BrazilBusDriver

* Car Insurance: AAA saved me $600 every 6 months (Florida, it's high there).

* Mortgage: Navy Federal offered 4.5% (negotiated down to 4) vs 5.3% for USAA in late 2018. Have since re-fi'd with Navy Fed and that experience was not as great, but the rate was still pretty competitive.

* Life Insurance: AAA gave me double the coverage on a 20 year term for the same price.

* Home Owner's Insurance: USAA wouldn't even offer me a policy

This mostly seems to be related to the geographic area I'm in - Florida, in a City, but it really shattered the myth of "USAA is great for Service Members" for me.

Armyguy

USAA was ripping me off for years. I left a couple of years ago, good riddance

Phins2right

What is the majority customer occupation that uses USAA?

Pulling the ad was a bad move. They lost thousands of loyal customers.

I started with USAA in 1987. I cancelled them after the wokeness appeared. That is 30+ years. I had no problem cutting the cord with USAA and had no problem finding suitable, cheaper and infinitely better alternatives out there. I absolutely disagree with your statement:

"If you refuse to do business with companies that are socially involved, you will quickly run out of options."

Hardly the case. You are pretty ignorant to make such a claim BTW.

I was also growing tired of their customer service and crappy loan service and ridiculous underwriting practices anyway.

We now do autos with Geico (saved like 40%). Boats with Progressive (saved 35%). Homeowners with a local company (saved 38%). Mortgage is with a local bank. <3% after a refi we did a few months ago.

We never used USAA banking or credit cards.

ZippyNH

USAA has been my general "go-to" for years...
10-15 years ago we had taken a mortgage out with USAA, they then sold the loan to GMAC, which then declared bankruptcy, amd the servicing of the loan was taken from USAA in the bankruptcy procedure....
A scummy 3,rd party specialized in subprime mobile homes bought the loan...then would take our payments, then NOT apply them to the loan, saying we were late and had to pay penalties...
In discussing it with USAA they agreed to refinance it for zero cost seeing the $$ was paid on time, and EVEN took a principal reduction on the loan due to lower than expected value when apprised....
all we had to do was subjugate our right to sue the serving company to USAA to allow them to take legal action for us, along with other individuals having issues.
USAA policy were changed, and to this day we are thankful they went above and beyond, doing something that they had no legal reasons to do but felt they had a morals obligation too do.
Is the the company the same today?
No...but generally I trust them more than most other...let's face it, no company is perfect 100% of the time.
Do I have ally account locked down (just like with any company) with a physical 2nd factor key like a ubi-key or Google Titan key? You bet....I suggest ANYBODY using online banking should do the same ASAP.
USAA has been ahead of most others in terms of services offered...like mail in deposits, then check scanning then smart phone photos... online bill paying, statements etc, and then atm reimbursement has made them a GREAT company to use as a traveler.
Are they the best in all fields? No...life insurance, online trading, and a few areas they are not the best, amd sometimes it's only a me-to product, with the company selling off some business lines due to lack of critical mass to be cost effective.

klondike

Corporate America has had this PC garbage and SJ agenda force-fed down it’s collective throat by the Federal Government for the last decade.
They have no choice in the matter.

P.S. Bubba’s Truckstop there in Mobile has excellent corndogs and actual customer service.
Who cares if they aren’t SJW’s.

Back to the Thread Topic.....

I have been with USAA since 1987. They were beyond fantastic back then. I still think they do good work and offer solid/competitive products. Their customer service, IMO, has slipped over the years, but that is what happens when the Company decides to turn from an exclusive club into trying to be something for everybody.

Speed Select

Like Fat Tire. A great beer until they watered it down for the masses.

347snake01

Been with them a number of years, perhaps 35 years now. Switched to them when they were much lower priced than the competition, and their service meant they were easily the best value. Not sure they are the best price, but they may still be the best value as insurance services are still good.

They have lost their focus in recent years. They were started because military personnel (I believe military pilots in particular) couldn't get insurance because they were in too high a risk category, so a group of officers banded together to insure themselves and fellow aviators, later officers. However, new management came in with a growth strategy that required them to expand the risk pool which resulted in higher premiums. The genie is out of the bottle now (wall street management), but I think all but Wall Street would be better served if they returned to their original focus.

BrazilBusDriver

I was about to shake my fist and yell at clouds about how they were Army officers...but of course in that time there was an Army Air Corps and it looks like when they set up shop they did so at Kelly Field. Also, in half the photos of the founders on the old corporate website, they're rocking wings, so hey, guess I learned something new today.
But it doesn't appear they specifically restricted themselves to aviators at first, just that most of them were. In fact, within two year's they'd expanded to the Navy and Marine Corps in an attempt to offset losses.

History of USAA – FundingUniverse

Steverin06

Switched a few years ago, saved a ton of $$ and never looked back.

hercretired

have not had any issues. they paid, no questions asked, on a recent hail damaged roof. they did send an inspector out but he was on site for like 10 minutes.

my neighbor next door had to basically swear on the bible to his insurance company that everything was true and valid. and he was back and forth for 2 weeks with his company before he got any repair money.

yes they cost more but not sure if "going cheap" is the answer either