerica Financial Services" and the Smith Barney investment company became part of the portfolio. 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.), and merged it with its own investment arm to create Salomon Smith Barney (later reverted to Smith Barney).

In April 1998 Travelers Group announced the merger of Travelers and Citicorp. This resulted in net assets of $1.484 trillion, according to audited balance sheets. In 2002, Travelers Property Casualty became a separate company, and Travelers Life & Annuity remained part of Citigroup Inc.[1]

Primerica is now officially the cross marketing arm of Citigroup. Though American in origin, the company now has branches in Puerto Rico, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Japan, and plans for further worldwide growth.