USAA Arpita Tripathy
USAA Arpita Tripathy
USAA Arpita Tripathy
UH18103
First year HRM
USAA Xavier School of Human Resource
Management
Company Review
USAA, basically known as United Services Automobile Association is a San Antonio,
Texas based fortune 500 diversified financial firms offering banking, investing, and
insurance to people and families who serve, or served, in the United States Military. In
the fourth quarter of 2017 there were 12.4 million members.
USAA, founded in 1922 in San Antonio, Texas was started by a group of 25 military
officials for getting mutual self-insurance as they were unable to buy some insurance
because of the nature of job which had a perception that they belong to a very high risk
group. USAA has since expanded to offer banking and insurance services to past and
present members of the military forces, officers and enlisted, and their immediate
families. The company has been ranked No. 100 out of fortune 500 companies in 2018
based on total revenue.
The company is known for their everlasting commitment to their customers and are
always recognized for their outstanding services, financial strength and taking care of
the employee well-being.
The present size of the company is above 10000. It has specialties in Insurance,
Investments, Financial Planning, and Banking, Serving the Military Community, Military
Friendly Employer, and World-class Benefits.
Location
Revenue
Ownership
(% of Net Assets)
SWOT Analysis
Strengths Weakness
opportunities Threats
Strengths
USAA ranked #1 in providing better customer service in the bank, credit card and
insurance category by Forrester research Inc. in 2018.Providing better services can
improves the chances of pertaining current customers as well as attracting the new
ones. USAA earned the most noteworthy positioning among monetary administrations
organizations in the RepTrak 100 Most Reputable Companies in America list, and #36
in general. USAA was given the #2 Military Friendly Companies. Many researches has
shown that managing the present customers and satisfying them is much more difficult
than marketing for new ones. According to research done by Raddon, 40% of the credit
union holders have said that they are very satisfied being with the company. It has set a
benchmark in the financial sector. In 2018 USAA’s net promoter score boosted to be
four times higher than the average score among financial firms. According to the annual
report 2017 of USSA, nine out of 10 members confirmed that they were extremely
satisfied by USAA’s service. USAA handled nearly 85 million calls from members and
saw a membership growth of over 500,000 to 12.4 million.
USAA's Insurance is the greatest stake of their business; however it's only one section.
They're glad to offer trust, combination, and accommodation with other monetary
administrations at a little markup. They won't contend on misfortune pioneers in money
related ventures, CDs, business checking, rewards credit cards, home loans, or
whatever else which different organizations may finance with "delicate dollar"
advertising. USAA's insurance decisions depend on risk, and they're evaluated suitably
for that chance. Our part dollars are not spent on a distraught snatch for piece of the pie
in a race to the base. The insurance giant touched $30 billion in net worth, with nearly
$2.3B paid in catastrophe claims. (USAA’s largest annual loss ever.) USAA’s strong
financials leveraged them to pay nearly $15 Billion in total claims— while still returning
more than $1.5 Billion to members in distributions, dividends, bank rebates and
rewards. Regardless of a staggering hurricane season that included three Category 4
storms and rapidly spreading fires that crushed pieces of California, USAA reinforced its
monetary establishment. Likewise, every one of the three noteworthy FICO assessment
organizations keep on giving USAA solid evaluations for money related quality. In 2019,
Moody's Investors Service has affirmed the Aaa insurance financial strength (IFS) rating
of United Services Automobile Association (USAA) and the ratings of its subsidiaries
(see list below) and has changed the rating outlook to negative from stable. The rating
affirmation reflects USAA's market leadership in providing insurance and other financial
services to the military community and its strong capitalization.
https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-affirms-USAAs-Aaa-financial-strength-rating-and-
changes-outlook--PR_1000000187
https://the-military-guide.com/the-big-picture-on-insurance-usaas-annual-reports/
https://content.usaa.com/mcontent/static_assets/Media/report-to-member-
2017.pdf?cacheid=2758991777_p
USAA serves only the military families of United States which gives them a very big
advantage. The Company restricts its products and services to the target group only.
When it comes to brand awareness, the $155 billion insurance has beaten all its
competitors. According to Raddon research, 83% customers of USAA gets additional
financial benefits. It was founded in the year 1922 by a group military personnel to
insure each other’s cars. It has expanded into home and life insurance and mutual
funds. As mentioned above the company only serves military families which gives the
company a tremendous focus and lends it a great competitive advantage. Members
who are the part of this company use a wide array of services such as including credit
cards, checking accounts and saving accounts.
Technology innovator
Weakness
The Company only focuses on giving the insurance plans to the military families. As the
company is only targeted to a particular group of people or customers it leaves it with
little or no scope for expansion and increasing its customer base. The sole objective of
the company is to reach out to all the military forces, officials and its families, provide for
them and besides that it doesn’t have much opportunity for expansion. There are many
competitors which are arising in the financial sector so now even if the company wishes
to expand and give service to the common people other than the military forces and
their families then they have to overcome many regulatory and legal hurdles to emerge
as a commercial financing company for the common people.
No online presence
The Company doesn’t use social media which can help in the advancement of the
marketing strategies laid by the company. In recent times, the company is mulling to
increase its engagement and dialogue through social media. Through these they are
now able to increase their targeting capabilities. Video chat is just an example of recent
innovations USAA has implemented ahead of its competitors to accommodate
communications for its highly stressful and busy military forces and their families. Since
its members tend to need remote access to financial products earlier and more often
than civilians, USAA dives into new technology by necessity. USAA tried innovations
such as mobile check deposit and Web banking early on to bring financial management
and transactions to soldiers in the field. The firm has a long-standing tradition of early
adoption, and was a quick mover into older remote access modes such as phone
banking. USAA has also developed a mobile app for visually impaired persons. The
mobile application speaks during the check deposit process and guides users through
the program that's available on iOS and Android devices. It's a step beyond stand-alone
automated ATMs that customers can plug headphones into or use the Braille enabled
keypad
Opportunities
USAA is a fully established financial services company. They have built their reputation
by catering only to the needs of prior and current military and their dependents. They
can consider expanding membership opportunities or providing additional services in
order to increase revenue. Now the company is including the military retirees regardless
of when they have retired. Even the widows or widowers of the military personnel who
were killed in some war or military expeditions are also being included in the
membership. It has also included military personnel who were honorably discharged on
or after Jan 1, 1996. At USAA’s Home Office in San Antonio, 1,500 insurance and
information technology staff will soon relocate to newly constructed space nearby at the
Vista Corporate Center and in West Ridge. USAA currently employs nearly 19,000 in
the area. In Plano, the project will create a new 150,000-sq.-ft. office building adjacent
to USAA’s existing building in the Legacy Corporate Center. It will provide room for 850
workers when completed in early 2019.
Threats
Operating in the insurance business, USSA needs to store, process and transmit a
large amount of data which includes the information about the members associated with
the company. This member data is sensitive and confidential and most transactional
operations are done using analytics. In doing so the Company employs its in-house
technology and at time technology from third party vendors. Unauthorized disclosure of
data or leakage of data is possible in many ways such as system failure, employee
negligence, fraud and misappropriation or unauthorized access into the system by the
employees of the company or the other third parties including cyber-attacks by hackers.
Such a disclosure, harm, security breach or system failure can lead to the loss of
reputation of the company with significant monetary losses and damage, litigation,
negative publicity, fines, criminal prosecution etc.
In March 2010, USAA Federal bank notified the Maryland Attorney General’s Office of
an incident involving unauthorized access to and misuse of customer data that occurred
on February 23. According to their notification, the fraud was traced back to an
employee of an unnamed third party vendor. The vendor reportedly assured USAA that
the employee was terminated on February 24. USAA notified both the Maine Attorney
General’s Office and the Maryland Attorney General’s Office that an employee of a third
party vendor had compromised a customer’s account on April 8. In their report to
Maryland, they note that this incident was related to the incident report that they had
filed in March.
Government regulations
In raising short-term interest rates in mid-December, the Fed (federal Reserve Board)
followed its goal of three rate hikes in 2017. With some disturbances in the U.S
economic scenario Fed has increase the rates in 2018. This has impacted the share
and the bond markets. But while the Fed controls rates for Treasuries with very short
maturities, the rates on longer-term bonds are determined by the market. Lowering the
corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% would provide significant cash flow and bottom-line
boost, as would a low one-time tax on trillions of dollars in profits now held overseas.
These events would, however, be priced in fairly quickly, so the result may only be a
short-term jolt for share prices. We may be seeing that jolt now — in the fourth quarter
through mid-December, the Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) index was up more than
6.5%.
PESTEL Analysis
Political Economic
Social Technology
Environment Legal
Government system
A lot of changes and transitions are due in the government in the near future which will
impact the market in major ways. USAA has to be prepared to face these changes as it
can lead to change in priorities in the sector. Over the last few years the company has
benefitted from low taxation policies laid by the government throughout the western
countries. It has earned great profits for the company and USAA has spent a huge
amount of money in research and development. Based on some data in the resource
allocation there won’t be much change. The present governance system is undergoing
a lot of changes for which the company has to keep an eye on it to overcome any
hurdles. Few government regulations have been issued but are not yet effective for the
company such as
Statement disclosures as needed. The financial impact of adopting the ASU is yet to be
determined. Implementation efforts for the ASU are on target for adoption by the
effective date
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/vprr/1800/18005956.pdf
Economic
The second positive about the CPI is that it’s within the Fed’s (Federal Reserve Board)
target of 2%. A CPI significantly above 2% would raise fears of strong wage inflation,
which would hurt corporate revenues. It would also suggest that the Fed would raise its
target for short-term interest rates more aggressively than expected in 2018. That, in
turn, would raise fears of a recession and a market decline. Inflation is one part of a
larger story that can support stocks. Corporate earnings are moving higher, and labor
productivity is on the verge of improving significantly. Historically, there’s a strong
correlation between the direction of earnings and the direction of the stock market. They
tend to move in the same direction.
Domestic equities fell sharply during the fourth quarter, leaving major indices with
losses for calendar year 2018. The downward trend for stocks began in October on
concerns that the U.S. Federal Reserve (the Fed) would exceed expectations with
respect to the pace of interest rate increases in 2019. In addition, uncertainty
surrounding U.S. trade policy, the U.S. government shutdown, and a softer outlook for
2019 economic growth and corporate earnings weighed on investor sentiment into year
end. While the Fed raised the benchmark overnight lending rate by a quarter point in
mid-December to the 2.25% to 2.5% range, the central bank signaled that, if anything,
its rate hike plans for the coming year would most likely be scaled back. On the trade
front, despite initial positive reports coming from the G-20 summit, investors questioned
whether additional progress on trade would be made before the March 1 deadline.
Lastly, as investors moved into more defensive sectors during the past three months,
value stocks outpaced growth stocks. Against this backdrop, the USAA Growth &
Income Fund posted disappointing quarterly performance.
Social
The demographics of the population, meaning their respective ages and genders, vastly
impact whether or not a certain product may be marketed to them. Makeup is mostly
catered to women, so targeting a majority of male population would mean lesser
numbers than targeting a population that is mostly female. USAA would be unable to
promote a premium product to the general public if the majority of the population was a
lower class; rather, they would have to rely on very niche marketing. To some extent,
the differences in educational background between the marketers and the target market
may make it difficult to relate to and draw in the target market effectively. USAA should
be very careful not to lose the connection to the target market's interests and priorities.
USAA needs to be fully aware of what level of health standards, reactions to
harassment claims and importance of environmental protection prevail in the industry as
a whole, and these are expected from any company as they are seen as a norm.
Technological
Technology can rapidly dismantle the price structure and competitive landscape of an
industry in a very short amount of time. It thus becomes extremely important to
constantly and consistently innovate, not only for the sake of maximizing possible profits
and becoming a market leader, but also to prevent obsolescence in the near future. The
recent technological developments and breakthroughs made by competitors, as
mentioned above. If USAA encounters a new technology that is gaining popularity in the
industry in question, it is important to monitor the level of popularity and how quickly it is
growing and disrupting its competitors’ revenues. This would translate to the level of
urgency required to adequately respond to the innovation, either by matching the
technology or finding an innovative alternative.
Employing digital methods to communicate with consumers
The impact of the technology on the costs that most companies in the industry are
subject to have the potential to increase or reduce the resulting profits greatly. If these
profits are great in number, they may be reinvested into the research and development
wing, where future technological innovations would further raise the level of profits, and
so on, ensuring sustainable profits over a long period of time. USAA offers many
services including a mix of insurance, financial management, mortgage, and auto loan
and banking services, almost through virtual networks such as mobile devices and web.
Most of the centers of the company are nearer to the military bases which are regulated
through remote access technology and videos in order to expand the business at
minimum cost. Now USAA is working in the projects to facilitate one to one video, web
bandwidth agility, data analytics, contextual web marketing and voice automated
response. The online banking sites looks more like an app and the company is
attempting in making the mobile phones and tablets to be the banking channels in its
own way. 93% of USAA's total member base was digitally active in 2018. USAA
members launched the organization’s virtual agent, EVA, 34M times in 2018. On a
monthly basis, 2.2M members exclusively use mobile; a 27% increase over 2017. In
2018, USAA Labs had 7,600+ employee submissions and implemented 1,172+ new
ideas to the benefit of members and employees. 87% of employees participated in
employee innovation in 2018. USAA helps stop 13M+ cyber-attacks and prevents $11.1
million in fraud loss daily.
Along with cutting down operational costs and ensuring fast, reliable, and secure
applications, blockchain has the potential to disrupt existing business models in
several ways.
With blockchain, the distributed ledger technology (DLT) which ensures that
digital data is safe, there are fewer chances of identity theft or fraud (e.g.
Everledger, BlockVerify). In the US, insurance fraud is estimated to be over
$80 million and, in the UK, it is around £2.1 billion.
This is the surest way to better customer experience, especially to deal with
irritated customers expected to submit some zillion documents (say, KYC)
many times. Automating processes such as validating identity, health and
police records, etc. not only reduces admin costs but also improves customer
engagement.
IoT devices, sensors, and telematics have been fast gaining adoption in t he
insurance sector. Several data streams and sources (wearables, sensors
embedded in vehicles, location-based sensors, GIS) coupled with advanced
analytics can help insurers improve risk assessment, price policies based on real
data in real time, and proactively encourage customers to buy policies for loss
prevention.
Environmental
Taking care of our members means taking care of the communities where we operate.
This includes adopting greener business practices while staying mindful of our fiscal
responsibility to the membership. Sustainability can improve the health and mood of
those in the community.
They have mailed over 168 million paper documents at a cost of about $118.4 million.
USAA saves more than 130 million gallons of Edwards Aquifer water a year through
recycling efforts at our home office.
They've used recycled water on their landscaping since 2004, saving 70 million gallons
annually, and they have now utilized recycled water for their building's cooling towers,
conserving another 60 million gallons per year.
That's the equivalent of 10 feet of water across more than 350 basketball courts.
In 2017, they had energy savings of 4.8%, or 7.7 million kilowatt hours. That's the
same as the annual energy usage of 715 single-family homes. The McDermott
Building, their headquarters in San Antonio, is the largest financial office building in
America to earn the ENERGY STAR certification award from the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency.
https://www.usaa.com/inet/wc/about-usaa-environmental-commitment
Legal
USAA in 2017 has faced a $1.8 million verdict by a South Texas jury after one of its
customers — who is a litigation attorney — won a lawsuit that accused the company of
fraud stemming from a disputed hail storm damage claim.
John Griffith — principal of The Griffith Law Group, a McAllen-based firm — filed the
lawsuit in Hidalgo County District Court against Texas Lloyd's Co., which is a subsidiary
of USAA, alongside Boerne insurance adjuster AllCat Claims Service LP. The lawsuit
claimed the defendants intentionally undervalued the cost of damages to his home
during the inspection process. Griffiths’ attorney — Gregory Cox at Mostyn Law, a firm
headquartered in Houston — suggested that it's a systematic issue at USAA.
The jury verdict, which is related to a storm in 2012, comes as the San Antonio-based
insurance company has been dealing with an influx of insurance claims after a Texas
hail storm in 2016 damaged many homes and vehicles in Bexar County.
The jury decided that USAA, which serves members of the military and their
dependents, didn't follow its own homeowner’s insurance policy, engaged in deceptive
acts or practices, and failed to produce a prompt, fair and equitable settlement of the
claim. Moreover, the jury determined that the company knowingly made false
statements.
References:
https://communities.usaa.com/t5/Market-Commentary/Inflation-Report-Looming-
Rise-in-Labor-Appear-Positive-for-Bull/ba-p/167515
https://communities.usaa.com/t5/Market-Commentary/2018-Investment-
Outlook/ba-p/155345
https://www.usaa.com/inet/wc/mc_0037
https://communities.usaa.com/t5/Market-Commentary/Global-Growth-Is-
Complicated-for-Commodities/ba-p/148265
https://www.americanbanker.com/news/usaa-ordered-to-improve-risk-
management-information-security
https://www.thezebra.com/insurance-news/3996/government-affect-pay-car-
insurance/
https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/reform/resplans/plans/usaa-idi-1512.pdf
https://content.usaa.com/mcontent/static_assets/Media/usaa_directors_code_of_
conduct.pdf?cacheid=426744735_p
https://communities.usaa.com/t5/Market-Commentary/2018-Investment-
Outlook/ba-p/155345
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150105005901/en/Protection-1-
Joins-USAA-Strategic-Alliance-Relationship
https://thefinancialbrand.com/75192/usaa-financial-brand-loyalty-customer-
satisfaction/
https://content.usaa.com/mcontent/static_assets/Media/mf_arpt_37732.pdf
https://thefinancialbrand.com/75192/usaa-financial-brand-loyalty-customer-
satisfaction/
https://moneyinc.com/usaa/
https://www.usaa.com/inet/wc/advice-real-estate-technology-changing-home-
buying?akredirect=true
https://www.americanbanker.com/news/how-usaa-innovates-online-banking
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2016/07/12/usaa-crafts-
smartphone-app-technology-for-visually.html
https://rctom.hbs.org/submission/usaa-a-leader-in-financial-services-digitization/
https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/reform/resplans/plans/usaa-idi-1807.pdf
https://unmetric.com/brands/usaa
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20080811005080/en/USAA-Expands-
Membership-Eligibility
https://communities.usaa.com/t5/USAA-News/USAA-to-Expand-Offices-Staff-for-
Growing-Membership/ba-p/135990
https://content.usaa.com/mcontent/static_assets/Media/USAA_Fact_Sheet_By_t
he_numbers.pdf?cacheid=1627376398_p
https://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/usaa-an-insurance-club-that-just-
got-bigger/
https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/local/article/USAA-expands-board-
eligibility-13186302.php