LAS VEGAS-Credit Union Journal asked attendees of the recent NACUSO Annual Conference: How is your credit union leveraging its CUSO and/or membership in a CUSO to drive growth in 2010?
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We drive growth in a couple different ways: One, through the Auto Center we are offering our members a different method to buy new or used cars. It expands convenience and gives them options, so we feel we can drive membership growth. Two, on the insurance side, we are driving deeper value by helping members save money by getting auto and homeowners insurance through their credit union. We are offering about $500 per year in savings, which we are using to expand our membership base throughout our field of membership.
Anne Benjamin
executive director, RCU Services Group
CUSO of Redwood CU
Santa Rosa, Calif.
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Our agents go with new membership staff during visits to SEGs or potential SEGs. We present a value-added proposition: not just banking products but insurance products as well, auto and homeowners.
Our CUSO has only been around a couple of years. We are seeing more real estate lending activity recently and auto loan activity is up compared to the last two years, so our insurance sales are up as conditions improve. Home values depend on the neighborhood-some are still depressed but others are coming back.
William Sass
property and casualty insurance manager
Premier America CU
Chatsworth, Calif.
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We do a lot of things with our CUSOs-we are up to eight now. We use them to generate non-interest income. They offer products that add to member benefit. In 2010 we launched MaPS Building Partners, which is a way of raising secondary capital by selling the administration building back to the membership.
Another new CUSO is CU Insurance Alliance, which is an insurance brokerage that is owned by multiple credit unions. The investor credit unions buy insurance products collectively, which allows them to gain scale, and the majority of the income is returned to the owners. The insurance CUSO is probably the coolest thing we have done.
David Deckelmann
VP of operational subsidiaries for MaPS Service Agency
MaPS CU
Salem, Ore.
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Our CUSO is mostly insurance, so we are educating and empowering members and employees by doing insurance analyses. We do training, branch visits and online communications, but the main task is to identify gaps in coverage and make recommendations. We offer auto, home, life, Medicare and long-term care insurance, and we will be rolling out our disability product soon.
The analyses are working very well. The agents can tell people where they are at risk. The employees cannot stop talking about what a valuable service it is, and if they buy in it allows us to really get the message across to the members.
Tami Tingey
relationship manager, Mountain America Insurance
CUSO of Mountain America CU
Salt Lake City
