USAA Extended Warranty

Key Takeaways:

• USAA doesn’t offer new extended warranties, but honors its Comprehensive Protection plan or Manufacturer Wrap plan for current contract holders.
• Comprehensive Protection is a bumper-to-bumper warranty with a small list of excluded parts.
• Manufacturer Wrap Protection covers everything outside of your factory powertrain warranty.
• If you’re shopping for a new warranty, check out Endurance, ForeverCar, or CarShield.

USAA used to offer extended service agreements for cars that suffered mechanical breakdown. While the insurance giant no longer offers extended warranties, it will still honor contracts that were purchased prior to 2018. In this USAA extended warranty review, we’ll take a deeper look at the coverage that current USAA warranty customers have.

If you’re shopping for an extended warranty, our team of experts will run through a list of the best extended warranty companies we’ve researched. Our reviews team has put in 1,475 hours into researching 46 independent warranty companies. We’ve also surveyed roughly 2,000 past customers.

In 2018, USAA discontinued enrollment into its extended warranties for new customers, but continues to honor contracts currently in place. As far as we know, USAA has no current plans to recreate a new extended service contract program. 

USAA used to offer two bumper-to-bumper protection plans: Comprehensive Protection or Manufacturer Wrap Protection. The provider did not offer any powertrain plans, which are typically offered by most warranty companies. The chart below compares and contrasts what is normally covered by the two most common types of warranty plans. 

If you bought an extended warranty from USAA before 2018, chances are that you have one of the following coverage plans:

Comprehensive Protection

USAA’s signature bumper-to-bumper warranty, the Comprehensive Protection plan takes care of repairs for nearly all components of your vehicle, including the most expensive parts like the engine and transmission. As a bumper warranty, Comprehensive Protection is an exclusionary coverage, which means that if a component is not listed in the contract, you can consider it covered by USAA.

Manufacturer Wrap Protection

If the bumper-to-bumper warranty from your manufacturer was shorter than your factory powertrain warranty, the Manufacturer Wrap Protection plan helped close up that gap. The Manufacturer plan covered nearly everything except the components covered under whatever factory powertrain warranty your automaker provided.

This means that the Manufacturer Wrap Protection plan does not cover the engine, transmission, or drive axles. Drivers used to be able to buy this USAA service plan as long as they were 30 days or 1,000 miles from the expiration of their factory limited warranty.

Added Benefits

USAA extended warranty plans for military personnel and their families came with certain of benefits we haven’t seen offered by other companies. Below are some of the benefits offered by USAA’s previous plans:

• Rental car coverage: You can get up to $50 every day in rental car reimbursement for as many days as needed.
• Roadside assistance: If you break down on the side of the road, USAA provides services such as tows, fuel deliveries, and lockout assistance.
• Deployment coverage extension: During deployment, USAA will suspend the service contract for up to 15 months. When you get home, USAA will extend the expiration date of your agreement by the length of time you were deployed.

While most other providers provide rental car reimbursement, the norm is to reimburse for about $30 per day up to five days. USAA is the only company we know of with an unlimited number of days for rental car reimbursement.

Assurant Solutions was a third-party warranty provider that partnered with USAA and administered the insurance company’s extended service contracts. Assurant Solutions ended this partnership in 2018, and no longer administers these extended warranties. Normally, Assurant Solutions would be the company to handle the claims process.

If you’re a current USAA extended vehicle service contract holder and you need to file a claim for a mechanical breakdown, follow these steps:

1. Take the vehicle to the nearest repair facility. When there, provide a copy of the warranty agreement. 
2. Inform the repair facility that it will need to contact the administrator listed in your USAA warranty contract. It could be United Service Protection, Inc., a subsidiary of Assurant Solutions. The claims number should be written in the contract.
3. Review with the repair facility what will and won’t be covered by the agreement. It’s always good to be familiar with the exclusions in your contract.
4. Authorize the inspection of your vehicle by the repair facility. The administrator should get a copy of the signed authorization.
5. After the repair facility has completed the car repairs, review the work.
6. Pay the deductible and the costs for the non-covered repairs. If you’re required to foot the entire bill, the administrator will reimburse you for the covered repairs. If the repair facility gets into contact with the administrator early, the administrator will reimburse the repair facility directly.
7. Submit all repair orders and documentation to the administrator. This should be done within 90 days from the date the covered repairs were completed. Your submitted documents should contain the following information:
   • Your vehicle’s current odometer mileage
   • Your contract number
   • Your complaint
   • The cause of vehicle failure and your corrective action
   • The cost of the repair
   • The last eight digits of your vehicle identification number (VIN)
   • Your phone number

While car owners can no longer get extended warranty coverage from USAA, there are plenty of great independent warranty companies that our reviews team has heavily researched. On top of getting quotes from these companies, our team has surveyed over 2,000 extended warranty customers and combed through hundreds of online reviews on trusted industry sites like Trustpilot and the Better Business Bureau (BBB).

Endurance: Best Coverage

We’ve given Endurance our award of “Best Coverage” because we believe that the warranty provider has the most versatile set of protection plans on the market. Endurance offers six different coverage options that can work for drivers with different vehicle needs. It also offers vehicle service contracts for motorcycle and ATV drivers.

Endurance is one of the most popular warranty companies in the industry, with an overall rating of 4.0 out of 5.0 stars on Trustpilot. Part of its popularity is owed to its unique one-year package of Endurance Elite benefits, which include up to $500 in collision repairs and up to $1,000 in total loss replacement. Another reason for Endurance’s popularity is the fact that it is a direct provider, meaning it works directly with repair shops and there is no broker as a middle man. 

Keep reading: Endurance Warranty review

ForeverCar: Best Value

We award ForeverCar with “Best Value” for having above-average coverage at below-average rates. With ForeverCar, a bumper-to-bumper plan for a 2017 Honda CR-V with 45,000 miles is 45 percent cheaper in total cost than the exact same plan for the exact same car by Endurance. ForeverCar offers four solid protection plans from powertrain coverage to a bumper-to-bumper contract.

ForeverCar is a newer company but has gained a rising popularity over the years, as evidenced by the overall rating of 4.8 out of 5.0 stars on Trustpilot. This rating comes from over 4,800 reviews, 96 percent of which are hyper positive.

Keep reading: ForeverCar reviews

CarShield: Best Monthly Payments

CarShield is one of the most seasoned warranty providers from our recommendations, having logged fifteen years in the industry. While CarShield is a broker and not a direct provider like Endurance, the company offers month-to-month contracts at fairly low prices.

According to an extended warranty survey our team conducted in March of 2022, out of 1,000 respondents, 56 percent reported getting an extended warranty from CarShield. Its large popularity is attributed to its high number of protection plans. The broker has plans that can go to 300,000 miles, in fact–which makes CarShield one of the longest-warranty-term providers in the industry.

Keep reading: CarShield reviews
Compare: CarShield vs. Endurance

If you currently have a contract with USAA’s old extended service program, it’s either Manufacturer Wrap Protection or Comprehensive Protection. If you don’t have a warranty with USAA, you’ll have to turn to another company. 

Endurance, ForeverCar, and CarShield all have great reputations among industry rates and customers. Each offers great coverage at relatively affordable rates. It’s important to get quotes from these companies to compare providers.

Below are some common frequently asked questions about USAA’s extended warranties: