Primerica history

In 1980 William May retired to become the dean of New York University's Graduate School of Business.

In fact, American Can bought Associated Madison Insurance for $140 million in 1981 before it had received any payment on its forest operations.

By 1983 Tsai was a vice chairman and major stockholder at American Can, and proved to be an indispensable ally to Woodside in his sometimes unpopular attempts to redirect American Can's capital into financial services.

In 1984, for example, Amcan developed the plastic "squeeze-bottle" for Heinz Ketchup.

Tsai, who became chairman at American Can in 1986 when Woodside retired, claimed that direct marketing and financial services would soon make up 75% of its business, further relieving the company of its dependence upon canmaking.

Primerica announced in May 1987 that it intended to purchase Wall Street brokerage firm Smith Barney for $750 million and move into the financial services sector.

In December 1988, Sanford Weill's Commercial Credit acquired Primerica Corporation for $1.54 billion, retaining the Primerica name.

On February 6, 1989, Primerica Corporation began trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

In 1991, Primerica Corporation changed the name of A.L. Williams to Primerica Financial Services.

In December 1993, Primerica fully acquired Travelers Insurance Corporation and adopted the name Travelers Inc., which was changed to Travelers Group the following year.

In December 1997, Primerica announced it was going to begin offering pre-paid legal through Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc., at the time a subsidiary of Travelers Group, Inc.

In 1998, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) censured and fined PFS Investments Inc., the securities arm for Primerica, for failure to properly supervise a group of registered representatives in Dearborn, Michigan.

Citigroup attempted to sell Primerica in 2008, having received several bids from life insurance companies and private equity firms interested in buying.

On November 5, 2009 Citi announced that it intended to spin off Primerica through an initial public offering.

The expected share price was in the $12 – $14 range, and ended up priced at $15 a share on March 31, 2010, resulting in Citi raising 27 percent or $30 million more than $290 million projected through the IPO by selling 3.36 million more shares than the anticipated 18 million.

On December 19, 2011, Citigroup sold its remaining equity stake in Primerica.

In January 2014, the company set aside $15.4 million to settle allegations involving 238 cases.

In 2017, registered investment adviser Mike Lundy, a representative of Primerica and manager of its Rapid City, SD office, was sentenced to 5 years in federal prison after pocketing $4.2 million in clients’ money.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020, Primerica paid out $1.7 billion in death claims.

In July 2021, Primerica acquired e-Telequote, a health insurance marketer.