I was a USAA member since 1998.
I left them about three years ago for state farm, and Im glad I did it.
They went from great to crap...and really started to pick up speed to the crap department around 2010.
I think what made them great initially is because the pool of customers were basically military members and retirees...which usually means a pool of responsible AND honest people...usually.
But when they really startyed to open it up to everybody who can in some shapre or form associate themselves with a service member...they opened the customer base up to a much larger, much less responbile, and much less honest pool of people..which drove premiums up for everyone.
At least thats my take on what happened to this once great company.
My zoomie buddy recommended I change from USAA as he got better rates elsewhere. Used to be when insurance companies cornered me and asked who I used, when I said USAA, they replied “Oh” with disappointment and moved on.
I’ve been a member since I first got auto insurance in 1979. My late father (retired U.S. Army, Lieutenant Colonel) got me signed up. He’d had house and auto insurance with them for years. I still have auto and house insurance through them. Both my auto and home insurance rates with them have increased significantly which I suppose is true generally with insurance these days.
Consumer Reports has USAA listed as the top insurance company in one of their recent issues. Number 1! How is that possible? If your experience and other’s complaints I’m reading are becoming commonplace, I’m dropping USAA and looking elsewhere. I’m sure glad I never went with their banking products.
{”they opened the customer base up to a much larger, much less responbile, and much less honest pool of people..which drove premiums up for everyone.”
That wasn’t it at all. Before they even changed the rules to allows others to be members (~1996), they went and started hiring “diversity”. It went downhill fast after that.
We had to do the same. USAA just absolutely destroyed their reputation with us, so we switched to Statefarm. I agree with your take on what happened after the memberships were opened up to pretty much everyone.
NFCU is going downhill as well.