USAA Extended Warranty: Plans And Cost
While the company honors previous contracts, USAA extended warranties aren’t available to new customers — check out Carchex, CarShield or Endurance instead.
With our #1 rated provider, 
Motor1 Reviews Team Take:
- USAA doesn’t offer new extended warranties, but the company 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, Carchex, 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 overview, 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 44 independent warranty companies. We’ve also surveyed roughly 2,000 past customers.
Does USAA Offer An Extended Warranty?
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 and 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.
Current Customers: USAA Extended Warranty Coverage
If you bought an extended warranty from USAA before 2018, chances are 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-to-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 that gap. The 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 four main benefits. The deployment coverage extension is a benefit unique to USAA. Below are the details on all four perks:
- Rental car coverage: If you end up without a car for an extended period of time, 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 towing, fuel delivery, 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.
- Travel/lodging: This covers travel costs if you have a breakdown far from home up to a limit.
While the norm for most other providers is to reimburse car rentals 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.
How To File An Extended Warranty Claim With USAA
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:
- Take the vehicle to the nearest repair facility. With USAA, you can take your vehicle to your favorite local ASE certified facility or back to your dealer. When there, provide a copy of the warranty agreement.
- 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.
- 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.
- Authorize the inspection of your vehicle by the repair facility. The administrator should get a copy of the signed authorization.
- After the repair facility has completed the car repairs, review the work.
- 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.
- 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: current odometer mileage, contract number, complaint, cause of vehicle failure and your corrective action, cost of the repair, last eight digits of your vehicle identification number (VIN), and your phone number.
Our research team frequently surveys extended warranty consumers to better understand what matters most to contract holders and how various providers handle the claims process. In a January 2024 survey, we had 30 respondents who still had USAA warranty coverage. Of those 30 respondents, 12 had experience submitting claims with USAA. Here’s what some of them had to say:
- “I had an issue with my starter that was promptly taken care of through my warranty.”
- “It was a great experience, no questions asked, and they wrote my check and got my vehicle [fixed in a] timely fashion.”
- “The dealership was frustrating to deal with, but the actual warranty company handled the issue easily.”
Best Companies Offering Extended Warranties
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). Below are some of our top options for extended car warranties: Endurance, Carchex, and CarShield.
Endurance
We’ve given Endurance our Best Coverage award because we believe that the warranty provider has the most versatile set of protection plans on the market. Endurance offers six coverage options that can work for drivers with different vehicle needs.
Endurance is one of the most popular warranty companies in the industry, with an overall rating of 3.6 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 middleman.
Keep reading: Endurance Warranty review
Carchex
We award Carchex our Best for Used Cars designation for having a variety of plans to cover cars with higher mileage. Carchex offers affordable coverage on average — its cost per year of coverage is about 21 percent lower than the competition. The company is also well regarded within the industry, earning a stellar A+ score from the BBB as well as being accredited by the institution.
Carchex offers 5 levels of coverage, including a powertrain warranty and an exclusionary plan.
Keep reading: Carchex warranty reviews
CarShield
CarShield is one of the most seasoned warranty providers from our recommendations, having logged eighteen 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.
In 2023, our team conducted a survey of 1,000 consumers across the U.S. who had purchased an extended warranty. When asked where they purchased coverage, 60 percent of respondents reported getting an extended warranty from CarShield. Its large popularity is attributed to its high number of protection plans and long coverage terms. The broker has plans that can cover vehicles up to 300,000 miles, making CarShield one of the providers with the longest warranty terms in the industry.
Keep reading: CarShield reviews
Compare: CarShield vs. Endurance
USAA Extended Auto Warranty: Conclusion
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, CarShield, and Carchex 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.
USAA Extended Car Warranty: FAQ
Below are some common frequently asked questions about USAA’s extended warranties:
What is extended vehicle protection from USAA?
USAA used to offer an extended vehicle protection program. USAA no longer offers this program to new customers but does honor contracts currently in place.
What is a fair price for an extended warranty?
A fair price for an extended warranty is anywhere between $1,500 to $4,000, depending on the level of coverage and the provider. This is the typical price range that many extended warranties fit into. We found Olive, Concord Auto Protect, and Toco offer cheap warranties.
Is an extended warranty worth buying?
An extended warranty may be worth buying if your vehicle is ten or more years old or has a mileage above 100,000. Vehicles with these ages and mileages tend to break down more often, and out-of-pocket repair costs can often outweigh the total prices of extended warranties. If your automaker brand is more well known for its vehicles suffering mechanical breakdowns and other issues, it may be worth it to get an extended warranty.
Methodology
In an effort to provide accurate and unbiased information to consumers, our expert review team collects data from dozens of extended auto warranty companies to formulate rankings of the best providers. Companies receive a score in each of the following categories, as well as an overall weighted score out of 5.0 stars.
- Industry Standing: Warranty providers with a history of strong business practices and endorsements from experts receive the highest scores in this category.
- Coverage: This rating is based on types of extended warranty plans available, coverage terms, and added benefits like roadside assistance.
- Cost: Our research team reviews sample quotes for a variety of plans and vehicles. Companies with lower prices per year of coverage receive the best scores.
- Transparency: This score takes into account contract transparency and the availability of a money-back guarantee.
- Customer Service: We comb through customer reviews and perform our own shopper analysis to get a sense of the responsiveness and helpfulness of each warranty company.
*Data accurate at time of publication.
