The COVID-19 pandemic helped Primerica Inc. increase sales of both life insurance and investment products in the first quarter, but it continued to hurt the company's ability to get new agents fully licensed.
The Duluth, Georgia-based life insurer talked about its agent force Wednesday, when it released its latest quarterly earnings.
"The impact of COVID has heightened consumer awareness concerning their finances, helping to drive record production results," Glenn Williams, the company's CEO, said in a comment included in the earnings announcement.
The number of term life policies sold increased 16%, to about 83,000, and investment and savings product sales increased 27%, to $2.9 billion.
Net earnings and agent counts were up.
But "the licensing process remained challenged as social-distancing measures limited pre-licensing class access and states continued to work through COVID-related backlogs," Primerica said. "As a result, the company saw only a 2% increase in licensing."
Primerica has been reporting pandemic-related agent licensing concerns for the past year.