USAA will return a billion dollars to Florida members. This sounds generous until you remember insurance companies collect premiums specifically to pay claims. Returning money they didn't need to keep is called "doing their job correctly."
The dividend comes after legal reforms lowered costs. Translation: the state government made it harder to sue them and now they have extra cash lying around. They could pocket it. Instead they're giving some back and waiting for applause.
Nearly a billion dollars in savings. That's how much they overcharged in the first place. Imagine a restaurant billing you two hundred dollars for a burger, then a year later mailing you a fifty dollar check with a note saying "legal reforms helped us realize ground beef costs less than we thought."
CNBC gets the exclusive. A company announces it will do basic arithmetic and return overcharges. This warranted an exclusive report. The financial media woke up today and decided this qualified as breaking news worth special access.
Eligible Florida members will receive the money. "Eligible" does heavy lifting in that sentence. You paid premiums all year in a state famous for hurricanes and insurance companies fleeing the market entirely, but sure, let's focus on the feel-good dividend story.
Five hundred million as a direct dividend. The other five hundred shows up as "combined savings" which probably means they'll just charge you less money they shouldn't have been charging anyway.
USAA serves military members and their families. They overcharged people who signed up to get shot at for a living, then sent out a press release when they gave some of it back.
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