Financial Perks of Being a Costco Member

By Tanner Doudna

One way many people can save on groceries is by buying in bulk. When you are willing to commit to buying 40 individual bags of chips instead of 1 bag of chips, the chip company is going to give you a discount. As a father to four young children, buying in bulk is a must for us.

There are some good wholesale clubs out there who sell items in bulk like Sam’s and BJ’s, but my favorite is Costco. Costco caps its markups at 15%, but often it can be lower. They have some delicious and dangerously large chocolate chip cookies and pepperoni pizza. While their in-store grocery prices are wonderful, I have found some other ways to save money through Costco’s services. I don’t have personal experience with every service they offer, but here are my findings about some of their services I found to be a great value.

Life Insurance

I have often referred people to policygenius.com to get quotes for term life insurance, but when I recently revisited my policies, Costco (through Protective Life) had the best rate by far. Protective Life has an excellent rating with AM Best.

Dental Insurance

That’s right – Costco offers dental insurance to its members (through Delta Dental). I got a great price on dental insurance for the whole family that includes some coverage for braces!

Identity Protection

Chris has written a few TrustWell Insights posts about Identity Protection because it is a real threat. The statistics about identity theft show that protecting your identity has never been more important. Costco’s Identity Theft Protection through Complete ID (an Experian affiliate) was by far the cheapest price for my family, but seemed to have the best coverage (up to $1,000,000 of ID Theft Insurance).

Costco’s Auto Program

Brett recently went through the car buying experience and did his due diligence (would you expect anything less?). After evaluating the used and new car market, he found that the best value came through the Costco Auto Program. One dealership offered Brett the “Employee rate” and then the “Costco rate” and they were almost identical.

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Costco has many other services available including pet insurance, home & auto, and business health insurance. Their benefits aren’t available to everyone – you have to be a Costco member. But if you are on the fence about joining, maybe the financial perks included with your membership can make it worthwhile. Or you can just join for the cookies.