How do auto dividends work?
Learn what affects auto dividends and how to change the way you receive them on Manage Auto Dividend Preferences.
Video Duration: 1 minute 9 seconds
What’s an auto insurance dividend: Elapsed time 0 seconds [0:00]
If you receive communications from USAA about something called an auto insurance dividend, you may be thinking "what's this?"
To put it simply, it's our way of sharing our financial success with you our members by returning a percentage of your auto premium each year. The Board of Directors determines if and how much the company can share with qualifying members through an auto insurance dividend.
How to receive your funds: Elapsed time 23 seconds [0:23]
How you receive these funds is up to you. The fastest and safest way is to have it electronically deposited into your bank account or apply to your auto or property insurance bill.
But there are other options as well. You can set your preference by clicking "Edit preferences" next to this video.
Select "Edit" to change how you want to receive your dividend. Choose the preferred method and, if applicable, what account to distribute it to. Then click "Done" and that's it.
Be sure to review it each year, so we know how you'd like to get your disbursement.
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Dividend overview
It’s money you could get back from auto insurance premiums you paid between May 1 of last year and April 30 of this year.
Our board of directors reviews dividends every year and may approve them based on financial performance and capital needs. So they aren’t guaranteed.
If our board approves dividends for the year, you'll typically receive it in mid-December.
If we notified you about a dividend over a month ago and you still haven't received it, call us at 800-495-5957.
We may not have dividends every year. They’re a discretionary return of premiums.
Our board of directors has to approve them based on the company’s financial performance and capital needs.
They're not usually taxed, but you can consult a tax advisor for more information.
You can choose to get emails, texts or push notifications by updating your Delivery Settings.
If you don’t update your settings, we’ll mail your statement and a notification about your dividend to you.
You may get it because you have an auto policy with a USAA affiliated company that doesn’t participate in the subscriber’s account distribution.
Dividend delivery
Yes. You can either:
- Deposit the money into your USAA account or an external bank account through usaa.com or the USAA Mobile App.
- Or apply it to your USAA auto and property insurance bill.
To change your delivery settings, go to Manage Auto Dividend Preferences.
We no longer send physical checks in the mail for auto dividends.
You can change your preference until Dec. 1 every year.
Changes made after that date will apply to future dividends if they’re approved by the board of directors.
No. You only need to set it once.
If you don’t set a preference, we'll apply your dividend automatically to your auto and property insurance bill.
If you want your money electronically deposited into your USAA account or an external bank account, make sure we have your correct account information.
We may have applied it because:
- You haven’t updated your auto dividend preferences.
- Your account balance was past due.
- We had a problem processing your dividend.
Once your bank returns the money from it back to USAA, we’ll apply it to your auto and property insurance bill. If they don’t return the money to us, you should reach out to them about it.
To change how you get dividends in the future, go to Manage Auto Dividend Preferences.
Yes. We’ll apply the dividend to your next billing statement, and you’ll pay whatever is left over.
If you're on the automatic payment plan, the dividend will apply to your next billing statement.
We'll hold it for one monthly billing cycle. After that, if there's no new account activity, we'll pay it out to you.
If you have automatic payments from a checking or savings account, the money will go back to that account.
If your insurance bill is usually paid in full, you can have your distribution deposited into your account. This is the quickest way to get your money.
Set your delivery preference at Manage Auto Dividend Preferences.
No. We only apply dividends to policies that you pay directly to USAA.