AAA NCNU Insurance Exchange Reviews

Pros

AAA NCNU has excellen pay, great benefits, including medical, dental, vision, 401K plan with 6% matching plan, Pension Plan (for those long-time employees), travel benefits, and more!

Cons

The sales management team and senior leaders are not nice people! The company is all about insurance, so if you are a customer service savvy individual or if you aren't into insurance, I wouldn't think twice about being part of this company.
Additionally, you receive very little favorable feedback, the company is always reorganizing, and the senior managers like to belittle you.

Advice to Senior Management

Have compassion for the employees! Be a great place to work for -- give the employees good feedback, allow them to voice their opinions without fear of retaliation, and decide on a long-term strategy that you'll stick with.

Pros

Great people, lots of resources, interesting work

Cons

constant re-organizations, lots of bureaucracy

Pros

Great products & excellent service for insureds. Decent benefits, good work/life balance, dedicated employees despite major deficiencies in senior management skills, attitude, and behavior. Senior management is very arrogant and guided by egoism.

Cons

Multiple reorganizations (which indicate senior and middle management's inability to stick with a decision or plan) leaves employees very distrustful and in a constant state of flux over job instability. Layoffs of knowledgable employees followed by hiring contractors to replace them has led to many employees leaving the organization due to extreme dissatisfaction with the current regime. Egos and decisions based on emotion rather than facts is evidence of a poor management team.

Advice to Senior Management

Stick to your commitments! Stop the numerous re-organizations...updating the functional org chart has become a full-time job for some. Aligning the Project Management Office with Finance (rather than IT when the bulk of projects are IT projects) was and still is a disaster, resulting in several of the top Project Managers resigning out of disgust for the lack of awareness and appreciation of the very skilled IT Project Managers. Case in point: Upon hearing that a project sponsor was unhappy with the project manager, the PMO manager stated in a meeting attended by several people, "No, don't tell them, just let them fall flat on their face." What kind of support is that?? Mr. Gafney: You brought excellent experience to AAA NCNU but why can you not see, and dispense of, the petty-minded and unsupportive managers that poison the organization? A chain is only as strong as the weakest link, and there are several weak links in your midst. Please strengthen the chain in what used to be a great place to work.

Pros

Accrue lots of PTO. Somewhat flexible work schedule.

Cons

Benefits get worse each year. Raises get worse each year. Salaried employees get more and more work dumped on them as time passes. Paid far less than other companies pay for comparable job. Every supervisor gives you a different answer to the same question. There are weak supervisors that constantly override employees to satisfy complaining insureds despite what the policy says.

More and more phone time for "senior representatives". We are more of a call center rep at this point than an actual claims adjuster. Now they have us on schedules telling us when we have to be on the phone and when we have to take lunch. They want you to do extra things to get a larger raise but there is no time to do anything but sit at your desk and answer phone calls and try to work claims.

Advice to Senior Management

Be prepared for when the economy turns around because there is going to be a mass exodus of talented casualty adjusters that are sick of doing three jobs and only getting paid to do one.

Pros

Free AAA membership for employees

Cons

Well the 2012 benefits came out. I guess if you live in California you did okay. The rest of the locations got screwed. Deductibles of up to $8000! Oh and they took away FSA from one of the plans. But you can contribute up to $6,500 to the other plan. AAA says they'll give us about $2,100 towards that FSA, but you still have thousands to come up with. Do they realize this is money coming out of our paychecks? The economy sucks and they do this to us. Lord forbid if you had to have emergency surgery. It would come out of your pocketbook. Of course, we heard about the Obama health plan and how it made it worse. Funny, other insurance companies don't have that issue. We've been checking with employees at other locations. No change in their plans. Why is it the people who make the most money (California people) get the cheapest and best insurance plan? Kaiser Permanente is in other areas. So raises get lower every year, our deductible has skyrocketed, you now want us to take more money out of our paychecks and live how???? If you don't care about the other Centers, then close them and move it all back to California.

Advice to Senior Management

How about the upper 25% money earners give up their bonuses this year, and that money be distributed to the employees towards their deductible. That would be a great gesture in showing you care about us. Get a new HR director. Apparently this one doesn't know how to negotiate insurance for employees.

Pros

really great place to work.

Cons

Its a real busy place. lots of change at the moment. if you like busy you will like aaa.

Advice to Senior Management

focus on less. less is more. we all need to get along.

Pros

Senior managment is extremely bright, and recognize good leaders within the organization. There are lots of opportunities for advancement as an analyst.

Cons

The company is very lean for the size of the organization. Work life balance is difficult due to the volume of projects.

Pros

PTO, educational oppportunities, insurance and membership discounts

Cons

Too many managemenr and structural changes too quickly; 'brain drain' when laying off dedicated and knowledgeable employees; staff morale is at it's lowest...when visitiing a local office on the Peninsula, no one smiled, said hello or made the customers feel welcome. It's almost like the customer was an imposition. Employees have lost professionalism and banter back and forth about personal stuff in front of the customer. As a formwr employee, I was embarrassed to witness this. AAA used to be the best, but now I wonder if it is imploding.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire back managers who know AAA and can bring back the 'spark'. Consider not having goals for the front line and them holding them accountable for lack of walk-in opportunities. Bring back some form of claims rep to the local offices; it's what made AAA different and brought lots of sales opportunities into the offices. And Senior Executives should not be given bonuses for anything; they don't deserve them.

Pros

Competitve benefits, 401k plan available, nice PTO plan

Cons

Continuous cycle of reorganizing, unacceptable computer technology, frontline staff not recognized for their efforts, fewer employees with higher work demands and cut hours.

Advice to Senior Management

With 25+ years of service I have seen many changes in AAA NCNU mission statements, I have not seen any come to fruition. As an employee if we do not attain our goals, we are placed on corrective actions. As leaders if you can not lead employees to success you too should be held accountable. I agree there is a need for change, too many changes so quickly is very distracting for both employees and members. Find a path and stay with it, focus focus focus

Pros

Very well known brand with customer loyalty
Benefits package such as 401k with match, retirement plan, & healthcare benefits are quite generous for entry level
Loss ratio is among the lowest in the entire industry
Tendency to hire from within

Cons

A very sleepy company lacking in talent throughout. Employee quality is very low due to brain drain, lower cash compensation, & chaotic work environment

Agent compensation is comparatively lower that other companies.
Veterans from rank and file to senior management are set in their ways
Widespread systematic disorganization. Multiple systems & department are segregated
Jealousy, mistrust, and feelings of entitlement due to seniority from employees (top to bottom)
Company is not run as a for profit business, although it is a not for profit. Wasteful spending.
Veteran senior management is not familiar with dealing with the current economic slowdown.

Fresh management from outside AAA usually come from outside the insurance industry, creating problems.

Advice to Senior Management

You face a big challenge with your usual hearts & minds battle. Concentrate on agent compensation/satisfaction. Compensation for renewals is too low, incentives for keeping agents in touch with clients is good. Claims through an agent in some form is important since it provides a more pleasing client experience. Claims is centralized and better than the office issues but having claims adjusters in direct communication with agents may improve service greatly. (mobile claims is preferred) Slowly change culture. Use industry experienced third party to screen and hire employees. Identify top talent from within and promote and the same time layoff "entitlement/prima donna" workers. Each office must some seasoned managers from OUTSIDE the company, but they must be charming and well liked in order to prevent panic and feelings of jealousy. Cut costs by selling the most expensive properties and repurchase cheaper/ smaller yet more efficient locations.