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what kind of company is usaa?
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the united services automobile association has a funny legal structure: it's not a corporation and has no shareholders. policyholders and account holders are paid any profits. in that respect, it functions very much like a credit union; technically, it's structured as a texas-based and texas department of insurance regulated unincorporated reciprocal inter-insurance exchange and fortune 500 financial services company offering banking, investing, and insurance to people and families that serve, or served, in the united states military. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/usaa normally a company like this is a corporation so that its owners can benefit from limited liability: otherwise, if the company loses millions or billions, any one of the individual owners / members could be held liable for paying those millions and billions! however, the texas laws which govern them as a texas-based inter-insurance exchange also serve to limit the liability of members. the banking services are provided by the usaa federal savings bank, which is structured as a  (drumroll) federal savings bank. they also own a couple of other random businesses.
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