I'm Goin' To USAA - Threepeat! - Military Guide

A couple of updates:

Scott & JJ are both shuffling their assignments this month, and while Scott's working on USAA's educational projects that's left JJ handling most of the member questions. I'm not sure that he's seeking an additional column right now.

However USAA's social media team is taking a look at reaching out to RallyPoint for a Finance/Investments forum. It's a good thing to do, both for USAA as well as for servicemembers, but they'll have to sort out which part of USAA is responsible and make sure that they cover their legal/liability questions.

In the meantime I'm also happy to field questions or to link to other resources. I can answer most of the questions on my own, and I can ask USAA's public relations staff (and Scott or JJ) for the rest of the answers.

My motivation for doing this is to help me write my second book: "The Military Guide to Making Good Insurance Decisions". Reader advice & stories help make my prose more relevant, and your contribution to writing the book means that you also get a vote on what military charities will receive the royalties.

The FCC wants you to know that I have a business relationship with USAA. I have USAA auto insurance and The-Military-Guide.com earns revenue from USAA, but the company has also annoyed me mightily over the last 34 years. I recommend shopping on both price and service. (For example, our home and our rental property are insured through Armed Forces Insurance.) More importantly, I'm a big advocate of self-insurance.

I've also attended several of USAA's "social influencer" conferences, where I'd like to think that my age and my writing ability entitle me to a certain amount of deference at asking complicated questions and interviewing their execs. They put me up at a hotel for a couple of nights and fed me excellent regional cuisine as well as unlimited coffee, and I've done my share of posts for their Member Community. I've also been able to hang out with a number of bloggers and other movers & shakers at military advocacy groups like MOAA and MilitaryOneClick.

Submariners will be happy to know that USAA has a retired submarine O-9 doing great things for the company while asking very perceptive questions. (It's what nukes do, and I know him from our active-duty days.) Along with military career and transition issues, he's very interested in hearing from members about helping military Millennials make better choices on insurance, banking, and investments.

LCDR Doug Nordman I appreciate your disclosure and desire to do the right thing. I agree that USAA may not be the best option for everyone. Unlimited coffee is CRITICAL, you don't want to spontaneously fall asleep. :)

I am frustrated Finance Guru with much education BSBA, Finance, MBA, JD, but no TRUST in a company that will look out for my interests as a fiduciary. So I work in software engineering and invest until the Asset stash is big enough, not quite there yet. I think most people get hosed by Investment Banks and Insurance, so let's make USAA the best in a necessary industry.

USAA needs to look at every action with it's customers as a trust and fairness issue. Disclosure and difficult conversations with customers will occur. USAA needs to plan for this difficult moments and demonstrate the transparency, disclosure and fairness we expect from this company.

If USAA can't offer best in class service they need to develop and improvement plan to get to a proper benchmark, outsource to the best in class provider using the USAA name (not ideal) or get out of that line of business.

Two areas of improvement:
1) Auto insurance needs to have a monthly payment option that is not an additional cost, the current process is very customer unfriendly and is confusing with payments setup to match the USAA bill cycle. (Hello?, yes the 1960s called, they want their mainframe back.)
2) Mortgages/HELOCs are an example of where USAA is not competitive, too long to process, non-competitive rates, the Board needs to be honest enough to ask why...

If USAA is (or becomes) like many service providers then we will stop being loyal and trusting customers and move on to the next insurance company.

I look forward to more information as you have the opportunity to share on the forum.

One thing I've learned over the years is that everybody seems to be a member with a different part of USAA. Even their own communications staff aren't completely familiar will all of the permutations and options available on some member services.

Having said that, I've had USAA monthly autopay on my car insurance for years. It's deducted from my NFCU checking account at the end of the month, and there are no additional fees for this service. But again I might have that service because it's on autopay, or because I'm insuring two beater cars with no collision/comprehensive, and my options might be different from yours. This is one of those situations that's worth your contacting a member service rep to see whether they can give you what I'm using. I only check my six-month renewal statements and I don't track each monthly payment.

I've never had my own USAA mortgage/HELOC, but I've had this discussion with Scott Halliwell before. Every USAA service is required to cover its expenses without subsidies from other profit centers. I'd suspect that USAA offers loans as part of the whole Home Circle package of member services for those who want to consolidate all of their finances with one company, but they're probably not writing enough of this business to offer lower rates. They're going for member convenience & trust while other members (like me) go elsewhere for bargains.

Although many members have left USAA over the years (for many reasons), their membership is still growing at a reasonable rate. There are now more Millennials in the workforce than Boomers, and USAA is working very hard on retaining members from the day they join the military (or become eligible for membership) for the rest of their lives. So as long as membership and revenues are growing there won't be any reason to change their behavior.

A few years ago I mentioned to a USAA exec that some Boomer members were unhappy about USAA's recruiting of younger members from all the ranks (and their families too). The exec admitted that they needed to recruit more new members to replace their "aging demographic", but he also said that (to their surprise) the younger/newer members had better financial behavior than the older members. There were fewer defaults and late payments, and the younger members did more online so that USAA's costs were lower.

LCDR Doug Nordman We all benefit if USAA is healthy and attracts new members and has competitive services. I can see why USAA must attract new members, advertise, and maintain conservative practices to avoid losses.

I am mainly asking for transparency and customer expectation setting to avoid surprises/unmeet needs.

Thanks for continuing to share our stories!