We have had USAA for 48 years (this month, actually). They have always been great. This January 2nd we had a pipe burst in our foyer. I was home, but it caused $50,000 in damage. USAA was great. They were always calling my husband to see if the work was progressing to our satisfaction. When talking to our adjuster one time, he said that ours was a minor pipe burst claim. They were usually going into the hundred of thousands of dollars.
Oh, and the dividend is actually called the “Subscriber Savings Account”. They send us some money at the end of the year, based on how much our premiums were and how few claims the company had. They also put some money into that account which can be accessed after the account closes. We are waiting for my MIL’s final check, as she passed away in December of 2016. The house closed 2 weeks ago. USAA said that it will take 30 to 60 days for the check to be send. The estate will also receive the unused part of her home owners insurance. DH was stunned to learn that her “Subscriber Savings Account” held almost $10,000. It was a lovely surprise.
USAA is great. All three of my daughters have it. They have said that they wouldn’t have any other insurance.
We have been with Amica for almost 40 years. My parents were also. We have insured up to 5 cars at a time, homeowners, umbrella policy, term life policies. The service and advice has been outstanding.
Over the years we have had few claims because we carry very high deductibles. Most recently H totaled his car by hitting an icy patch and skidding into a bridge abutment. He had it towed 30 miles to a body shop near us, the agent was on the scene the next day. Very thorough, very fair. Said we could fix it, but shop confirmed it would cost more than totalling it. Our auto rate only increased slightly (big surprise, but we didn’t question it) when H bought another similar car that was new.
Amica was very helpful in guiding us though insuring my deceased parents non-owner occupied home when we were trying to sell it. The agent explained what we needed and gave us referrals to other companies providing this coverage.
No experience with USAA, but they consistently are highly recommended by Consumer Reports.
I previously worked for a mutual company and may be able to help explain the disparity between those getting a dividend and those that did not. The company I worked for was proud that they had made a dividend payment every year for something like 125 years, that said none of the accounts I handled ever received a dividend.
The way that company worked was first the company as a whole had to be profitable, then the business segment had to be profitable (commercial, personal, etc.). If you crossed those two hurdles (pretty low bar) then things got tricky. The next was your line of business (home, auto, etc.) had to be profitable, then your region had to be profitable in your line of business, and lastly your state had to be profitable in your line of business. Depending on weather (hurricanes do hit cars) and other factors there always seemed to be one area that lost money. You could have never turned in a claim but if you were in the SE region and a hurricane hit you could guarantee not getting a dividend.
I’m at work now so not much time to respond. I only considered USAa cuz my parents had them.
I think I’m over insured with 500/500,000. And $1000 deductible.
We ditched USAA after 25 years. They were okay, but we made minimal claims. Would have expected to stay there forever, though the rates kept going up, up, up, regardless of claims. Five years after we bought our current house (with no claims), we were informed that they had reevaluated and decided our house now cost 700K more to rebuild it that when we bought it five years ago. What? That was impossible.
I was so annoyed that I shopped around and found Armed Forces Insurance (AFI) who did not force us to overinsure. Rates went way down, we have made a lot of water loss claims on our rentals, and the rates haven’t gone up. We have been very happy with them. They don’t do auto, so we changed to GEICO for that. Made several claims, great service, and they didn’t up charge for young drivers.
After ditching all your USAA insurance, they finally give you your Subscribers Savings Account. It was over 3K. I don’t think we’ll ever go back. We are saving about 3-4K/year from what we were paying USAA.
We switched from Allstate to Geico after more than 30 years with the former. This cut our bills in half, literally. I had no idea we had been so overpaying. haven’t had to file a claim, but S did with Geico and got fast, efficient service. I realize this is two different companies from the OP, but it’s the idea of not staying with someone just because you always have.
Also, strangely, I’ve never heard of Amica before. Literally never. Wonder if it’s not in NJ.
Exactly! I think we get so locked into staying with a company because we’ve been there forever. Must be getting the best deal because we’re solid customers, right? This company is acceptable, so why change it? We’ll just tolerate it and try really hard to never make a claim.
We’ve had Amica for almost 25 years, and I’ve been looking to switch for the past few years. We stick with Amica because they are the least expensive for us and we were able to get earthquake insurance through them. I don’t think any company, including Amica, offers new earthquake insurance policies in CA but we are allowed to renew the existing policy.
We’ve had our share of poor service from Amica, including misinformation given over the phone and inexperienced claims adjusters. We deal only with the Southern California office, so it could be just a local issue. We did get a good settlement for our car that was totaled, but only after I supplied loads of documentation to prove that the car was worth more than they initially estimated. Fortunately I was also able to supply a security video that showed our car was hit by a red light runner, otherwise they would have charged us the deductible. We requested they transfer the money directly to our bank electronically, but nothing happened after several weeks. Finally the person handling our claim had a paper check sent through the mail. Then after another week the money appeared in our bank account! Although it was tempting to keep the double payment, I contacted them and was instructed to write them a check for the overpayment. The whole situation just struck me as unprofessional.
If they raise our premium again this year I will start shopping again.
I’ve definitely gotten dividends though I wouldn’t swear I’ve gotten them in the last few years. It’s a nice present - never more than $100. I’ve had fender benders that they took care of. The only time they let us down was late at night in Vermont about 30 minutes from civilization but a town where everything is closed up early - all we needed was a jump - we ended up calling someone we knew to help as they were going to be hours. Sometimes where they want to get a car towed to, is not convenient for us.
They did up the rebuild costs of our house at some point - I actually think it’s too little. Especially if you wanted the old 1920s details back.
At some point, rebuilding costs will increase, and they should. If you don’t think it’s enough, they would probably approve your request for more. But several years ago, USAA started specifically looking at higher priced houses, and jacking up the supposed costs to rebuild. I do not think it was ethical and honest, but a way to get greater returns. They told us our 1989 built square box of a house, unremodeled but sturdy construction would cost 1.7 million to rebuild. They assessed basement space the same cost to rebuild as high cost custom built non basement space. The land is valuable, the house is non exceptional, but they shouldn’t raise your rebuilding costs to match land appreciation. We were disgusted.
If you are finding your home insurance pricey from a particular insurer, it might just be a case of them not really caring to have more customers in your geographical area. Insurers want to spread out their risk, so don’t want to have more than a certain amount of exposure in a given area, or they will charge more to provide it. One natural disaster and many policyholders can reap financial problems for them.
I have read, on the BH forum, that when USAA grew by adding enlisted members and their families, that they still keep people in different pools. I am not sure if the officer and the officer’s family are in different pools from each other, but the enlisted folks are different than the officer pool. This makes sense to me as we have always had great prices from USAA via the officer pool; however, when siblings were allowed to join USAA via my Dad, an enlisted guy, they were unimpressed with the rates.
We recently had the primary officer die and were told he had that final savings account, but that we will not, that it is the officer only.
On USAA premiums, I know the homeowners premiums are very reflective of recent regional experience. We were in NorCal after the Oakland fires and our rates went sky high, though we were hundreds of miles away.
“On USAA premiums, I know the homeowners premiums are very reflective of recent regional experience. We were in NorCal after the Oakland fires and our rates went sky high, though we were hundreds of miles away.”
Basically meaning they don’t like their current risk levels in NorCal and wouldn’t mind losing customers without higher premiums.
@doschicos That happened in the '90s, I think, but is an example of how local sand back then, the concentrated location of many military retirees insured by USAA meant your regional pool losses definitely affected the rest of that pool.
@RandyErika, DH and I use “actuarials” all the time! It’s a running joke because of my health and comes up when I talk about taking my SS at 62 because I’d be stunned if I got to the breakeven point.
When DS#1 lived in FL, he applied for renters insurance through USAA. This was shortly after those series of terrible hurricanes in FL, so USAA was not writing policies at that time and told him they were forwarding him to an insurance pool. While he was waiting, his apartment was burglarized and his computer and camera stolen! While he didn’t have the insurance finalized and in place, so ate the loss, karma is a b*tch. Long story short, he figured out who broke in (it was a former “guest” of a neighbor in the building who it turns out was out on bail for some other charge), DS participated in a sting to flush the guy out, who was then arrested and thrown back in jail! So while it was probably not smart for DS to take that risk and get involved (and he never got his possessions back), he got some satisfaction.
Don’t know if he could have tried to pursue a claim since the application for insurance was in process, but he chose not to.
I’m thinking I should stay with Amica, as they insure my house, which is in a hurricane area. To bring down the yearly premium, I’ll have to lower rates. Right now, liability and uninsured motorists is 500/500,000. I think I could bring that down to 100/300,000. Is that too,low?