Primerica: All it claims to be?
"Primerica's primary value proposition is that switching from whole or universal life to term life, and investing the difference is a good idea for most people. However, there are a number of other important factors to consider when purchasing life insurance, and I would also be wary of anyone claiming that one product will be the ""best"" for you under all circumstances. Best Insurance? Without getting into a much larger discussion on how to pick insurance companies or products, here are a few things that concern me about Primerica: They have a ""captive"" sales force, meaning their agents sell only Primerica products. This means that they are not shopping around for the best deal for you. Given how much prices on term life have changed in recent years, I would highly recommend taking the time to get alternate quotes online or from an independent broker who will shop around for you. Their staff are primarily part-time employees. I am not saying they are incompetent or don't care, just that you are more likely to be working with someone for whom insurance is not their primary line of work. If you have substantial reason to believe that you may someday need whole life, their products may not suit you well. Primerica does not offer whole life as far as I am aware, which also means that you cannot convert your term life policy through them to whole life should you need to do so. For example, if you experience an accident, are disabled, or have a significant change in your health status in the future and do not have access to a group life policy, you may be unable to renew your individual policy. Above Average Returns? I am also highly skeptical about this claim. The only possible context in which I could find this valid would be if they mean that your returns on average will be better if you invest in the stock market directly as compared to the returns you would get from the ""cash value"" portion of a life insurance product such as universal life, as those types of products generally have very high fees. Can you clarify if this is the claim that was made, or if they are promising returns above those of the general stock market? If it is the latter, run! Only a handful of superstar investors (think Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch, and Bill Gross) have ever consistently outperformed the stock market as a whole, and typically only for a limited period of time. In either case, I would have the same concerns here as stated in reasons #1 and #2 above. Even more so than with insurance, if you need investment advice, I'd recommend working with someone who is fully dedicated to that type of work, such as a fee-only financial planner (http://www.napfa.org/ is a good place to find one). Once you know how you want to invest, I would again recommend shopping around for a reputable but inexpensive broker and compare their fees with Primerica's. Kudos on having a healthy level of skepticism and listening to your gut. Also, remember that if you are not interested in their offer, you don't have to prove them wrong - you can simply say ""no thank you."" Best of luck!" "Probably not, though there are a few things to be said for understanding what you are doing here.  Primerica acts as an independent financial services firm and thus has various partners that specialize in various financial instruments and thus there may exist other firms that Primerica doesn't use that could offer better products.  Now, how much do you want to value your time as it could take more than a few months to go through every possible insurance firm and broker to see what rate you could get for the specific insurance you want.  There is also the question of what constitutes best here.  Is it paying the minimal premiums before getting a payout?  That would be my interpretation though this requires some amazing guesswork to know when to start paying a policy to pay out so quickly that the insurance company takes a major loss on the policy. Similarly, there are thousands of mutual funds out there and it is incredibly difficult to determine which ones would be best for your situation.  How much risk do you want to take?  How often do you plan to add to it?  What kind of accounts are you using for these investments, e.g. IRAs or just regular taxable accounts?  Do tax implications of the investments matter? Thus, I'd likely want to suggest you consider this question: How much trust do you have that this company will work well for you in handling the duty of managing your investments and insurance needs?  If you trust them, then buy what they suggest.  If you don't, then buy somewhere else but be careful about what kind of price are you prepared to pay to find the mythical ""best"" as those usually only become clear in hindsight. When it comes to trusting a company in case, there are more than a few factors I'd likely use: Questions - How well do they answer your questions or concerns from your perspective?  Do you feel that these are being treated with respect or do you get the feeling they want to say, ""What the heck are you thinking for asking that?"" in a kind of conceited perspective. Structure of meeting - Do you like to have an agenda and things all planned out or are you more of the spontaneous, ""We'll figure it out"" kind of person?  This is about how well do they know you and set things up to suit you well. Tone of talk - Do you feel valued in having these conversations and working through various exercises with the representative?  This is kind of like 1 though it would include requests they have for you. Employee turnover - How long has this person been with Primerica?  Do they generally lose people frequently?  Are you OK with your file being passed around like a hot potato?  Not that it necessarily will but just consider the possibility here. Reputation can be a factor though I'd not really use it much as some people can find those bad apples that aren't there anymore and so it isn't an issue now.  In some ways you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you.  There are more than a few companies that want to get a piece of what you'll invest, buy, and use when it comes to financial products so it may be a good idea to shop around a little." "I was a Primerica representative, left to be on my own, and then returned. Insurance is one matter that depends on the individual. Some do not need it.  For example, when I was an independent agent with an independent marketing organization (IMO) (oh yes! multi-level is everywhere, dont kid yourself) I had an upline as well. We were pushed to sell final expense [burial insurance].  As an ethical agent, I believe this is a bad business practice.  Primerica does not sell unneeded insurance to old people. How can you justify selling the elderly, insurance to cover them for $10,000, at almost 100 to 150 a month? I told my elderly potential clients, after seeing they live on a tight budget,  that they were better off purchasing a cremation policy or funeral package than burial insurances as it would save them money in the long run. Primerica is right in saying they are the only ones out there catering to the Working Class and Middle-America. Where else can you start an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) with $25 a month?  Nowhere! All the other insurance producers want more money. They don't want to spend their time with what they call ""losers"".  I love showing Poor people how the Rich get richer.  Poor people should know the truth."
Seek professional advice as duffbeer703 has suggested already.  Very important! Consider incorporating.  If your income will fluctuate year to year, you can keep profit in the corporation, taxed in its hands at the Canadian small business rate, since such corporate income below $500,000 would likely qualify for the small business deduction. You could pay  retained earnings to yourself as dividends over more than one year in order to lessen the personal tax burden. If you don't incorporate, all your profits in the year they are earned are taxed at personal income tax rates, and with our progressive income tax system, taking the tax hit all in one year can be expensive.  However, if this project is a one-off and you're not likely to continue working like this, you might not want the overhead of a corporation.  Taxes aside, there are also legal issues to consider vis-a-vis incorporating, or not. A professional can help you make this decision.   Yes, you can claim deductions for reasonable business expenses, whether or not you are incorporated. No, you can't do free work on the side and claim it as donations.  It's nice to volunteer, but you wouldn't get a charitable tax credit for your time, only for money or goods donated. Consider opening an RRSP so you can start saving for retirement and get a tax deduction for any contributions you make.  This is but one strategy to reduce your tax.  There are others.  For instance, if you are a student, you perhaps have some unused tuition credits that you could claim in your first year with higher income. Oh, and seek professional advice!   ;-) Question: I live in half of a duplex together with other college students. I put my rent (roughly $750 in cash) in the landlord's mailbox while he was out of town for three weeks. I told him ahead that I would do this, but he claims I never did, and he would have asked me not to. Anyway, now he claims the money was not there when he returned and I still owe $750.  Answer: Well, that's tough. It could be that the money was stolen from the mailbox. It could be that the landlord pocketed the money and is trying to scam you. Your problem is that you have no receipt, and no evidence at all that you paid the money. There's little you can do other than paying up (again) and learning from this expensive lesson. Source on GOV.UK You may be able to get tax back for some of the bills you have to pay because you have to work at home on a regular basis. You can only claim for things to do with your work, eg business telephone calls or the extra cost of gas and electricity for your work area. You can’t claim for things that you use for both private and business use, eg rent or broadband access. You don’t need to provide records for claims of up to £4 per week (£18 per month). For claims over £4 per week you’ll need to provide evidence of what you’ve spent. Claims up to £2,500   You must claim using a Self Assessment tax return if you already fill one in. If you don’t already fill in a Self Assessment tax return, and your allowable expenses are under £2,500 for the tax year, fill in form P87 and send it to the address on the form. If you’ve made a successful claim in a previous tax year and your expenses are less than £1,000 (or £2,500 for professional fees and subscriptions), you may be able to make your claim by phone. Claims over £2,500   You must claim using a Self Assessment tax return. "Technical people on Reddit who have dealt with Oracle or similar web sites &amp; systems (myself included) seem to believe that Oregon's claims come down to whether it was Oracle or the state government who was worse at planning the creation and maintenance of Oregon's healthcare web site.  I tend to think that government entities are often worse at managing &amp; planning things, and therefore believe that Oracle would be less likely to blame, but this doesn't necessarily mean that all of the more than dozen claims for damages will all be thrown out either.  One key claim is that Oracle asserted that ~95% of the web site's functionality would work ""out of the box"", thus leaving only 5% of the web site's functionality requiring third party (potentially custom) integration.  The burden is on Oregon to prove that the failures of the web site were the result of more than that 5%, and that Oracle was contractually obligated to fix issues with the ""&gt;5%"" at no additional charge.  Failure to prove that would result in Oracle being justified in asking for more $ to fix the web site, such that the alleged racketeering and much of the fraud did not actually take place." "And please tell me what is my agenda? By alluding banks are ponzi schemes? I never made that claim.  I just saw a similarity. I was asking if the similar idea of taking money from investors and returning it (just like a ponzi scheme), but the similarity ends there apparently. In the background one is using future investors as payouts; the other uses fractional reserve banking to reinvest.  To me it seems like the latter just seems ""smart"" but idk.  That was my agenda. Finding out if my latter idea was possible and/or why its [not] a ponzi schem e and how does it differ.  I think I got the answer w the accounting equation but getting to that point was like trial by fire apparently." "First of all, metals are commodities. So if you're phrasing that as metals and/or commodities, then that's poorly worded. If you're phrasing that as ""metal commodity reports"" then say as such.   Second, and more importantly: what commodities? Power is very different than coffee. Different places specialize in different things, all banks are good in some and weak in others. There's no generic ""commodity"" market but rather a huge range of specifically different products traded in the future.You learn more than a small fraction of this universe so pick one or two specific products from the macro buckets (i.e. energy, grains, metals) and focus on those." "FDIC is backed by the ""full faith and credit of the USA.""  Well, if the USA defaults, the full faith and credit of the USA would in my mind be worthless, thus, so would FDIC." Questions:   When you say feds inject money into the system, what do you mean?  What system?  the commercial banks?  Or Government so they can pay govt salaries?     And can commercial banks such as chase, bofa  create money out of thin air regardless of FED(and i dont mean by frac reserve either)??  Meaning giving out credit cards, or lending money they don't have.  Coz it seems banks don't need to have savings in the bank to lend/create debt money.   M2 increase regardless to M1 or Mbase money proves that.    there needs to be a federal govt nationalized franchise of utilty banks to compete with commercial banks.  let com banks speculate, and average conservative savers go bank with the nationalized utility banks.