USCCA Review [for 2024] | Written by a Firearms Attorney

by Ryan Cleckner

May 29, 2023

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USCCA is one of the most talked about Concealed Carry insurance providers on the market. But is it worth it?

Unlike other articles out there, I am a firearms attorney and I’ll take a deep look into their policy, and in this USCCA review, I’ll let you know what you can expect and whether or not USCCA is worth it. However, I’m not YOUR attorney so this is not legal advice and only you can decide whether ccw insurance is right for your situation (and which provider to choose).

USCCA Review Summary: Although we had some issues with their policy in the past, the USCCA has recently updated their terms and we are really impressed with the coverage you can get by being a USCCA member. In fact, the value from a USCCA membership is so great, our co-founder Dave joined and became a member after reading this updated review.

But before we begin, I want to let you know that some of the links below are affiliate links that can help us keep our ammo budget going but they will NOT affect your price nor do they affect our advice.

United States Concealed Carry Association Membership

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In this USCCA Review we’re going to cover:

What is the US Concealed Carry Association (USCCA)?

The United States Concealed Carry Association (USCCA) offers legal protection for self-defense scenarios and many other resources for ccw education and firearm training to their 300,000 members.

Although it isn’t really “ccw insurance,” it’s the easiest way to explain what they provide and it is the most common term used to talk about such companies. Technically companies like USCCA offer self defense liability protection. And, in the case of USCCA, it is a member services company that provides training and resources to its members while also giving them access to the “liability insurance” all members enjoy.

The training and resources include online courses in topics like home defense fundamentals, reading material such as their Concealed Carry Magazine, and they even host a Concealed Carry Expo. As you can see, the USCCA is really the big-dog in the self defense insurance space not only because of all of these member benefits and resources, but also because of the level of coverage that USCCA insurance provides.

These resources they provide can help protect you with your legal defense costs and they provide training and resources to help you before, during, and after a self defense scenario. (make sure you see a preview of their “what would you do?” training scenario videos in our review below).

Should You Get Self Defense Liability Protection?

It is up to you to determine whether legal protection coverage for CCW is right for you. This is because everyone’s situation, budget, and risk tolerance are unique and I can’t possibly know what’s best for you and your family.

However, I can tell you that I think it is worth the cost especially with what’s going on in the world today.

Why?

Well, defending your defensive gun use in criminal and/or civil trials can be VERY expensive (spending a few hundred thousand dollars, or more, is not unheard of). In fact, after you’ve used a gun to defend yourself, the fight isn’t over – in many cases it has just begun. This is where self defense liability insurance can really make a major difference.

As an attorney, one of the first things I tell my clients when they’re trying to figure out how to handle a particular problem is “it’s often better to avoid a fight than it is to win a fight.” That’s because “winning” can be VERY expensive when legal costs are involved.

However, if you’re a gun owner (especially if you concealed carry), and you’re concerned about the legal cost of a self defense incident, then you are likely checking out the USCCA on your quest to find the best concealed carry insurance.

Let’s dive in to the costs and coverages you get by being a USCCA member:

How Much Does USCCA Cost?

USCCA comes with 3 different membership levels–each with different costs and benefits.

However, the differences in each tier of membership are in the features and resources from USCCA – each tier gets access to the exact same level of self liability defense protection.

So, if you’re looking solely for legal liability protection, the Gold Tier (least expensive) is the smart choice. However, if you want all of the training and resources USCCA offers, you should check out the Platinum Tier (most expensive).

USCCA Coverage Details

FeatureGoldPlatinumElite
Monthly Cost$29$39$49
Annual Cost$299$399$499
Criminal Defense MaxUnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited
Civil Defense MaxUnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited
Civil Damages Max$2 million$2 million$2 million
Pick Own Attorney?Yes*Yes*Yes*
Money Up Front?YesYesYes
Per Diem Max$750/day$750/day$750/day
Training Materials/ResourcesGoodBetterBest
See Details
See Details
See Details

What Does USCCA Cover?

Not all CCW insurance offers are the same. As you might know, some CCW insurance programs won’t let you choose your own lawyer or they won’t give you the money up front (two of our three “must haves” in CCW insurance that we cover in our USCCA review below).

Also, with so many different options between CCW insurance providers, it might be tough to get a clear picture of what they offer.

So, to help you with USCCA, here are the coverages you can expect if you join their program:

Criminal Defense Coverage: Even if you believe that your defensive gun use is justified self defense, you might still be prosecuted. Hiring a criminal defense lawyer can be expensive and the USCCA now has no limit to how much they’ll pay for your criminal defense expenses. Unlimited legal coverage is a BIG deal!

Civil Defense Coverage: Even if you’ve been found “not guilty” and your self defense is justified, you might have to defend yourself against lawsuits from the person you shot, their family members, or others. Because defending these lawsuits (even if you win) can be expensive, the USCCA also provides unlimited defense coverage for civil lawsuits.

Civil Defense Liability: If you lose a civil lawsuit, you may have to pay “damages” (money) to the plaintiff. Although the USCCA doesn’t limit the amount they’ll pay in your defense, they limit the amount of damages they’ll pay if you lose to $2,000,000.

Up Front Money: If you need financial assistance with legal fees – you need it up front. Reimbursement might sound good enough, but that means you might have to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars on your own first. The USCCA provides the money, as it is needed, up front.

Bail: Unless you want to stay in jail until your trial, you might want bail money coverage. The USCCA provides up to $100,000 for bail bond funding. This is the highest amount for any provider.

Per Diem: While you’re in court for trial, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to work. After weeks or months, this can be a serious strain on your finances. So, we always recommend CCW insurance that pays you a daily allowance while you’re in trial (called a per diem). Some CCW insurance options don’t pay anything while USCCA pays the highest at $750 per day.

Training and Resources: I mentioned above that I often tell my legal clients that it’s often better to avoid a fight than it is to win a fight – this couldn’t be more true when it comes to a gun fight! However, if it’s time to use a gun to defend yourself or a loved ones, you better know what you’re doing. The USCCA provides training and resources to help you avoid fights and if you get into one, what to do once you’re there.

What’s Not Included With USCCA:

No Sales in NY, NJ, WA: Just recently the local governments for these three states banned the sales of “CCW insurance” programs. This doesn’t mean that your CCW insurance won’t work if you’re visiting there, it just means you can’t buy it if you live here. However, this is a limitation for all CCW insurance services right now.

USCCA Vs Other CCW Insurance:

Of all of the concealed carry insurance options available, the USCCA is the largest (over 300,000 members) and they offer the most resources. Also, the USCCA meets all 3 of our “must haves” for CCW insurance whereas some other options do not.

FeatureCCW SafeUSCCASecond Call DefenseACLDNU.S. Law ShieldRight to Bear Firearms Legal Protection
Monthly Cost$16-42$29-49$10-35$12$11$11$17-45
Criminal Defense MaxUnlimitedUnlimited$100,000Unlimited*UnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited
Civil Defense MaxUnlimitedUnlimited$1,000,000Unlimited*UnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited
Civil Liability Max$1,000,000$2,000,000$250,000$0$0Unlimited$0
Pick Own Attorney?YesYesYesYesNoYesNo
Money Up Front?YesYesYesYesYesYesYes
Per Diem Max$250$750$500n/an/an/a$300
See Details
See Details
See Details
See Details
See Details
See Details
See Details

*No limit in policy, however, coverage is limited to amount in general fund

USCCA Features

1 UNLIMITED UP-FRONT LEGAL PROTECTION

Unlimited legal defense is great but it’s vital that you get money up front (unless you have a few hundred thousand available to wait for reimbursement later).

2 ONLINE TRAINING LIBRARY

USCCA has tons of resources to make you smarter and less likely to need to legal coverage!

3 CHOOSE YOUR OWN ATTORNEY

A large amount of money paid to a useless attorney equals your freedom at risk (and wasted money).

4 COMMUNITY/MEMBER PERKS

For members, the USCCA offers training, gear, industry partners, online communities, and more.

USCCA REVIEW – OUR TAKE

USCCA has great legal coverage and so many extra resources, we think that it’s a good option for ccw insurance.

For any concealed carry insurance option, we strongly recommend looking for three basic ccw insurance requirements:

  1. The ability to choose your own attorney,
  2. Money up-front, and
  3. A daily allowance to help offset time off work

USCCA has all three. We’ll cover each.

What we like about USCCA: We love that the USCCA now offers unlimited legal protection in the defense of both criminal and civil cases!

We also like that they allow you to choose your own attorney – this is a big deal. Believe it or not, there are options for CCW insurance that require you to use the attorney they choose. We haven’t used them so we can’t possibly give an informed decision on the quality of their legal representation.

However, it concerns us whenever a client doesn’t have the ability to choose another attorney if they don’t like the one they have and/or the risk of appearance that the person or entity actually paying for the attorney has a different interest than the client (lowest cost instead of best coverage).

Again, we’re not saying that this is what is going on. We’re only saying that we have concerns whenever situations like that exist and ALWAYS recommend having the choice over your own attorney! If you agree, then you might appreciate that USCCA allows this (we do).

Another thing that is important to us is getting paid up front.

Reimbursement might sound like it is just as good as money up front, however, most people don’t have the few hundred thousand dollars that might be required to cover the costs until reimbursement happens.

If you’re paying for legal coverage that will help pay for your attorney – please make sure that you actually get the money up front to be able to pay your own attorney! Mark down another reason we like the USCCA.

The third requirement that USCCA meets is a daily per diem. A per diem is a daily amount of money, an allowance, that you get paid while in trial. This is very important! Your trial might last months and you likely won’t be able to earn money during this time.

Although a per diem probably won’t replace your income, it will definitely help and USCAA offers the highest per diem rate of any option we’ve seen (some don’t even offer any per diem allowance).

USCCA generally seems interested into educating you on how to avoid or survive gunfights and also how to handle yourself immediately after an incident.

For example, on the back of the membership card, they’ve included simple instructions for you to remember such as CALLING 911 FIRST!, then calling USCCA, and even instructions on how to deal with police officers.

USCCA also has a library of online training and member resources that makes USCAA a step above everyone else. Heck, even their free training and resources are super useful.

For example, USCCA offers a free series of “What Would You Do?” videos wherein they discuss a particular scenario and then cover some of your best options.

Check out this video from their “What Would You Do?” series on car jacking. If you become a USCCA member, you get the full analysis and breakdown.

If you’d like to see how the USCCA compares to other CCW coverage options, check out our Best CCW Insurance article.

What we don’t like about the USCCA: The biggest concern we have from their policy that it contains a “recoupment clause.”

From their policy, Section I says:

“We shall have the right to seek recovery or recoupment from an “insured” the amount of any payments made to, for, or on behalf of the “insured”, including payments made to third parties, if it is determined that any such payments were made for matters not covered by this Policy or are otherwise prohibited by applicable law.”

This means that if it is determined that your incident wasn’t covered, whether it is found to not be lawful self defense or a law was broken like unlawful firearm possession, you could be required to to pay back all of the money that USCCA spent on your case.

This can be scary because it could mean that if you were found guilty then your incident wasn’t lawful self defense and you could be on the hook for all money paid.

However, we have found no incidents of this clause ever being used and there’s no guarantee that a guilty verdict, on its own, would be enough to trigger this.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, this section of the policy is understandable. They have many members to protect and don’t want to be spending money, that they could be using to defend you, on someone’s case if it wasn’t something that should have been covered.

Our final thoughts: With their new policy with its unlimited coverage for your defense and their training and resources, we think that the USCCA is a strong contender for your concealed carry insurance.

USCCA PROS AND CONS

  • Most Features
  • Great Training
  • Highest Daily Per Diem
  • Choose Your Own Lawyer
  • Unlimited Legal Defense
  • Highest Cost

Report Card

COST

Although it is at the higher end, you are getting a premium product with a ton of features.

A-
COVERAGE

With their new unlimited coverage for defense and $2m cap on civil liability, USCCA has great coverage.

A
FEATURES

TONS of awesome features – way more than anyone else.

A+
VALUE

Easily the best value in CCW insurance especially if you are interested in al of the extra features and resources available to members.

A+
USCCA Final Grade

Our Grade

A

Reviewed by Ryan Cleckner

Reader’s Grade

B+

Based on 44 Reviews

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About Ryan Cleckner

Ryan is a former special operations sniper (1/75 Ranger) and current firearms attorney, firearms industry executive, university lecturer, and bestselling author of the Long Range Shooting Handbook.

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