USAA to add 1,000 jobs here

Acquisition and planning of additional office space is underway at USAA the company said. Besides San Antonio, Phoenix, Ariz., has been targeted as an area of expansion. Acquisition and planning of additional office space is underway at USAA the company said. Besides San Antonio, Phoenix, Ariz., has been targeted as an area of expansion. Photo: BILLY CALZADA, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS Photo: BILLY CALZADA, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close USAA to add 1,000 jobs here 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

USAA, San Antonio's largest private-sector employer, is about to get bigger.

The financial services and insurance company announced Tuesday that it plans to add as many as 3,500 jobs over the next three years, including up to 1,000 in San Antonio — where it already employs 16,400.

“Demand has never been stronger for all that USAA offers, and we need to continue to have the best employees in sufficient numbers,” USAA CEO Joe Robles said in a statement.

The company expects to fill a variety of positions, including: customer contact representatives in investments, insurance, banking and claims; underwriters; information security specialists; business and financial analysts; and modeling and statistical analysts.

To accommodate its growth, USAA intends to lease additional space in San Antonio because it currently occupies about 90 percent of the 5 million square feet at its 280-acre campus at 9800 Fredericksburg Road on the Northwest Side.

Shon Manasco, USAA's chief administrative officer, said the company has identified a location in San Antonio where it wants to expand, but he declined to say where.

“We've talked about plans to be able to hire up to a thousand more people in San Antonio,” Manasco said. “That should give you a perspective of what kind of real estate footprint expansion we would need to have to be able to accommodate that growth.”

Manasco acknowledged he wasn't aware of a single property in San Antonio that's large enough to accommodate all of the people it wants to hire.

USAA has tried to keep a tight lid on its site search, Manasco said.

USAA also revealed plans to add up to 1,000 jobs in Phoenix, where it already employs more than 3,300 people.

It expects to break ground next month on a 380,000-square-foot expansion of its 644,000-square-foot campus in Arizona.

The company hasn't determined where the remaining 1,500 hires will be based, though Manasco said it is committed to the markets in which it maintains operations.

“We are currently evaluating that as we speak,” he said. “We would like to be able to do more here in San Antonio over time.”

While Manasco said the company preferred to keep any expansion in San Antonio close to its headquarters, he didn't rule out establishing a presence in downtown San Antonio.

Overall, USAA has about 24,000 employees. The addition of 3,500 positions would represent a 14.6 percent increase in its workforce.

Manasco said the new hires, by and large, are expected to be full-time USAA employees rather than contract workers.

USAA has about 9.4 million customers, comprised of military members, veterans and their families. Its customer base has increased by more than 20 percent in the past three years.

“This expansion represents the coming together of USAA's stellar business performance and San Antonio's status as one of the top performing local economies in the nation,” Mayor Julián Castro said in the USAA statement.

The company plays a huge part in the health of the city's economy, according to St. Mary's University economist Steve Nivin.

“This (expansion) is an indication of the benefits of having some pretty strong, well-managed companies locally that can grow in this type of environment,” Nivin said. “It's a nice little boost.”

The company reports on its website that it's the fifth-largest homeowners' insurer and sixth-largest auto insurer in the country.

It had a net worth of $22.3 billion as of Sept. 30, up from $20 billion at the end of 2011.

USAA hasn't yet released financial results for 2012, which it already said was the second-worst year for insurance-related catastrophes in its history. It paid $1.1 billion in claims last year, on top of $1.4 billion paid in 2011.

Nevertheless, in the first half of last year, it reported earning $1.5 billion — up 78 percent from $841 million in net income in the first half of 2011.

Fitch Ratings affirmed its AAA rating — the agency's highest — for USAA in January.

Fitch cited USAA's “exceptionally strong capitalization, solid liquidity, continued disciplined underwriting, and historically low financial leverage.”

However, offsetting factors include the company's catastrophe risk and the lower credit profile of its banking operation, Fitch added.

pdanner@express-news.net

Staff Writer Valentino Lucio contributed to this report.