I have been using USAA for years, and I am beginning to use even more of there services than in the past. I think I started using USAA for my car insurance when I was 16, and never really knew anything about it or paid much attention to it as I never had a reason to call and at that time I wasn't paying for my own insurance. When I went to college, I moved all my banking to USAA, getting checking, savings, and a credit card through them. There bank by mail was easy to use and has only gotten better. I called them up at various times when I needed something awkward and they could always accommodate quickly and usually with out any extra fees. I remember two examples in college, which their banking helped me out. A friend needed $800 in cash in a very short amount of time to purchase a new motor cycle. My daily ATM withdraw limit was $200, I called up USAA at an ATM and they quickly approved a raised daily limit for a period of 24 hrs. I got the cash and it was never a problem. Another example was when I was moving a bunch of money around and at the time needed to write a check for more than I had in my checking account as I wouldn't have my rent checks from room mates for a couple days. I called an they just added the amount I needed to my checking from my credit card and since it was a 3 or 4 day thing, they didn't charge any cash advance or fees on my account.
During college I started to deal with my own car insurance, and had a few little mishaps with my car. Most notably I believe I locked myself out of my car 5 times in college. 4 of those times with the car running, because I am a pretty amazing person... Anyways, USAA with out fail would send out a locksmith quickly and cover the costs. Not only that they were polite and helpful the entire time, and never once called me an idiot for seeing that I had in one year locked my keys in my car 3 times. Something I truly did deserve, was mockery from USAA, but no they just took care of the problem.
During college I also transitioned away from depositing checks by mail, and begin depositing by scanning my checks. It was a simple process and got the money in my account faster than ever. I have deposited over 300 checks this way, and never had an issue.
After college, I had lent my friend my car to drive, and she was rear ended in my outback. It was a small accident that really just dented by back bumper. She was very concerned that it would be a big deal, but it really wasn't. USAA and the other insurance companies took care of everything quickly and with no cost to me. I think the bumper repair was $800 and taken care of in a couple days (once I finally took the time to take my beloved outback a repair shop)
The inevitable happened and I was finally in a car wreck myself. It wasn't a particularly bad one, but it did cause a lot of damage to my car. I won't really get into the details of the story here, but suffice to say nearly everyone though my car would be totaled, and I was supposed to be driving my car across country in about 2 weeks and didn't have much time to deal with the issue... USAA sent out someone to assess the damage on my car about 3 days after the accident. They thought it was close but decided to not total my car and pay for it to be repaired. I had a money in my checking account (minus my deductible) about 24 hours after that assessment. The assessment also included a recommendation of the repair shop I should take my car in to be fixed. I brought it in to Boulder Bump Shop, and they said they could get it back to me in 5 days. The car came back not just looking like the accident never occured, and was cleaner than it had been for a long time... At this point USAA is still working with the other insurance company to get back my deductible for me, since I was the victim car in the accident.
One point I have to make about my car accident was that I was about to get ticketed as well... Because, I didn't have any valid insurance on me during the accident. The insurance cards in my glove compartment had gone out of date and the cop was going to have to give me a ticket. I realized I could get to my insurance on my iPhone through USAA's excellent mobile website. I did while the cop was still dealing with the other driver to fill out paperwork. He accepted the pdf view of my insurance and didn't write me a ticket. Just another example of the nice touches USAA provides.
Normally I wouldn't look towards banks to be leading interesting technology, but USAA is on top of it. I have used many banks websites and they range from non functional, to barely usable in general. USAA 's website is amazing, it just makes managing everything extremely simple. Not only that I normally hear they have features way before other banks begin to support such things through their websites. I already covered the check scanning support, as well as the excellent mobile website, but USAA didn't stop there. USAA built an iPhone app, and it is really useful, but had one feature that blew me away. On my iPhone 3G, I was able to take a picture of the front and the back of a check and have it instantly deposited into my account. The iPhone 3G's camera isn't near the resolution as my scanner, I hadn't heard of anyone being able to do this feature, but USAA manages to happily suprise me yet again.
Anyways, what can I say, I love USAA. Every time I need them they are there for me. Every time I use a similar service from another company I am disappointed by the service. USAA just does an excellent job and has kept me extremely satisfied over the years. I really can't recommend USAA enough.