CUNA Mutual Insurance Review & Complaints: Life, Home, Auto & Supplemental Health Insurance

CUNA Mutual Group is a financial company offering products specifically to cooperatives and credit unions, and to their members. They have a range of products, from retirement plans and life insurance products to home insurance, auto insurance, and supplemental health insurance.

CUNA Mutual Group is the marketing name for CUNA Mutual Holding Company, a mutual insurance holding company, its subsidiaries and affiliates.

What is CUNA Mutual Group?

CUNA stands for Credit Union National Association, and the company was founded in 1935 in Madison, Wisconsin. They serve more than 95% of the credit unions across the United States offering services and products for both staff and members.

CUNA Mutual Group’s insurance brand is called TruStage, and through it, the company offers insurance products and lines of insurance including auto, home, life, and supplemental health insurance coverage. To apply for CUNA Mutual insurance, you must be a member of an associated credit union.

The website is very much geared towards credit unions directly and not individuals, and indicates that products are sold through credit union leaders rather than agents, brokers, or directly online. The website does not make it convenient to reach the individual website for their actual insurance products, which is completely separate.

You can read our TruStage insurance agency review in full here.

What types of CUNA insurance products are offered?

The CUNA website offers very little information regarding their products, reinforcing the impression that it is not a resource for customers.

It lists life, auto & home, accidental death & dismemberment, and health insurance all as products it offers, however, the product sheets do not provide further information about plan offerings or options.

Everything on the insurance program page is focused on marketing to the credit unions themselves, rather than providing actual information. After some searching, we moved on to the TruStage website, which is completely separate from the CUNA Mutual Group site.

This site lists each of the products offered and encourages credit union members to call a toll-free number for more information on product availability. The only section with more information is life insurance, but this is still limited.

This site also makes it clear that many of CUNA’s products are actually offered through other companies. Auto insurance, for example, redirects to the Esurance website.

Does CUNA offer competitive rates?

The only online quoting for CUNA is for a simplified issue term life insurance policy. A $100,000 term insurance policy for a 30-year-old in California came out to $42.50 a month. We have seen similar policies offered at a fraction of this amount.

We were unable to obtain any other rates for CUNA, although they promise large savings – for example, they estimate an average of $509 in savings for their auto and home program.

Unfortunately, without numbers, we are unable to speak as to the accuracy of this claim.

Can claims be filed online?

We were unable to find any information including a valid email address or valid phone number or even the online process for claims on the TruStage website. Since many of their products actually appear to be underwritten and issued by other companies, it is likely that claims are handled by those companies and not by CUNA or TruStage.

Are ratings and consumer reviews positive?

CUNA Mutual Life has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), and there are no complaints or reviews on file in the past three years. This is likely in part due to the fact that they sell mainly through credit unions and not directly to customers. The brand name TruStage is the name most customers are more likely to know.

Confirming that guess, the TruStage BBB file does have 25 complaints in the past three years, and an A+ rating as well.

There is one review for CUNA listed on Pissed Consumer, however, it does not refer to insurance; this complaint is about financial products.

The Bottom Line

Customers are most likely to come to CUNA Mutual/TruStage through their credit union. The service is really more of an agency than it is an insurance company, and what little information we were able to obtain did not indicate the kind of cost savings CUNA promises. That said, if your credit union offers a quote, it might be worth a look, as affinity discounts with companies like Esurance can make a difference.

CUNA Mutual also offers a full range of financial services ranging from 401K plans, insurance, guaranteed asset protection, and much more.