That matches my experience. I've always called them for a mortgage quote, but they've only been competitive once. That one time, we went with them. They assigned our loan to a case worker for whom English was not a native language. She called us repeatedly asking for paperwork she already had (we had hand-delivered it since I was TDY to San Antonio and didn't have a good address) and generally didn't know what she was doing. I wrote a letter expressing my disappointment and declared I would never use USAA for a mortgage again. They sent me an apologetic letter and a check for a few hundred bucks.

I've been meaning to comparison shop auto & home insurance rates but haven't gotten around to it. I've never had any complaints with the payment of claims. Given the hazards of living in Mississippi (hail, tornadoes, morons randomly flinging their cars down the road ("driving" is too generous a word)), I can understand why rates might be pretty high here.

 

I got a promo in the mail, so I went ahead and got quotes from Liberty Mutual and State Farm. Not even close--Liberty Mutual was more than double and State Farm was not quite double. So I'm stickin' with USAA for the foreseeable future.

 

Good chance at comparison in your area. I did the same and had the opposite experience. Liberty Mutual was far cheaper for home and auto than USAA in my area.

 

Don't know what part of Mississippi you live in, but for a 3100 square foot home on 3/4 of an acre in North Mississippi, State Farm beat USAA by $469 per year on homeowners and $460 per year on auto. Same coverage (including earthquake on the house) for both companies. Plus, I get to deal with a local agent with an office about 3 miles down the road. USAA is not the same company I signed up with in 1969.

 

They cut the price on a new auto like you read about for me, over 5gs off a car just for using their service.

 

Funny anecdote about USAA- I witnessed a bad accident 3 weeks ago and was the first one to get to the injured. USAA called 10 days later to ask if I could tell them what happened. Without knowing who they insured I told my story. The driver who was egregiously at fault was the USAA driver. (My unconfirmed guess is that the USAA member was impaired in some way - probably dementia. 3 witnesses and a police report are at odds with his story.)

I mentioned to the USAA rep that I used to be a USAA member and was happy to help. And she asked why I left. I gave her the same reasons found in this thread. Without saying so directly she agreed. She'd been with USAA over 20 years and had plenty to say about the difference in members from her perspective. The professionalism from members with claims she saw at the beginning of her career is gone. She was sad and so am I.

 

I had a great experience with USAA last week. The extra cost has been well worth it. Been with them for 28 yrs. You get what you pay for.

 

^^ The thing is, you're generally going to get great service from any one of the major league insurance agencies. Why pay more to subsidize the new USAA membership who wouldn't have been allowed in 15 years ago?

For me, Allstate was at least 35% less than USAA; plus, there's a real person I can talk to less than 2 miles away.

 

I was getting ready to drop USAA for homeowners until the recent tornadoes in this area. They have really come through for me (just minor damage here) and a lot of other mil members who have lost it all. First class. I am willing to pay a little more (as long as it isn't too much more) for that level of service.

 

Agreed. I got about four grand off of the lowest price that I could negotiate when I bought a new car a couple of years ago. Plus, if you live in an area with multiple dealerships and have the time, you can really pit them against each other to see what you can get them to throw in for the price.