Welcome to "Is American Income Life A Scam?" (Updated for 2023)
So, one of my readers asked me to do a review on American Income Life. That's why I did my diggings, and I'm here to share with you my "findings".
Now, is American Income Life a scam or a legit business opportunity? I'd like to tell you that this review is not about the insurance side of American Income Life.
This review focuses on the business opportunity and how you can make money from American Income Life.
So if you want to know if American Income Life is a good company to work with or not, then you want to stick to this honest review!
Is American Income Life A Scam: Summary
Name: American Income Life
Website: ailife.com
Founder: Harold Goodman & Bernard Rapoport.
Price: $490 training fee + other expenses.
Best for: People good at network marketing & face to face selling.
Summary: American Income Life is a legit company, but in this review, you will read some ugly truths about it and reasons why you should not work with them.
There a specific kind of people that is perfect for this company.
I'll give you more info in the full review.
Rating: 3/5
Recommended? No
What is American Income Life?
American Income life is an insurance company that uses an MLM (multi-level-marketing) compensation plan, and it's a subsidiary company of "National Income Life Insurance Company."
When you join American Income life to sell financial products, you're going to be selling products for its subsidiary company.
American Income Life is based in Texas; furthermore, it was founded in 1951 by Harold Goodman & his nephew Bernard Rapoport with a borrowed capital of $25,000.
Currently, this company is owned by Torchmark corporation which is a financial services holding company that is listed on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange).
How Does American Income Life Work?
American Income Life does NOT work as what you think it does.
If you think that you're going to get a job with a fixed salary with this company then you're wrong.
So, you're going to get hired as an independent contractor which is a big difference.
However, the whole onboarding and interview process makes it look like it's a job with a salary.
As an independent contractor, you can only make money when you manage to sell insurance products or when you recruit people.
Furthermore, the bad thing about this opportunity is you can work day and night and get back home with $0 in earnings.
So in a Few Words...
American Online Life is going to train you (the training comes with a fee) on how to become a sales agent that works on a strict commission basis.
As a result, this means you need to go out and do lots of face to face selling & cold calling and face lots of rejections.
PS: I personally Earn $10,000 a Month from Home without doing any Face to Face selling or cold calling!
Is American Income Life A Scam: Product Line
As I said above American Income Life (aka AIlife) sells insurance products.
How they sell these insurance products?
They train ordinary people like you and me on how to go out there and do face to face selling and create a professional & personal relationship with your clients.
Consequently, the target audience that American Income life sells insurance policies to & to whom you will be sent out to meet are:
- People in Churches
- Credit & Labour unions
- Youth groups
- Schools
- & more.
So, if you join American Income Life as an agent you'll be able to earn commissions when you manage to sell the following products:
- Whole Life Insurance
- Term Life Insurance
- Accident & Supplemental health insurance
- Final Expensive Plan
- Terminal Illness Rider
- Accident Protection
- Hospital Indemnity
- Cancer Protection
- Critical Illness
Overall, you have different types of insurance policies to sell.
In conclusion, your job is to go door to door & make a personal relationship with your clients and try to sell them an insurance policy that will be a good fit for them.
How Can I Make Money from American Income Life?
There are two ways to make money working with American Income Life.
I have already talked about the first way which is selling the insurance policies to other people.
However, there is another way to make money with American Income life which is recruiting new members.
When I say recruiting new members, I mean convincing people to join and do what you do.
To sum up, the people you recruit will also be American Income Life sales agents.
This is a Red Flag!
Yeah I have read many comments from people wondering if American Income Life is a pyramid scheme or not.
Since there is no info about the compensation plan it looks like the company is an MLM or even worse a pyramid scheme in disguise.
I'm going to talk more about American Income Life being a pyramid scheme concern later.
How to Get Started & How Much Does it Cost?
To get started you will need to go through a mandatory training which is going to cost you $490.
The training is not digital; furthermore, it is an event that you need to attend in a particular city.
Therefore, chances are the training is not going to be held in your city.
Furthermore, you need to remember that there going to be more expenses that are not covered by American Income Life which include:
- Taxi or gas money
- Train or plane tickets
- Food
- Hotel
- And other expenses...
With this Program I can work from home & earn over $10,000 a month!
I get training from home and make a full-time income from home.
I don't need to do any face to face selling or MLM!
Is American Income Life A Scam: Salary and Payment
With American Income Life you won't get a fixed salary, but you will be paid in strict commission basis.
So, there are two types of commissions you will make with this company.
1) Sales Commissions
You will earn 50% of commissions on each insurance policy you sell.
However, you will be paid out only the 65% of your earned commission and the other 35% will be paid out after six months.
Here's an Example
If you earn $1000 you will get the 50% of it which is $500.
But you will be paid out only the 65% of $500 which is $335.
You will get the %35 of your commission (in this case $175) after six months.
2) Residual Commissions
You will earn residual commissions when you recruit new members to become sales agents for American Income Life.
However, there is no information or details about the residual commissions.
All we know is American Income Life has an MLM compensation pay plan.
Furthermore, if you have no idea what is an MLM compensation plan this video will give you a basic idea on how it works.
The problem with American Income Life does not disclose that they are operating under an MLM scheme.
A Quick Note!
Although MLM schemes are hated by most people and are known to be a very difficult way to make money they are still legitimate and legal.
What you need to always avoid though is pyramid schemes because they are illegal.
Is American Income Life A Scam: Problems & Concerns
1 - Is American Income Life a Pyramid Scheme?
There is a big concern that I see many people wondering if American Income Life is whether a pyramid scheme or not.
Wait Anis... What the Heck is a Pyramid Scheme?
A Pyramid scheme is a business model which relies 80% or 100% on paying distributors and sales agents commissions to recruit new members.
Pyramid schemes are considered illegal by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission).
The good news is American Online Life is NOT a pyramid scheme.
Why?
Because pyramid schemes don't have any real products to sell they just rely on recruiting.
This is obviously NOT the case with American Online Life because they do sell real insurance policies.
2- Negative Customer Reviews
I have read a lot of concerning negative reviews and complaints from both American Income Life customers & also agents.
Below I have included some screenshots of these complaints.
Please remember that you should NOT take these complaints blindly because most of the time the negative reviews are personal and not recurring.
I Work from Home & Earn a full-time Income
I Don't do Any Hard Selling or Recruiting!
3- The Deceiving Job Interviews
Another thing that I saw people complaining about is the job interviews.
So American Income Life is pretty misleading about their interviews.
So when you join this company, you're going to go through to what seems to be a job interview.
But only when you get interviewed you'll realize that there is not going to be any salary and you will be paid in commissions that you need to earn by recruiting or selling insurance policies.
The worst part about this is if you recruit someone to join this opportunity you have to lie to them and mislead them into thinking they're getting a job.
Another ugly thing about this is during the training you're going to be told that you can earn six figures in less than a year.
And that you can retire in less than 10 years.
4- The American Income Life Lawsuit
Recently Classlawgroup.com filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the AIL sales agents.
Why?
Because the American Income Life sales agents complained about the AI Life payment structure being illegal. In effect, a federal district court in California granted the AIL agents a total of $5.75 million dollar class action settlement.
You can read the full lawsuit details here.
In addition, they also got sued by a client for breach of contract in which they lost again. You can read that lawsuit here.
So, it seems like whatever side you deal with them there seems to be problems. Yikes!
5- You Need to Pay to Get A Job?
It does not make sense to pay money in order to get a job.
Well, that's why people call American Income life a scam because of their misleading claims.
So, to get started you will need to pay $490 which is an administration fee that will also cover your training sessions.
PS: I started making $10,000 a month online at the age of 24 without recruiting!
6- You'll Need a License...
Another thing that is hidden from you is the fact that you will need a license in order to sell financial products in the US.
So, you will need to spend even more money on the license because you will need to attend courses and an exam for this.
Furthermore, every time you fail the exam and you want to retake it you will need to put in more money.
The worst part is after you get your license you'll realize that the knowledge you got is not going to be used so much when selling American Income Life.
Because what you need to succeed with AI life is the ability to relate to people and be able to sell them products related to their needs.
8- High Turnover Rates
When a company is misleading and sends you misleading employment emails like this:
Therefore, a lot of complaints are going to pop up and also the turnover rates are going to be huge!
As you can read above, American Income Life sends out very misleading emails.
AI Life is advertised in the emails like a job opportunity with a fixed salary right?
On the contrary, when you get interviewed you will realize you're getting paid only based on the commissions you generate by yourself.
When the AI Life agents realize this they decide that they don't want to do this or even if they do it they will quit within a few months.
9- Face to Face Selling & Cold Calling
In a few words, American Income Life is a sales job.
So, if you're not the type of person that is comfortable knocking on doors every single day and cold calling people outside trying to sell insurance policies this business opportunity is NOT for you.
I used to do this kind of job in Italy with a local cellular network where I had to distribute sim cards in my local area.
I had to spend like 5 to 9 hours a day walking around cold calling people outside.
The rejection rate was like 95% & some people would even insult me!
However, the worst part is the commissions I used to earn were peanuts.
But I have to admit one thing.
It Was a Life Lesson...
This job made me strong mentally and I have learned many things thanks to it but unfortunately, it did not pay the bills so I had to find a job with a fixed salary.
But fast forward I have even quit this 9-5 job and started My own affiliate marketing business which makes me over $10k/Month from home!
10- You Need to Cover your Own Expenses...
If you're on a tight budget and have a 9-5 job that does not give you enough time then American Income Life is not for you.
First of all, you need to spend $490 just for the training which is an in-person training where you need to travel to another city to attend it.
Apart from the $490 fee for the training, all the traveling, food and hotel accommodation costs are on you.
You'll also need a license to sell financial products in the US which require you to take courses and an exam which obviously cost money.
On top of that every few months there are big meetups and mandatory conventions that you must attend if your sponsor requires it.
The trips to these conventions are not even covered they are all on you.
So this opportunity is so expensive that American Income Life even offers you loans in some cases which obviously need to be paid back.
Thanks to this Program I work 100% from home.
I get trained from home and I don't have to recruit or go outside!
This EXACT program allows me to make over $10k month without talking to anyone!
Is American Income Life A Scam: Pros
1- Make Money & Improve Your Personality
This kind of job that American Income Life offers in one hand can make you money if you put in the work and find the right clients.
On the other hand, it will improve your personality and make you a better person with a strong mindset.
Talking to people outside every day and facing rejections will make you stronger mentally.
This is the biggest benefit I personally got thanks to this kind of jobs.
2- BBB Accredited with A+ Rating
American Income Life is BBB accredited with a A+ rating.
The company has got over 200 complaints but closed 95 of them which shows they are a company that cares about their image and clients.
On top of that AI Life has got strong financial ratings from:
What does that mean?
It means American Income life is able to provide insurance money to their clients. 🙂
Is American income Life A Scam?
American Income Life is not a scam, it's a reputable and a legitimate company that sells real insurance products.
However, I personally don't recommend them because they are very misleading in their advertisements.
There are many complaints from the members that have even filed a lawsuit against the MLM scheme and the payout structure of AI Life.
Another reason why I don't recommend American Income Life is that they are pretty expensive and they have a high turnover rate.
So Who is American Income Life for?
American Income Life is for you if:
- You can face rejections
- Have a strong mindset
- Outgoing & you can relate to people
- Have good communication & listening skills
- Have good work ethics
American Income Life is NOT for you if:
- You're uncomfortable with selling
- You hate facing rejection
- Can't deal with emotional stress
- You don't like MLM or network marketing
How I Make Money from Home...
I personally would avoid any company with an MLM structure.
They are not illegal like Pyramid schemes but they are VERY hard to succeed with and so expensive.
I started making money when I was introduced to affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is better than MLM, here's why:
- You can make money from home
- No need to recruit, cold call people outside or knock on doors!
- It's free to get started & it's not expensive like MLM's!
In fact, thanks to affiliate marketing I created a full-time income from home where I can make delicious affiliate commissions like these.
My November affiliate commissions thanks to Wealthy Affiliate!
The best part I can earn affiliate commissions like these without any college degree or experience!
Might be a ‘legit’ company, but something is very off and fishy about them. Agent called me several times a day for well over a week, left no message, unprofessional. Texted me on 2 occasions “give me a call”, no statement of name or business of why I should be calling, again unprofessional. Now I don’t normally answer or respond to numbers I do not recognize, but by the second or third text I was so annoyed I outright replied, “who is ‘me’ I should be contacting?”
Person claimed they were with my credit union & needed to verify the information on my beneficiary card over the phone before it was put through.
Strike 2 because I had not turned in a card recently. I added my child to receive account funds after my death & verified all info the year he was born, several years ago, what is there to verify now if I’ve made no changes?
Strike 1 honestly was that the number was not my credit union so how are you ‘with’ them? The text was typed as if they work there.
I did not attempt any contact until I asked the staff if we were supposed to be expecting calls about verifying benefits & the person I asked said yes. So I contact the number back the next time I see it rang in & no answer. A few days later when it calls in I answer & the guy on the phone doesn’t verify anything he sets up an appointment just to verify information that should take 5 mins tops to verify.
Lo & behold at this zoom appointment the information I never gave them to solicit services is verified & he swiftly moves to sell me a plan based on it.
I’m utterly lost and confused because we do have a free accidental death/dismemberment coverage benefit through this credit union so I’m not sure where the paying monthly is coming from. When I thought about it the next day I became more suspicious and sent a message on their site to cancel whatever deal he wanted to run. By today the main company calls to confirm what he sent and I refuse saying again to cancel it. They claim they can’t because they can’t see it in front of them (but he said the call was to verify the policy purchase AND go over the terms. How the f&% can you go over the terms if you can’t see what he signed me up for?!) strike 3.
A few hours later I’m completely suspicious because as it turns out AI isn’t even the company that does the AD&D coverage! Double strike 3!
So what benefit do I have with you through my credit union to be verifying my beneficiary for?! I find this utterly deceptive you didn’t call to verify an existing benefit you only called to sell me a plan. I’d be less upset if they’d just asked if I was interested in a plan since I was going to start shopping around for this particular insurance product anyways, now I’m not interested in doing business with AI and my credit union’s about to get an earful about how they even got my info and knew I was a member to begin with.
Thanks for sharing your experience with us!
On June 30th 2020 at 6:30 p.m., a Grey (silver) pick up truck pulled into my drive way, a young man got out of this vehicle (I was sitting on my front porch enjoying the calm of the evening) approached me, addressed me by my first name, this man identified himself as Christian, my new account manager with American Income Life. Now, this visit at 6:30 p.m. was unannounced, I was completely unnerved by this, who does this? And I will also add that he was not wearing a mask nor did he have one on his person. Unannounced at 6:30 p.m. and no face mask, this is completely inappropriate and unacceptable to me. Christian informed me that he simply wanted to go over my existing policy’s and update them, I asked he if would simply leave the information for me to review, or better yet, email or mail the information to me, oh no that would not work, he would need a signature from me. No, I did not sign anything and asked Christian to leave. He asked why I was agitated and asked him to leave again. Again he asked what my source of agitation was and I informed him that it was him, at that point he turned and walked back to his truck and left. I can assure AIL that if anyone shows up unannounced to my home ever again, I will simply call the police. I have had policy coverage with AIL for over 40 years, two for myself and one for a now grown child. The child’s policy was paid off net they reached the age of 18 y/o. I continue to pay a monthly premium on two policy’s for myself. Several times a year a receive a phone call from “my new account” always very late in the evening well after normal business hours wanting to get together so we can go over my coverage to update my policy’s, again I ask that they be mailed or emailed, the answer is always the same, they are unable to do that, they would need a signature in person. And that is never going to happen. I find this practice almost criminal. I have read reviews about AIL in the past, generally when I find myself annoyed from phone calls past 9p.m. from my “new account manager”, but after my unannounced visit last evening with Christian, my new account manager (without a face mask in the time of COVID-19) I’m seriously considering changing to another company all together. I would say to any one who is reading this review, unless you enjoy unannounced visits from “your new account manager”, well past normal business hours and unwanted phone calls after 8-9 p.m. from your “new account manager”, well, are they a good fit for your needs. For me, I believe last nights visit may have been the straw that breaks the proverbial camels back.
That’s definitely weird Kim, thanks for sharing your feedback with us it’s really useful!
First of all American income actually does not charge for its training, yes like all insurance to be agent you must take a class and pass the state exam. Secondly, they are up front about the commission part of the job. Third, no one is forced to recruit new members that is a personal choice. We do not target anyone to deal strictly with union, credit union, and association.. people can sponsor love ones to receive our help in protecting their family. Majority of the insurance companies I interviewed with all are commission based companies.
Thanks for your comment, Lesley 🙂
I have been a sales agent at American income like for 17 years and a lot of your information is incorrect. Americans income like is a like insurance company just like met life, New York life, and the other hundreds or other life insurance companies. It’s really no different from any other insurance company. It’s a 100% commission sales job. It’s just like being a real estate agent but instead your an insurance agent and instead or selling houses your selling like insurance. There are literally tens or thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people out there making a living as an insurance agent.
The main this you have wrong is that American income like all other insurance company do not charge you to join. To make money you sell insurance. To sell insurance you must legally have an insurance license issued to you by the state that you plan to sell insurance in. In California it cost about $500 that you much pay to the state to take a class and to take a test in order for you to get an insurance license. I’m sure the price with very from state to state. If you already have an insurance license because your coming from another insurance company that you will not need to pay anything to work at American income. But if you don’t yes you need to pay to get licensed but you never pay American income. You pay your state and you own that insurance license and you can use it to work for any insurance company.
Thanks for your clarification, highly appreciate it.
By Adrianne.
17 years in the field? Why are you still working? You surely must be a millionaire by now and able to retire on your residuals. Isn't retirement after 10 years one of the main purported perks of the job?!?
I actually don’t dislike multi level marketing opportunities, but if the compensation plan isn’t outlined very clearly, and publicly, I would definitely question whether or not it genuinely is MLM or if it could be pyramid – even if it has a product to sell, if they are relying mostly on recruitment, it’s a huge red flag. There’s also a large start up fee for this one, with such a big risk that you may not get a return on it. Although, the 50% commissions are very generous, so could be worthwhile for some people. Thanks for sharing.
Yes, it’s a red flag when the MLM compensation plan is not disclosed, but I don’t think American Income Life is a pyramid scheme since they sell real products and don’t rely on recruitments so much.
But there are big doubts…
Thanks for your comment and have a nice day!
I have proof that your comment is a lie, they just “recruited” a young friend and convinced her to give away some personal items, wipe her cellphone and leave it behind, wiped out her bank account and drove over six hrs to pick her up in another state! The feds shut down their operation in Oregon and then they moved to another state. they take advantage of young innocent people and do not honor their policies, just read other sites reviews and complaints with lawsuits. I’m afraid of what they will do to these people when they are tired of being a slave and want to leave.
This American Income Life product really seems like one to stay away from. That is evident based on the many facts that you have dug up on their sales pitches (misleading), training (expensive), and commission program (questionable and unclear for the affiliate portion). I do not like that there are considerable costs to gain the ‘privilege’ of working with them, then to add insult to injury you have to pay quite a bit just to be able to sell the insurance plans they offer, and then you have to wait for a significant portion of your commissions that you may earn.Face to face selling is not such a barrier for me, but many people shy away from this kind of selling, as they are not comfortable with the tactic. If a person is not an outgoing type, they will likely not have much success with this type of selling. Regarding the independent contractor employment status, I have worked under this arrangement with great success, but it is not for everyone. As you rightly point out, all expenses you incur are on you unless specifically spelled out in the contract. This includes taxes, travel, incidental, insurance (travel, car, bonding possibly, etc.), and many other things.In my case, I was selling groceries into the military markets in Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa. I was paid a commission based on gross sales into these markets of 12 different companies who had literally 30,000 line items or more that they were pushing.At the end of that gig, I was making $50,000 a month in commissions and had about $20,000 in expenses. I based out of Germany and traveled via air, land, and even sea at times (Italy, Genoa to Palermo). This was obviously a good job for me, but these kinds of jobs are seldom found. This American Home Life gig sounds like the exact opposite of what I was doing…Cold calling (all my customers were warm or current buyers), paying for training (I got paid to travel for corporate training in the USA numerous times), and qualifications (I had the clearances necessary to travel to war-zones, to bases where regular people could not go, etc.).So your final assessment is spot on for me, and this is not a program that I would recommend for anyone to get into. It just seems really shady and it is not likely that you will get your investment back, and there is no salary as is normal for such a sales position.Thanks for the heads up and the extensive research to lay bare what this program and ‘opportunity’ is really all about!
Hi Dave, thanks for sharing your experience about doing this kind of sales jobs, yes I agree they are not for everyone and if you are not an outgoing type of person you won’t find any success.
Thanks a lot for your comments and feedback!
I must commend you for taking your time to share this review. This American income is quite expensive but actually that is nothing if it actually worth the money. I have never heard of it before not until I read this article of yours and you have done a great job. I will keep checking up on your site to get more information . Thanks for sharing this information.
You’re welcome, thanks for dropping by & leaving a comment!