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USAA started selling its own business insurance policies in 2021. And in insurance, where lots of companies have been operating for a century or more, five years is a blip. The company’s market share remains tiny. It only offers a handful of policies and publishes little information online about their features.
USAA’s personal insurance side has better bona fides. It’s served military families for more than 100 years. Auto and home insurance customers generally speak highly of USAA.
But if you own a business, you likely can’t get all the policies you need from USAA. When possible, we recommend working with one carrier. USAA doesn’t underwrite workers’ comp, commercial auto or professional liability insurance. If you need those, start elsewhere.
USAA is also a membership organization. It’s free to join, but you must be eligible (most qualify through military affiliation or federal employment). Odds are you know that if you’re considering them for coverage. Still, this differs from other insurers.
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USAA business insurance pros and cons
Pros
Superior financial strength ratings.
Well-regarded among veterans.
Cons
Offers few specialized policies, like liquor liability insurance.
Refers customers to third-party insurance companies for most types of coverage.
What USAA business insurance does well
Financially strong, manageable customer complaints
USAA’s parent company earns the highest possible rating from AM Best, a credit rating agency. That means the company will likely be able to withstand economic shocks, like a disaster that requires it to pay out lots of claims at once.
USAA general liability insurance customers also filed relatively few complaints with state regulators between 2022 and 2024, compared to what we’d expect given USAA’s market share. Commercial property customers filed slightly more complaints than we’d expect.
Financial strength and customer complaints are the two most important factors in how we evaluate business insurance companies. Being good at both — as USAA is — typically means an insurer is a safe bet.
Where USAA business insurance falls short
Third-party underwriting for some policies
Until 2021, USAA didn’t underwrite any of its own business insurance policies. Five years later, the company still refers shoppers to other insurance companies for many policies. Those include options many businesses need, like professional liability insurance, workers’ comp and commercial auto insurance.
Referral models like this can introduce confusion in the shopping process. USAA’s quote flow (more on that below) kicks you to other websites, for instance. That means you’re juggling multiple tabs and prices. And if you buy one policy from USAA and another from a different insurer, you’ll have to deal with two different claims, billing and customer service processes.
In general, we recommend keeping as much of your insurance as possible with one company. USAA makes that difficult.
Coverage gaps
Even with support from third-party insurance companies, USAA doesn’t offer specialized types of coverage like liquor liability insurance or directors and offices insurance. Most companies don’t need that coverage. But insurance shoppers should notice their absence. If your business grows and you later need more insurance, you may not be able to stick with USAA.
Little online emphasis on entrepreneurs
USAA’s website contains almost no information about its business insurance services. That’s different from how it treats other types of insurance. USAA has dedicated FAQ pages for how to file auto and homeowners claims, for instance.
That bare-bones approach is unusual compared to other insurers we cover. Even companies with multiple insurance lines, like Travelers, include details about their commercial claims process.
And though it’s a large financial services company, USAA doesn’t offer many other business services, like banking. (You can get business life and health insurance from USAA, though.)
In general, I’d push a business owner toward a company that specializes in serving entrepreneurs.
How we evaluated USAA business insurance
NerdWallet’s business insurance star ratings include these factors:
- Financial strength (33%). This tells us how likely an insurance company is to be able to pay out claims if there’s a major disaster or financial crisis. USAA got the highest rating possible from credit rating agency AM Best. Garrison Property and Casualty Insurance Company, the USAA subsidiary that underwrites its business insurance policies, is not currently rated.
- Customer complaints (33%). The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) collects data about how many complaints an insurer’s customers file. Compared to what we’d expect given its market share, USAA received fewer complaints about general liability insurance but more about commercial property insurance between 2022 and 2024.
- Purchase process (17%). Some businesses can get online quotes from USAA. But many have to call. Some paths also lead you to third-party insurance companies, which sell insurance policies USAA doesn’t. If you have a USAA agent, it’s probably best to start with them.
- Customer support (17%). USAA didn’t underwrite its own business insurance policies until 2021, and there still isn’t much information about them on company websites. It’s not clear how business customers file claims or pay their bills, for instance.
I take a few additional steps when writing reviews of business insurers. These don’t currently inform our star ratings, but you’ll see details about them below:
- Aggregating customer reviews and complaints. I used an AI tool to summarize what policyholders say about USAA on websites like Reddit, WalletHub and the Better Business Bureau. We don’t factor this feedback into star ratings because it’s usually anonymous and we can’t verify it. Plus, it can be tricky to identify posts about business insurance when an insurer also sells home, auto and life insurance. Still, this analysis offers some insight into customers’ experience with a company overall.
- Trying the online quote process. I got a quote for a hypothetical marketing consulting business to see what products USAA offers, how they present them and when they refer customers to other insurance companies.
What small-business owners think about USAA business insurance
There aren’t many people talking about USAA business insurance online. That might be because it’s relatively new and still has little market share. But plenty of people have discussed their experiences with USAA auto and home insurance. Here are the themes that stood out to me most:
👍 Easy claims experiences
Auto and home policyholders on Reddit say USAA handled their claims efficiently and professionally. They say claims staffers were knowledgeable and responded quickly, and they generally received payouts that felt fair.
People complain too, of course. But after reviewing online sentiment for multiple insurers, I find people praising their insurance company online at all to be relatively rare. Positive reviews for a company’s service says a lot.
👎 Rising costs for declining experiences
Lots of personal insurance policyholders say they got better quotes from other home and auto insurance companies. Redditors say they once felt comfortable paying a little more for good service. But they think the price difference has gotten too big to justify. And at the same time, some WalletHub reviewers who’ve been with USAA for decades feel the service isn’t what it used to be.
What business insurance policies does USAA sell?
USAA offers:
- General liability insurance.
- Excess commercial and property insurance.
The company says you can add lots of coverages to a BOP. These include:
- Commercial crime insurance.
- Computer fraud and funds transfer coverage.
- Employee benefits liability insurance.
- Employee dishonesty coverage.
- Hired and non-owned auto insurance.
USAA also operates an insurance agency that sells policies from other insurance companies. Through that, you can buy:
- Workers’ comp.
- Commercial auto insurance.
- Cyber insurance.
- Professional liability insurance.
How to get USAA business insurance
You can get a quote online from USAA. But it may point you to a policy from a different insurance company.
For my quote, I told USAA that I operate as a sole proprietor working out of my home in Chicago. I provide marketing consulting services and expect to earn $10,000 in revenue per year. I have no employees other than myself and no other locations. (I use this same information for each quote I get.)
After I shared all this, USAA invited me to choose which policy I wanted:
I clicked “show me additional coverage options.” These all come from different insurance companies.
For professional liability and workers’ comp, USAA redirected me to the website for The Hartford. For cyber liability and commercial auto, a pop-up invited me to call the USAA insurance agency.
Let’s say I just need a general liability insurance policy. I clicked back to a previous screen and selected general liability, without excess liability coverage.
As with other insurers, USAA asked whether I hire subcontractors, have had any claims in the last five years, own any other businesses and always ask for sign-off before sending final deliverables. (Presumably, that last one helps avoid professional liability claims, which this policy I’m buying wouldn’t cover.)
USAA offered me two options. The “premium package” includes three additional coverages. These are important for the construction industry, but less so for other businesses:
- Additional insureds. This is a way of extending your coverage to someone else, usually a landlord or contractor. It’s essential for construction businesses.
- Waiver of subrogation. If I add this, it means USAA agrees to not seek reimbursements from third parties. That generally means fewer legal claims. Some contractors and landlords require you to have this.
- Primary and noncontributory endorsement. This promises that my insurance policy will pay out first in claims that name me and another party. Again, this might be required by your contractor.
I don’t think my consulting business needs those extra coverages, so I chose the cheaper option.
Before checking out, USAA tried to upsell me on excess liability coverage one more time. This policy would add $1 million in coverage on top of my general liability policy. That probably isn’t necessary for businesses as small as this one. (The pessimist in me says USAA knows that, and that makes it a lucrative product for them.)
After I declined coverage, USAA redirected me to its member login page to finish the transaction. I’m not a USAA member, so I stopped there.
Methodology
Business insurance ratings methodology
NerdWallet rewards business insurance companies for reliability and good service. We calculate star ratings based on scores in about a dozen categories. These include:
- Each company's financial strength.
- How many complaints customers made relative to its market share.
- How easy it is to get coverage.
- How accessible customer service is.
Learn more about how we rate small-business insurance companies.
Our editorial team routinely fact-checks and updates these data points. We also adjust our scoring on an ongoing basis. This helps our star ratings reflect changing industry norms. For instance, in 2026, we began evaluating how easy insurers make it to add an additional insured.
Our ratings are a guide. But insurance policy details and prices can vary widely. We encourage you to shop around and compare several insurance quotes. NerdWallet does not receive compensation for any reviews. Read our editorial guidelines.
Insurer complaints methodology
One key factor in our star ratings is how many complaints insurance companies get. Here's how we arrive at that score.
Disappointed customers can file a complaint with their state's insurance department. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) collects, analyzes and groups complaints by business line and insurance company every year. A business line is a specific type of coverage, like workers’ comp.
Then, the NAIC calculates a complaint ratio for each company. It divides the company's share of complaints by its share of total premiums for each line of business. It then adds these ratio values to their official complaint index.
- A complaint ratio of 1 means a company received about the expected number of complaints relative to its size.
- A ratio of 2 means it received twice as many complaints as expected.
- A ratio of 0 means it received half as many complaints as expected.
NerdWallet obtains the raw NAIC data every year. We aggregate results at the company level and fact-check these results. Then we calculate a three-year average of each insurer's complaint ratio and convert it to a score for our star ratings.
Business insurance star ratings consider complaints about two lines of business: commercial liability and commercial property. We analyze complaint data on commercial auto and workers' comp policies too. But we don't currently incorporate these into our ratings since they're less universal.
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- 1. USAA. USAA Expands Product Offering to help Veteran Owned Businesses; Company to offer USAA Small Business Insurance. Accessed Jun 12, 2026.
