Should USCCA offer a training-only membership, giving full access to Protector Academy but no post-incident support or insurance coverage from Delta Defense?
If there were such an option for membership, reasonably priced, I would likely join.
I am currently USCCA certified instructor, but not a USCCA member. I compared the various post-incident support programs and found USCCA membership not meeting my needs as well as a couple of others.
I have become a firearms training junky over the past few years, and when a colleague who is also an NRA instructor and USCCA Training Counselor offered a chance for USCCA instructor training, I took advantage of the availability. Since diving into the USCCA world, I have been impressed by the focus and quality of the training programs. However, I cannot access most Protector Academy content without a USCCA membership.
I support your thoughts. I’m in the same situation, but not being able to access Protector Academy I’ve been using other good sources of training.
I’m doubt if “Training-Only USCCA Membership” ever happens… Access to good training materials is a great additional value to main product and a reason that people get coverage from USCCA, not from the competitors.
Sometimes you don’t want to lose that advantage.
I’m only surprised, that you don’t have full access to Protector Academy, being USCCA Certified Instructor. If USCCA wants their Instructors to be the top notch - why don’t give them access to valuable materials?
What is lacking in the USCCA membership that you have with other companies, Craig? I would be happy to pass any suggestions along.
The idea has been brought up, but not currently something that is available but may be in the future.
The USCCA in-person courses would be through a Certified Instructor. USCCA Members have access to even more education and training materials on their Member Dashboard including qualification levels 1-3
USCCA training is a combination of online videos through Protector Academy, and live in-person instruction from USCCA Certified Instructors. You can activate a free account and then when logged in go to Protector Academy to see the many video courses available. Most will be locked until you join at one of the levels of membership, but a few intro courses are free to sample the series.
Based on the two eLearning series I completed, the quality and content of the video lessons is excellent.
I am not going to recommend any particular organization here, but instead suggest you web-search the phrase “self defense insurance” to find several sites that show side-by-side comparisons of anywhere from four to six post-incident support services.
Each company offers a slightly different set of support services, so you can decide which services make sense for you at the level of cost you are willing to pay.
Note that most are not insurance, avoiding dealing with state insurance regulations and commissioners. Also, some of the comparative reviews will include NRA Carry Guard in their list; that service no longer exists, having been shut down a few years ago after problems with the New York State Insurance Commissioner.
I live in Washington State I want to re-certify as an instructor but, since I do not have the ability to be a member, I cannot access any of the training or re-certification classes or access the Protector Academy because of the Washington State Insurance Commissioner.
I am at the point I am looking for a new state to move to so I can again become a member. I have always enjoyed instructing and training and would like to continue. It’s not my fault! It’s not the USCCA’s either!
I usually don’t like to respond to a problem without having a solution or two so, if finances allowed to have classes offered from the USCCA to partake of the training and the classes it would still be a win, win situation were the USCCA is still being supported and the responsible gun owners are better trained and more responsible. That’s my thought anyway!
I would also caution to use information presented in a comparison that is so out of date, as these things do change over time. The benefit of USCCA membership improved significantly in October of 2020 and again on Nov 1 of 2021 for example, so if you are looking at something that still lists a service that went down years ago, you are not looking at what is available now
Good point. Use those comparison pages to learn what is out there, and then go directly to each group’s site to learn the details on how they work, what they promise to do and have done.