USAA Auto Insurance has managed to stay in the Bloomberg Business Week top two for customer service champ for the last four years. Their staying power in that position is unprecedented. If that were the only thing I knew about an insurance company, that would be enough to entice me to check it out. Put a 97% customer retention rate on top of that and you are looking at a winner.

USAA Auto Insurance was founded in 1922 and has expanded slowly since then. In the last two decades they have been accelerating their growth. USAA Auto Insurance provides cheap auto insurance to military personnel.        From the very beginning, they focused on military personnel as their customer base concentrating on officers until 1996 when they made their insurance available to enlisted soldiers.

With a clientele that serves all over the globe, they have had great incentive to make use of all the technology available. They have the most technology friendly services I have seen in the auto insurance industry. Almost everything can be accomplished online starting with the initial process of getting auto insurance quotes to printing insurance ID cards, and following through to filing claims, scheduling appraisals and reserving rental cars. If you need to change your policy you can do that online as well. Most services are available via mobile devices as well.

They train their customer service representatives to understand the demands placed on military personnel and their families so they can understand their customers better. They also work with military pay schedules and have installment plans available without service charges. It is no wonder their customer review ratings are so high.

Should you have an accident USAA Auto Insurance claims can be filed online and they have over 2000 places approved for guaranteed repairs. Insurance is meant to cover you for when you actually have a claim so that is the part you should review for any insurance company you consider. You can read reviews at www.carreview.com.  USAA Auto Insurance also has reviews on their own website, www.usaa.com, written by current members. Naturally, the reviews on their own website are a lot more positive than the ones found on www.carreview.com. Those aren’t terrible on average either though.

If you are considering USAA Auto Insurance you are probably in the military so your best bet would be to ask your friends. Some of them are likely to be insured with this company. Find out what their experience has been with claims. You know their customer service rating is rather high so narrow it down to the claims experience. Someone must have had to file one. Most customer service rankings are based on current clients of companies. What about people having to deal with the company from the other side? What if you cause an accident? Will they be a hassle to deal with for the victim?

These are questions a bit harder to answer and for most people they don’t matter when they are shopping for auto insurance. What we really care about is whether our expenses will be covered if we get into an accident and what it will cost us every month. As with any insurance company, quotes are based on your driving record, your age, your state of residence and similar factors. Whether USAA Auto Insurance is cheap auto insurance for your situation depends on your history. If you like what you have heard about the company so far, go find out whether they can benefit you. After all, auto insurance needs to meet your needs not your neighbors.