I just went with Costco/Ameriprise on home and auto. Geico raised rates for "everyone in Texas". I bailed and will save $1000 next year with the same coverage.

 

A few thoughts: As many have said, and even I stated several pages back, USAA is not the same organization that I joined in 1983. That said, overall, I will stick with them for a bit longer. Yes, they cancelled my wind/hail...but the premium they are charging me for fire/theft/etc is a sick low rate....less than 300 for 275k in coverage and contents. My car rates are competitive but not great. I use a State Farm agent to broker my wind/hail with the state pool and when I wrote that policy I gave him the opportunity to quote my three cars and remaining insurance on my house and he could not even come close. YMMV. I have always received very good to great service on the phone with USAA, from buying new cars and having insurance in place, to roadside towing....etc... MAJOR insurance claims...minor car claims... even a total of a car due to natural disaster in 2005. Speaking of that when one of my cars was destroyed by Katrina in 2005, that was August 29th...I had a check direct deposited in my account within 48 hours of notification. Believe me when I say they were very generous with the settlement amount. Fast forward 2012, my mother who is a 40 year insurance holder with State Farm.....her car was totaled during a storm. Car was parked in its normal spot and and large tree basically cut it in half. Anyways.... initially they were very responsive...rental car.. etc.. towed the junk away.... what for it.......47 days to get her money for her car...47 freaking days.... excuse after excuse after excuse....oh...not to mention.. they totally dropped her home owners insurance after 37 years last year and just ONE claim saying they were pulling out of that area... just saying... its not just one insurance company...its all of them.

Beware...low rates for year or two then they start hitting you.....thinking you wont change.... I have seen it happen to many of my friends using various companies. USAA.... is it what it once was.... probably not.....but for me... it works.....choices...thats what makes this company great.

 

I was outraged a few years ago with USAA. I purchased a new house and called them to set up the insurance and was shocked when the rate they quoted me was literally double what I thought it would be ($4500 vs $2500/yr). In frustration I wrote a letter to the president/chairman of USAA explaining how I felt USAA was letting me down with such an outrageous quote. I was blown away when a few weeks later I received a hand written appology in the mail from the president of USAA and was told I would be contacted by one of their VP's to see if they could make things right. A few days later I was indeed called by a VP of something, and she did what it took to keep my business. I have shopped around quite a bit for homeowners/auto insurance, and there are other companies who are cheaper then USAA, but I know I will have a much better experience dealing with USAA then I will with brand X if I ever have to make a claim. While USAA has changed over the years, I still believe they are the number one. Don't just take my word for it. Consumer reports recently published their rankings of insurance companies and USAA was tied for first place with Amica. Some of the other insurance companies mentioned in this thread were ranked in the middle and towards the bottom of the list. You may save money going with another company, but good luck when it comes time to make a claim with some of them. Another company that has not been mentioned, and it was not on the consumer reports list either is AARP. My parents house caught fire a few years ago and was about 50% burned down, and they said AARP was fantastic. The catch with them is you have to be I believe 50 or older to be a member. Anyways, I'm sticking with USAA.

 

We had been with USAA for over 20 years. Our second home had a pipe start leaking and damaged the floors and walls. USAA sent thier local contractor to start the repairs. This guy was a joke. He would never show up on time if he even showed at all. When he did show up, he would do a little and then disappear for sveral days. Never returned our calls. USAA wasn't much help getting him to do the work. The final straw was when we asked this joker where the building permit was. He said he didn't need one for our job. We went to the city building inspector and were told that, yes, he did need a permit and they had problems with this guy all over the city. When we called USAA about this, they got an attitude and sort of hinted that we were being difficult to work with. We told USAA to give us a check and we would handle it ourselevs. Hired a great guy who got the permit and knocked the work out in about two weeks. The last insult was when the first contractor billed us for work he never did. USAA said we had to pay him out of the funds thay had given us. A call to the lawyer took care of this issue.
The rate increases USAA piled on us pushed us over the edge. We have saved over $980 per year on homewoners with State Farm and over $450 per year on auto insurance. Great service with a local agent. Plus we got the $8,000 out of the Subscriber Saving Account six months after we cancelled.

 

I have a teenage daughter that has had a horrible, I mean horrible driving record. Despite warnings, groundings, making he pay for repairs, etc nothing seemed to work. The graduation present she was driving is now my crash pad car, as she is basically uninsurable at this point. After being a pedestrian for a year, I gave her my old 94 truck and put it in her name, and told her to go get some liability quotes....and she was on her own.

Guess who was the least expensive and wanted her? USAA? The same company I dumped for a host of reasons.

Now, while I am grateful she found insurance, the fact they wanted to insure a dependent with multiple tickets, accidents, and even hitting a pedestrian on her record stunned me. I really expected to get a "dad--I cannot get insurance" call. In fact, most companies quoted 6, 8, or 10 grand a year or just said "no way". USAA, however, gave her a chance. Her premium is about $2400...an amount that makes me sick but is 1/4 of some of the quotes I received.

To quote Groucho Marx, " I want no part of any club that will have me..." When I joined USAA in the 80s, it was an officer only pool with the baseline assumption that being selective in membership should reduce rates for everyone. The model has obviously morphed quite a bit, and I found the irony interesting. They are certainly a different company now, albeit with lots of TV and radio ads.

So--to you faithful USAA members--thanks for helping underwrite my daughter. I'm glad she is no longer on my policy.

 

For what it's worth, I was deadheading SAT-CUN the other day and sat next to a USAA mid-level manager. We were talking, she asked if I was a member and I said "yes". She asked if I had any feedback, so I told her I have always been satisfied but I mentioned this thread and some of the points made, primarily the one about the expanded member pool.

She listened and then explained (I'm sure I didn't fully grasp it all) that the member pool is not one amorphous group. "Risk pools" are established based upon status (I'll leave it at that). Not everyone who is a member will be quoted the same rate. Also, they are pulling out of some areas, basically continuing to cover existing members but not offering coverage for new members in some geographical areas where they cannot keep premiums at a reasonable level.

It was the first time I've ever talked to an insurance person where I didn't feel my eyes glazing over after about 2 minutes, which was nice. :-)

 

Agree completely. I've recently applied for a home loan with another company. The mortgage loan officer was astounded when I told him my annual homeowners insurance rate. He said it was 40% more than what I should be paying. I, too, will soon be shopping.

I have applied for mortgages with USAA as a reservist, and it's been a constant problem explaining the variations in my income. For a company that specializes in serving the military, they are just as difficult in the underwriting department as the others.

 

Marvin--

I like the idea of that, but I still see USAA ads on ESPN. The glossy mailers that come to my home haven't slowed. The company has money to spend, and the benefits on all of my USAA products are less every year. I've been a member since 1999, but I've found other companies to be much more responsive (like my local bank and Pentagon FCU).

 

They already had that before. This is standard insurance 101.

They've been doing this for years too.

The problem with the expanded membership is not offset with risk pools. The expanded membership has increased their total risk and, worse, raised the average member risk; this is why premiums are increasing. Perhaps more problematically for many of us older members, their increase in size has resulted in a lowering of service quality. Additionally, they now use third-parties to do their grunt work. These third parties are not of the caliber you expect from USAA. I always tell these third parties that I don't do business with them and if USAA wants to talk to me, they've got my number.

 

Yeah, sadly I dropped them for auto and motorcycle insurance for Liberty Mutual... better plan and better rates.. I keep them for 2nd checking account so I can use the ATM's overseas and other places with no fees. I also have a MasterCard with them.. that's the extent of it.