Anybody have dealings with USAA?

OakHillHorn

OakHillHorn

100+ Posts
My son was involved in an accident. He was turning right at a red light and someone pulled up beside him in the bike lake and t-boned him in mid turn.

USAA is saying that the bike lane ends before the intersection and there for it is not their fault. We have talked with the bike lane coordinator for the City of Austin and he has backed us up. USAA still refuses to accept this and they won't pay.
Didn't call the cops(I will call them from now on), so there is no accident report.
 
It was at a red light. He had his blinker on. The other car comes inside of him, in the bike lane and tries to turn also. They collide.
In doing research on the Interwebs, I see alot of complaints about them. Hope you never have to file a claim. They never call back and this has dragged on for 3 months.
 
has your insurance agreed with you and placed fault on the other party?
If so, have them duke it out inArbitration.
 
USAA may be basing their ruling on State statutes.

I've been doing investigative research on my own recent accident, although unrelated. I've discovered that municipal regulations & ordinances do indeed take precedence over state statutes.

Maybe thats the bug up their arse.
 
I only have liability on the car that was involved in the accident. USAA is saying the bike lane stops before the end of the intersection. Their reasoning doesn't make sense, but since I don't have an insurance company standing behind me on this, they say that my son was 51 percent to blame!!! I had the City of Austin coordinator for the bike lanes make a field inspection of the intersection and he agreed with us, but he can't be involved in any litigation. We did forward his responses to USAA, but it didn't matter.
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The other driver filed a claim against us and was denied within a week of the accident. USAA has drug this out, saying that they hadn't been able to talk with their client. We were contacting them constantly for 2 months, trying to get this resolved.
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I was rearended by someone with USAA. They refused to pay. The guy even ran and I had to chase him down and call the cops. Needless to say, I hate them.
 
My wife and I have USAA and we haven't had any problems with them. However, our dealings with USAA have never involved car accidents (knock on wood). My wife deals with these things all the time since it's her business (she is a PI lawyer). If you would like to talk with her, let me know. I believe she was able to help 14tokihorn with his accident.

What is your insurance and how bad was the damage?
 
My insurance is Hartford. The estimate is $1800, but that seems a little low. Both passenger doors are smashed in. Like I said above, I only have liability on the car that was in the accident. I bought it for $4000.(93 Acura Legend)
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If they haven't talked to their client, they haven't really conducted a thorough investigation. Usually in this situation, an insurance company will reserve coverage and it becomes a possible coverage situation since they are not getting cooperation from their policyholder as to their version of events.
 
They are great to their customers. I am one of them.

They are not so great to people that their customers get involved in accidents with. A friend from work had to sue to get his claim paid. They ultimately settled out of court for more than they would have had to pay otherwise.
 
I was accused of vandalizing a roof to make it look like hail damage... they even had detectives from Round Rock PD bring me in & question me.

These guys weren't roofers & only had some kind of a report from USAA's people; I have no idea who wrote the thing & wasn't able to examine it.

All I said to shut them up was "Can I have the roof inspected by someone of my choice?"

RR PD: It has already been removed & re-done.

Me: "Well, you're up **** creek then because without the ability for me to forensically compare our findings against the original sample, your evidence is probably inadmissable as you've already destroyed it."

No, I'm not a lawyer. No, I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn the night before.

The investigator for USAA said the Texas Rangers would be contacting me; never heard from anyone again. I wonder if the info / 'file' RRPD has would be public records & I could get it to see exactly what they have "collected" & if they consider this a closed file. It happened 4+ years ago...

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They did finally talk with the other driver, who admits being in the bicycle lane. But he said my son didn't have his blinker on. My son said that he did. Denied. Its damn frustrating.
 
I'm a USAA customer , but have also had to make a claim against another USAA driver. They paid without issue in this case + I was able to negotiate a payment for reduced value of the vehicle. (The idea here is that the value of the vehicle is diminished even if fully repaired0

Anyways, sue the other driver and USAA in small claims court. Just the cost of now having to litigate let alone lose might cause them to settle. You can represent yourself. They have to assign well paid lawyers.
 
USAA has a great reputation for taking care of their own policyholders. USAA also have a reputation for jerking 3rd party claimants around, lowballing and refusing to pay claims even when their policyholders are clearly at fault.

Many in your situation get frustrated and end up making a claim on their own policy. If their own insurance company then successfully subrogates they will recover and return their deductible back to you. That process can take awhile and is not guaranteed. The lack of a police report does not help.

Have you contacted the other driver directly? He just might light a fire under the USAA adjuster if he is an honorable man or if he fears you are going to go after him.

Is your son hurt?
 
Long time USAA member here.....they are great to members and will be a-holes if you don't fit into their zero tolerance metrics. It doesn't surprise me that they gave you a hard time....OTOH it seems to be the order of the day considering the industry. FWIW.

BL
 
Yes, USAA is not the only carrier that looks after their own and shits on the other guy but from my experience they cover the broadest spectrum in claims service. If there was a JD Power category for that they would have five circles.
 
I'm a USAA member and my recent experience with them is they were way too generous with a person I mixed molecules with. They even rolled over on the small person injury claim for physical therapy. I was stunned and disappointed.
 
In this case, the cops wouldn't have done me any good. They didn't witness the accident. All the cops do these days is make sure that the insurance info changes hands. They don't determine fault. They leave that up to the insurance companies.
 
If the police report included the information that the other driver was in the turn lane then I don't think you would have a problem.
 
First, the police won't come unless there is injury, damage to public property, or another crime such as DWI - right? I thought you were supposed to go to a substation and file a report yourself (which is even better because it is totally one-sided). The downside is that police reports go on your DPS driving record, I believe.

Second, a bike lane that ends right before an intersection??? That is nuts. Where are the bikes supposed to go? Your son has my vote.

Third -
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"USAA is saying the bike lane stops before the end of the intersection."

If the bike lane continues on the other side of the intersection, then it didn't end. The city doesn't stripe bike lanes thru intersections.
 
I have sent photos of the intersection that I took and ones from Google Earth and they still don't get it. He finally sent one his guys to the intersection and they are saying that my photos don't match the intersection. We have spoken with the Supervisor engineer from the city of Austin and he agrees with us. We relayed that information to USAA. Still denied
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