Take An Elephant Ride - It Saved Me £800! (Elephant.co.uk)

Name: angeelu

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Product:	Elephant.co.uk
Date:	24.10.04 (835 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good prices, Comprehensive cover, Easy quote process

Disadvantages: Sometimes can't get quote online

Being young and driving a fast sporty car always poses a problem when it comes to insurance. I've come to expect the high prices, but this year, following the purchase of a car imported from Japan, I've faced the most hassle ever getting hold of car insurance... That was, until I came across Elephant.co.uk.

When I first purchased the car I was insured with Diamond, who, as per a review of mine written quite some time ago now, I would still recommend to any woman when it comes to renewal time as their quotes I've found to always be very competitive with good comprehensive cover. Diamond covered me to drive the car, with an additional named driver on my policy and I was happy to stay with them. However, renewal time came around for my policy, and determined to get the best deal I could I started visiting just about every insurance web site I could find!

There are plenty of sites claiming to speicalise in offering insurance to young drivers of fast cars - you just need to take a visit to a site such as Max Power to find links. The thing is, as soon as you start trying to get a quote for an imported vehicle they decide that actually they won't insure you. Similarly there are those sites/companies who claim to be able to offer you a great deal if you drive a 'prestige' model (cars such as Mercs, BMW's and the likes), but again, trying to insure my imported Subaru Impreza I was told they couldn't offer me a quote time and time again. It was starting to look as though I had no choice but to stick with Diamond as they were the only company who so far had given me a quote.

Then I tried elephant.co.uk...

The Website
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The more insurance company websites you visit the more you start to realise that actually many seemingly different companies are actually all part of the same company. There are plenty of websites, Diamond included, that have the exact same layout for their car insurance sites - it's just the colour scheme and logos that change.

The homepage of the site is inviting enough, with the most prominant features being the elephant logo and a button to obtain an instant quote. There are other links on the site for example to make a claim or contact customer services etc, but it's the quote button you need when you start shopping!

On the site, elephant claim that they can provide you with a car insurance quote if:
~ you are a UK resident, and
~ you are aged between 17 and 79 years, and
~ your car is privately owned.

If you're happy you fulfill all three criteria you start filling in the online form with your personal details and car details. Each page of the form loads pretty quickly and the questions are all simple enough to fill in - many have drop down boxes for you to choose a response too. At the end of all the form filling you're shown your quote.

The website contains plenty of good information on different aspects of their policies, and gives you the chance to look at options to upgrade your policy should you wish (for example through Personal Accident Plans, Breakdown Cover etc).
There's quite a detailed FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) area, in which you'll find answers to most questions you're likely to want answers to.

The Quotes
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For the vast majority of people, once you've filled in the online forms with your details the quote you're offered will be shown on the screen and you'll have the option to accept that quote or save it should you wish.

However... if there's anything unusual about your circumstances, or it seems, if you are trying to get a quote for an imported vehicle, or just if the website is playing up, you'll get a message saying something along the lines of 'we're unable to give you an online quote at this time, please call us to discuss'.

So, when faced with this message I called them up. I was expecting to hear the same story I'd heard from so mant other insurers, that they wouldn't insure an imported vehicle, but to my surprise they were actually able to offer me a quote! The man I spoke to was very polite and helpful, and after taking a few more of my details he was able to offer me a quote. Not only that, but it was lower than my renewal price from Diamond. And to make it even better, the cover was much more comprehensive. For example, with Diamond I wasn't guaranteed a courtesy car should mine be involved in an accident etc - their reasoning for this was that as it was an import it may take longer to repair as different parts may be required and not all garages are prepared to do the work on imported cars. With my new policy however I would be guaranteed a courtesy car no matter what.

I didn't really need asking twice whether or not I wanted to accept their quote, but to give my previous insurers a chance I called them to see if they'd match or better Elephant's quote. To cut a long story short, they wouldn't.

To give an idea of just how much I was saving with Elephant (and to show you just why I spend so much time shopping around for insurance quotes), my renewal price from Diamond was around £2000. This was for 10 months cover (they offer an 'accelerator' scheme whereby you take out a 10 month policy and should you not make a claim within those 10 months you get 1 year's no claims bonus - it helps you to build up your no claims bonus quicker). My quote from Elephant was around £1600 and was for 12 months. If you work on the basis that the Diamond quote works out at £200/month, therefore £2400/year, it was a saving of £800 for the year for me to change to Elephant.

Obviously not everyone's going to make great savings like that by switching to Elephant. In fact, I should imagine that plenty of people are quoted higher by Elephant than some other companies, but for me, Elephant have saved me a lot of money.

The Service
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I've not had to make a claim through Elephant, so unfortunately I can't comment on their service from that point of view. I have had reason to contact them on the phone though, when getting
the original quote, when calling back to make payment, and again when asking for a new insurance certificate due to a spelling mistake. Each time I called the call centre operator was polite and friendly and dealt with my call as I would have wanted them to.

Documents have been sent out within reasonable timescales too. My original cover note was sent out within a matter of days, and once I'd sent in proof of my no claims the insurance certificate came through within about a week of them receiving my proof of no claims. On making the amendment to the spelling of a name on my policy the document again arrived within a few days.

The Verdict
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As I've mentioned already I've never made a claim through Elephant, and hope I'll never have to, but bearing in mind the service I've received so far from the company and the fact that their cover is even more comprehensive than cover I'd had in the past for the same vehicle I'm confident they'd do their job.

Everyone has a horror story about some insurance company they've dealt with in the past, and I'm sure there's someone who'll read this who can give Elephant a good slating, but so far as I'm concerned, they've looked after me well.

It's disappointing that the whole quote process can't be carried out online for certain vehicles, but that's only a minor niggle given the fact that on phoning them the quote was completed in a matter of minutes.

I would highly recommend trying Elephant.co.uk for a quote next time your renewal is due - you might not be as fortunate as me in saving so much money, but it's worth a try! For me, the fact they are just one of two insurance companies prepared to quote for the vehicle I drive that also goes in their favour - at least they're willing to offer a quote rather than shying away like other companies did. Incidentally, you can also get quotes for home and travel insurance through the site as well as finding links to other products such as loans, saving on credit cards, van insurance, bike insurance, pet insurance and the likes.

I can't really fault them - five stars * * * * *

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