We became USAA customers in 1998 and after a short while had our auto insurance, banking and renter's insurance with them.in the 7 years we had the renter's policy we made 4 small claims totalling less than $2500 (wind damage on 2 occasions, for the 3rd our cat trashed the wallpaper in a hallway, #4 our dog scratched the mailman).
Shortly after the last claim (totalling about $150) we received a letter from one of USAA's underwriters stating our policy was being cancelled due to "frequency of claims". We protested and even had the support of the company's own consumer advocate in San Antonio. Even she couldn't convince these greedy souls to reinstate our policy even though they still made money off of us in spite of the claims.
Later, after we received yet another letter stating that our efforts were in vain, we received a call from a USAA underwriter in Frankfurt, Germany (our coverage area - we're with the DoD), saying he felt that our claims frequency was not unusual especially considering the small amounts of each claim. He said he would state our case for us to his superiors. He too was shot down by USAA's senior leadership. I filed a complaint with the BBB, but guess what? USAA is a big supporter of the BBB! Nada. I even asked that our complaint be shown to the CEO of the company. Apparently this happened, but we heard nothing else from them.
Our policy was paid through Feb '09 and USAA cut it off as of April 1st '08 (April fool's USAA customers!). We were finally forced to get a policy with Geico (who doesn't use your claims frequency against you). We have 2 checking accounts, a savings account and 2 credit cards with USAA AND have 4 cars insured with them. Do they look at the whole customer concept? Apparently not. It finally took on a Bailey Savings and Loan Vs. Mr Potter feel after a while. Goodbye Bedford Falls, hello Potterville!
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