Pandora’s box was opened when I called to ask USAA about a $24 charge on my auto insurance bill. Eventually, a CS rep told me it was for the jewelry rider on my homeowner’s insurance on our house in Alaska. Bypassing why it was on our auto ins. bill in the first place, I asked them to drop the coverage. The house was now a rental & wasn’t supposed to have any contents coverage. We’d told them 6 months before that we’d moved out.

Less than a week later, a USAA rep called, claiming we hadn’t told them the house was going to a rental (we had), and told me they were cancelling the insurance because “we don’t do fire coverage.” Unless we agreed to cover both houses - the one we’d moved into in Texas, and the one we were renting out. Then they would do fire coverage. Otherwise, we had to find new insurance immediately.

The insurance they quoted for our TX house was 70% higher than our current policy. Several phone calls later, I found out it was because USAA thought we were outside a fire district, i.e. no fire department would come in case of a fire. A volunteer department lives 3 miles away! I told them. They say they’re in a different county, the rep said. But our neighbor’s field burned 3 mos. ago & they responded! I said. They said they won’t come, the rep said. Refused to lower the rate.

This house has been insured at this rate through a local company for the past 38 years, because the local company knows we ARE in a fire district. But the local company isn’t licensed to insure out of state.

In the end, we bought two policies. We only saved $100 and it was more complicated, but I refused to let USAA hold a gun to my head.

Rating: 2