Michigan Credit Union League's CUcorp and the Auto Club Group's AAA Michigan have teamed up to promote each others' services to their respective members.
As part of the arrangement called Members Together, AAA Michigan has agreed to cut ties with its banking partners and instead refer its members interested in investment products and services only to Michigan's credit unions.
"That's the true strength of this agreement," said Dave Adams, CEO of CUcorp and the Michigan Credit Union League. "Triple A has agreed to exchange those bank product referrals with credit union referrals."
In return, AAA Michigan gets solid backing by the CU industry to help strengthen its own consumer reach and give it an edge over its competitors.
"State Farm and AAA run neck-and-neck as the leading provider of auto insurance," Adams said, noting that State Farm has had the added advantage of backing by a "very large bank." By teaming up with Cucorp, he said, Michigan credit unions become the equivalent of State Farm's banks for AAA Michigan.
The agreement effective Feb. 1, CUcorp will promote AAA Michigan as the preferred provider for travel, insurance and investments. In return, AAA Michigan will showcase Michigan CUs as the preferred solution for deposit products, consumer loans, mortgage loans and other depository institution services.
Adams said more than 260 Michigan credit unions already market AAA Michigan products to their members.
"This agreement will create a new model that is more credit-union friendly, allowing greater opportunities for the promotion of credit union services to AAA Michigan club members."
Steve Wagner, SVP of Field Operations for ACG, said the partnership is designed to "integrate members of Michigan CUs and members of AAA into a common group of consumers with easy access to the full benefits that each organization provides."
Adams said the Members Together partners have created an advisory group that will continue to discuss ways for the two organizations to benefit each other.
Marketing materials to promote the partnership and each group's product and service lines are in the works and will be distributed via CUs, call centers and AAA Michigan locations.
Adams said the group is also discussing the possibility of opening shared service centers in some or all of AAA Michigan's 156 field offices.
