Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 11:49:38 -0400
Reply-To: David Beierl <synergx@IBM.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: David Beierl <synergx@IBM.NET>
Subject: Re: screwed part deux..the insurance
company'soffer??./salvagecert.???
In-Reply-To: <19990514123212.20088.rocketmail@send304.yahoomail.com>
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At 05:32 5/14/99 -0700, you wrote:
>How do you all get 15%? I only get 10%... I have been
>with them since 89, and I have gotten a refund check
>every year except for 92 & 93.
I think we may be conflating USAA and USAA-CIC here. USAA, I believe, has
the annual dividend, and USAA-CIC the occasional refund.
USAA membership is restricted to active-duty and retired (and maybe now
former?) military *officers* and has been around since maybe 1949? The
child-company, USAA-CIC was founded in mid-'70s and is open to current and
former dependants of USAA-eligible people (and their children, and their
children's children etc), and maybe others as well.
The basic principle (aside from military fraternity) is that actuarily
speaking military officers are low-risk drivers; by insuring only that
pool, and by imbuing the company with an attitude both familiar with and
sympathetic to the special needs of the military (doing almost all of their
business by phone, for example), they have achieved both excellent service
and very good rates. Every time in my recollection that Consumer Reports
looks at insurance of various types, USAA has shown up in the top couple of
slots for that type of insurance.
My father and most of my siblings are/were naval officers (I was the black*
enlisted sheep). They are very satisfied with USAA. I, as a former
dependant am very satisfied with USAA-CIC, even though they *don't* pay a
dividend every year.
* Yes, I really was. B/c of confusion btw "Caucasian" and "Colored," the
noble and great State of Maryland carried me on its license rolls as a
"race code A" (black, colored, American Negro) for eight years. Only two
people noticed: the clerk who corrected my renewal application, scratching
out C and writing in W (and muttering "you service boys are all the same
<g>) and later (b/c the state of Maryland ignored the corrected application
and simply reissued the license as before) the policeman in New York who
was coming out of the one-way street that I was turning in to (accident, I
assure you. I was an incorrigible speeder, and my maneuvering was such
that grown men had both a) demanded to be let out of the car and b) paid me
$5 for the ride and wanted to do it again -- seriously -- but I did *not*
abuse one-way streets. The very idea!). Anyway, the cop (remember the
cop?) kept doing this cyclic number on my face (high-color Nordic/Bavarian
face and bushy red beard), my Navy ID (picture and thumbprint), my Maryland
licence (little folded piece of yellow paper). He didn't say anything, but
ISdTM that his hand was getting nervous. Finally light dawned before he
shot me, and I explained. He let me off with a warning, unlike the judge
around that time who correctly judged that I had come to his court in
uniform to get sympathy, and gave it to me -- in spades!
Youth is wasted on the young... <g>
david
David Beierl - dbeierl@ibm.net
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