With more than 25+ years under my belt, I am parting ways with USAA. For me this has been a long time coming. Now this, news that USAA was screwing over military members.

https://www.bankingdive.com/news/occ...curity/587070/

What used to be the best Auto/Home Insurance company and Federal Credit Union has slowly gone down the drain. I almost cut ties with them when they bungled the closing of my last home purchase. Now I can no longer support or recommend them.

 

I’ve been with them since 1987... no issues.

 

Same, nothing but great experiences.

 

I had similar issues with USAA attempting to get a mortgage through them. Nothing but headache, went with a different company. Now have changed banks as well. I still keep the USAA accounts open, but there is no money in there.

They grew too big, too fast. And it irks me a bit when I see their commercials touting military service. I’ve been using them in some capacity for 21 years...and the last 5 years have shown me repeatedly that better products exist.

 

Every time I’ve renewed my coverage I check USAA because they are supposed to give the best rates for military...and every time they are orders of magnitude more expensive than other options. I know they are cheaper for some, but I’ve never found them to be cheap, in fact I’ve usually found them to be among the most expensive.

 

Same here. Planned on getting a mortgage with them and went through all the steps but it was not fun, horrendous customer service from the loan officer & underwriter. Deal ended up falling through for reasons unrelated to mortgage and the next time around I went with Navy Fed and the experience was much better. USAA has been fine for car insurance but I'll never do a mortgage with them again.

 

I'm about to dump them too.

Ever since they expended membership eligibility to anyone who can trace their ancestry to a service member (ie essentially the entire US population) prices are up and quality of service is down.

Might still be a good option if you're active duty, file a 1040EZ, and need 24/7 support from anywhere in the world.

 

been a member for 30 years. No issues. No they are not bargain basement cheapest. They pay claims and answer phones whenever I need them. smartphone app is easy to use. If you want, you can have 10 accounts, one for savings, one for "college" one for "emergency fund" etc all under one master account. I am sure other banks offer that but I would not know.

have not noticed any "downgrades" in performance but I respect everyone's opinion.

 

I’ve been trying to get my sister an account and they won’t approve it so it’s apparently not “everybody”

but yeah, I’ve been with them for 2 decades and it’s gotten worse lately. Definitely the most expensive out there AND I’ll say the same about Geico. my motorcycle insurance nearly tripled for my two bikes when I moved. Went from $300 a year for both to nearly $900.

 

I've been a member since 2000 so I'm right there with you about the service going downhill. Weird about your sister because I've got another non-mil pilot friend who just got a mortgage with them because his grandfather served in Korea. Navy Fed also has expanded the membership to "family" of anyone who has served. Under the rules USAA and Navy Fed now use, basically anyone who can trace any remote ancestry to anyone who served, even if it was a distant relative who was drafted and was medically discharged in basic training, they're entitled to membership and it passes down through subsequent generations without any additional service requirements. I guess this is the PC wave of the future. I expect the VFW and and legion will eventually do this too.

It fits with an overall pattern. The DOD is about to open up full exchange privileges to civilian employees with no military service, and there's talk this will also eventually include commissary privileges. Civilian employees already have access to most active/reserve/retired MWR benefits including Air Force Inns/NGIS/Navy Lodge. I expect eventually at this rate, retired DOD civilian employees will get access to VA healthcare benefits too, because why not, the VA is being privatized and everything else that was previously military-only is being opened up to them. This is the future.