Insurance Company Reviews

U.S. Special Agent (retired)

The reason I am fairly rating USAA (based in San Antonio) only one star is because there was not an option to rate them no stars. My wife and I have been members(in Good standing" with USAA for 30 years now much to our dismay. In 2010 my wife and I refinanced with USAA as we have done before several times without issue. However, lots has obviously changed at USAA especially their mortgage/home equity not to mention their lousy auto insurance. Auto OWNERS is much cheaper with better coverage and USAA will tell you that as well, or use to anyway. During our refinancing in 2010 their were lots of bumps to hurdle to meet their demands. They made mistakes and they did apologize and did refund us hundreds of dollars after I caught the mistake. The whole process was very streeful. On or about Nov. 2011 USAA sent us correspondence yes offering to help us again. Is was a pre-approved loan home equity type advising us we had $125,000 equity which they dropped to 55,000 when we contacted them. WEll, still no problem because all we were asking for was $35,000 to consolidate 1 credit card, 2 other small accounts and for some home improvement which would have been good for USAA as they have our mortgage and this improvement would increase the value of their/our home by $26,000. We started the process on Dec. 1st. and the lady that was helping us was helpful and told us everything looked "good to go". The next day an employee of theirs called on Dec. 2nd and he bad news that they were going to have to do a "table top" appraisal. My wife advised our home is a new custom built....best builder in county built our home finished in 2009. We had to obtain a pre-appraisal of over half million, but our latest appraisal was $435,000. they would not accept any of these and did their table top survey which was the most inaccurate and sloppy. On Monday Dec. 5th. I called the rep. and advised we did not agree with that and wanted just to forget about it all. I told him to halt this as we were also having problems with our AT&T poor phone service, and I was having surgery on Dec. 6th and would be unable to call until the 7th or 8th. Not being pleased I called his supervisor and advised Her on her voice mail at 3:57pm on Dec. 8th that we had withdrew our application. Just prior to that I called an Exec, Vice at bank down town and they no problem loaning us that amount and found USAA situation, appraisal somewhat humerous. She (a USAA supervisor in San Antonio) that it was too late to withdraw our application because it had already been declined. It was sort of like being fired from a job after I had resigned a few days earlier. Being a former Fed Agent I found dealing with USAA was unethical if not bordering criminal. I asked her when was it declined and she said last Friday Dec, 1st which was not Dec. 1st. I advised her that was the day we started the application. If that was the truth then why did the USAA rep. not tell us that on Dec. 5th. I then called her supervisor and advised him. He was curious as well, but then he also works for USAA. WE are considering legal action against USAA who created this monster, horrible experience. Being in the Military and working as an agent for the US Gov. I plan to contact some Fed.agents with other agencies as well to determine what laws have been violated. So to speak USAA is soon to be under a Fed. Microscope. Buyer beware of USAA's practices. I feel compelled to follow through with this as my career involved protecting and helping people and therefore I just don,t want to see other folks taken advantage of. What a tangled web some folks can weave and I welcome any employee with insurance company reviews to contact me for more information. Also, Price fixing is a Federal Offense. Hope this opens some eyes of possible USAA customers and also would be interested if anyone else has had any similar experiences with USAA. Thanks, Daniel
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