USAA Membership

[dukembams]

I have been interested in USAA for insurance and banking for a while now but what a hassle.

My grandfather is 78 years old and served in the US Navy in the 1960s. He is best friends with our community bank CEO and has been with him since the bank opened in 1982. After letting him know he did not have to actually open a product with USAA, he established membership which then allowed my father to establish membership and then finally...I was able to establish membership.

Time will tell how I like everything but glad to have this done. The gentleman on the phone told us that if my grandfather passed away before establishing membership, there would have been no way for my father or me to do so unless my grandmother, who does not handle this sort of stuff, decided to do it.

We shall see how everything goes.

[KatzNDawgs]

I have been with USAA for about 25 years. It was really wonderful back in the day, but the last 10 years or so not so top notch as it once was, especially with the insurance.  What I do love about the checking and why I keep it as my hub bank is that it will pull from linked account to have fundss available *immediately*.  However, I think this option only opens once you have a few other accounts with them other than just checking.

If you can get into USAA, I would also go for NFCU, a lot of their products have better rates and easier to get.

[dukembams]

I actually have a membership with Navy Fed also. 🙂

Joining NFCU was significantly more easy than USAA. I provided NFCU with my grandfathers DD-214 to show my eligibility but they did not even need that.

USAA, on the other hand, had to speak with my grandfather and establish his membership and then they had to speak with my father to establish his membership, and then me. It seems to be much more difficult to join USAA, especially if someone has a family membership who does not wish to become a member.

[UncleB]

Yeah, USAA can be a complicated to join for family members... definitely not as easy (or straight-forward) as NFCU.

It is better now than it used to be, though.  Used to, to be eligible for insurance each person in the "chain" had to be not only a member, but hold insurance as well (for family members to be insurance eligible).  Knowing this, years ago I got to work and helped my grandfather purchase a cheap VPP policy for a piece of jewelry so that my father would be eligible for insurance.  I planned to repeat the process so I'd eventually be insurance eligible but thankfully USAA had a policy change and it wasn't required; I can now get auto quotes even though my father has never had a policy with them (prior to the policy update, they wouldn't even let me get to the screen).

I used to be their biggest cheerleader, but after they locked me out of all my accounts over a holiday weekend a few years back for "verification" (after banking with them for 10+ years) I decided to do my primary banking elsewhere.  It only took a picture of my drivers license to clear things up, but how the process was handled (and the delay involved) left a bad taste in my mouth.  I still keep them around for free ATM withdrawals (I keep a minimal amount in my USAA checking for this) and I use them for my renter's policy.  When it's time to shop around for auto insurance again I'll be checking with them as well, but I won't likely be trusting them with significant (to me) sums of money again.