USAA overview

The United Services Automobile Association (USAA) is a diversified financial services group of companies and subsidiaries offering banking, investing, and insurance to people and families who serve, or served, in the United States military. At the end of 2021 there were 13 million members. The company had sold 48.6 million products. USAA employs over 37,000 people.

USAA was founded in 1922, when 25 US Army officers decided to insure each other’s vehicles as a reaction to being deemed too high-risk to be insured by general US insurers. Roll forwards almost 100 years and the mission of the association is to facilitate the financial security of its members, associates, and their families through the provision of a full range of highly competitive financial products and services; in so doing, USAA seeks to be the provider of choice for the military community.

In 2017, USAA established an innovation lab based in Austin, Texas – a members-only design lab which provides USAA account holders with the opportunity to engage and provide feedback on new innovations, concepts and exclusive pilots.

The lab is home to over 120 USAA employees and showcases some of the company’s most recent innovations and awards. Members have the opportunity to enrol in pilot programs, providing them early access to new features, products, services and tools being developed by USAA.

The following year, the Group announced it has begun piloting an augmented reality application aiming to simplify the car-purchasing process for consumers.

In 2019, the insurer announced a strategic tie-up with State Farm at the Dig | In conference that will see the pair test blockchain technology as they seek to automate insurance claims at the subrogation stage. In January 2021 the two companies announced auto subrogation claims between State Farm and USAA would be settled using blockchain technology. 

Later that same year, in September, USAA announced it had partnered with Google Cloud on a car damage estimating tool, in the hopes that the company can automate simple claims and move human adjusters to more complicated cases. The tool enables users to upload their own pictures of their car when they want to make a claim. Google then uses computer vision and data analytics to analyse the damage, the results of which are sent to Mitchel International, which can estimate repairs. From there, USAA can check for final adjustments, if required. As of June 2021 USAA had entered into a production-level test period 250 pairs of AR-enabled glasses distributed to adjusters.

In February 2021 USAA revealed plans to aggressively expand its SafePilot telematics program after it grew over 200% during 2021 compared the year prior. Year-on-year policy growth was recorded at 75%. Available in 39 states and District of Columbia as of year-end 2021, SafePilot offers users who exhibit safe driving habits discounts of up to 30%; drivers save 10% just for enrolling. Nearly half of all new policyholders in its pilot states opted in for the program, with more than 106k policies in place as of December 2020. During August 2022 the company announced the release of crash detection functionality on the app.

In June 2021 USAA announced its acquisition of auto insurtech Noblr to offer customers a pay-as-you-drive option, contrasting the pay-how-you-drive capabilities of SafePilot. 

Need more insight?

Speak to us about commissioning some bespoke research.

Find out more

Key people

Mary E. Landry Board Of Director
Herman E. Bulls Board Of Director
John P. Abizaid Board Of Director
Trent Obermueller Sr. Associate - Corporate Development
Alan Krapf President, USAA Property and Casualty Insurance Group
Matthew Schaub Lead eBusiness Advisor
William R. Reed, Jr Board Of Director
Dan McNamara President, USAA Financial Advice and Solutions Group
Richard Novak VP Enterprise Innovation Planning & Operations
San Antonio Founder
James M. Zortman Board Of Director
Tracy L. Garrett Board Of Director
Eileen Collins Board Of Director
Leslie Dowling Vice President
Eduardo Matamoros Director, Service Design
Brad Wells Vice President
Jay L. Johnson Board Of Director
Tracy Mckibben Board Of Director
Lester Lyles Chairman
John F. Young Board Of Director
Gerald R. Murray Board Of Director
Stuart Parker Chief Executive Officer
Christina Martin Executive Director, Real Estate Client Management
Rob Galbraith Director of Underwriting Research
Robert L. VanAntwerp Board Of Director
James Hickman Assistant Vice President
Thomas Fargo Board of Directors
Wil Bennett Vice President, Chief Information Security Officer
Bill Gerth Director of Social Business
Jason Larrew Technical Architect
Adam Holcombe Senior Associate, Corporate Development
Nathan McKinley VP, Head of Corporate Development & Interim Head of Enterprise Strategy
Brian McCarty Principal Technical Architect
Michael Smith Assistant Vice President, Corporate Development
Dana Simmons Executive Vice President, CEO Chief of Staff
Vikash Gupta Director of Risk Management
Eric Smith Chief Data & Analytics Officer
Allison Squires Social Business Strategy Director
Vishwa Hassan Director
Michael Willette Assistant Vice President Technical Fellow
Brian Durkin Data and Information Solutions Leader - Property and Casualty
Stacey Nash SVP & Head of Fraud and Central Operations
Matt Schulz Strategy Engagement Director
David Gordon Chief Technology and Data Officer
Travis Dent Experience Owner - Bank Marketing
Adam Hansen Brand Manager
Amer Kamal Head of Retail Payments
Maria Cantu Senior Vice President, USAA Chief of Staff
Ryan Bailey Head of the Retail Bank
Ramnik Bajaj SVP and Chief Data and Analytics Officer
Sean Serafin Vice President of Property Claims
Ameesh Vakharia EVP & Chief Strategy Officer
Bryan Gingrich Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Charlotte Creech Executive Director, Innovation
Amala Duggirala EVP, Enterprise Chief Information Officer
Jason Witty Senior Vice President & Chief Security Officer
Julie McPeak SVP, General Counsel for Insurance
Chris Flint SVP and General Manager, Life and Health Insurance
Tamla Oates-Forney EVP and Chief Human Resources Officer
Waqas Durrani SVP in the Chief Legal Office
Bob LaBrutta Vice President of Survivorship and Claims
Tami Cabaniss EVP & Chief Human Resources Officer