Nelly the elephant packed in the circus (Elephant.co.uk)

Member Name: ryanando

Product:	Elephant.co.uk
Date:	14/05/08 (525 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Fast, Easy

Disadvantages: None that I am aware of

Finally, after what feels like weeks of replacing reviewing with having a real life, I have come to a crashing halt. I'm fed up of the five men who seem to think I'm theirs, chocolate and ice cream have rebelled against me by giving me spots all over and thanks to my Electric bill this month I'm totally out of money to do anything alcohol related.

So, if you will kindly ignore the fact I've not been a very active member of anything, I'd like to take this opportunity to prattle on about car insurance, or as I like to call it, the reason I cant have another 20 rounds at the pub every month.

I've been driving for just over three years now and I'm told that it's a little bit illegal to do it without insurance. That on my mind I had a good old search around for insurance. By which I mean I fell onto confused.com and spent way too long filling out details about my car. Car insurance being an awkward thing to get for under 21's (as I was at the time) nearly all the insurers came back saying I'd need to call them for a quote, effectively wasting my sweet time. I did however get a nice, handy list of insurers.

After a tonne of calling round and quoting on the dealers personal websites, I stumbled onto Elephant.co.uk , utterly depressed about the incredibly high cost of driving.

I began entering my car's details for the five billionth time waiting to be told they would require both my legs, my right arm and a down payment of £1000 for my pile of rust on wheels. And then something strange happened. IT WAS CHEAP!!! Bloody cheap in fact! Elephant managed to quote me a whole £200 less than the next best insurer. I was a happy person.

Elephant have continued to make me happy and though I have worked my way through three cars with varying degrees of rust and other novel problems such as indicators that don't work when it rains, I have had a total of Zero problems with them

To this date, I'm very impressed with them. I had to call up today about my renewal, thinking I would be leaving Elephant as I'd found an insurer that worked out cheaper (mainly due to the fact I'd be having the bare bones of an insurance policy with the other people). Yes, it took me 15 minutes to get through, but, working in a call centre myself and knowing the time of day I called, it was to be expected. Thankfully, the hold music isn't suicide inducing so I was quite happily singing along to it when the very hot sounding bloke answered.

I'm not sure, but I am assuming the call centres are based somewhere in America land as I have only ever spoken to people with an American accent when I called. However I may be wrong, they might just be importing people and locking them in a small storage container somewhere in south London, giving them food when they get a new customer.

Regardless of where Hot Call Guy (as he is now known) was from, he was helpful as helpful could be. Not in that "oh dear, I'm gonna have to shoot you if you get any happier" kind of way either. After two minutes on the phone, Hot Call Guy gave me a brand new quote that kicked the ass off the quote I had AND gives me everything apart from a courtesy car. I opted out of that as that's what parents with cars are for.

As an aside, if you are new to the insurance game (and lets face it, that's what it is) make sure you lie through your teeth about what other companies are offering you, works a treat in getting a great price after a bit of bartering.



A few perks of elephant insurance and their services:

The website is easy to navigate and very customer friendly.
You can choose a "10 month accelerator" which basically means you get your years no claim in 10 months. Strangely enough it actually worked out a little cheaper for me to do that the first year I went with them.

Unlike every other thing I am signed up for, Elephant don't call be constantly to ask if I want their new magical special offer of the moment and sob when I shout "NO!!! GO AWAY I HATE YOU!!!" down the phone. They send me my paper work when it's time to renew and when I make a change, they take my payment on the same date each month, they do what they say they will do and none of the over annoying "please buy our wares" junk.

Legal Expenses Cover and European Cover is supplied as standard, after looking around for quotes, its odd how many insurers don't include this as standard and charge about £25 quid extra for it.

You can choose to spread the cost over the year or pay it in a lump sum. When you do choose to spread the cost, at least in my experience, they don't hit you with a massive one off at the start of your policy either. The cost will, unfortunately, rise with this option but it's not half as big an increase as a lot of other insurers hit you with.

If you are rich enough to own two cars, you get a loyalty discount for insuring car number 2! Not owning two cars I couldn't really say how much that discount is.

The paperwork is really well laid out and easy to understand. I've had a look over my dads insurance paperwork and sometimes I wonder if even THEY understand it. Elephant however give you a "See Spot, See Spot Run" breakdown of what you need to know. Easy!

Last but not least, and very possibly a down side, being a big company elephant make it very easy to pay. They are ace at taking your hard earned cash from you efficiently without any hassle. God damn them.



Down Sides:

One slight nuisance they do cause at first is that they tend not to tell you what your insurance will be when you have to spread it over the year. This obviously won't be much of a problem if you are one of those annoying people who can pay it all off in one because either A: your car insurance is stupidly cheap or B: you are stupidly rich.

There is a £45 admin charge if you want to cancel your policy. Though if you've made a point of searching for the cheapest insurance there shouldn't be much need to do that anyway!

They have a really creepy mascot that's very shiny and happy...'till you click on the "I want to cancel my policy" page...then it becomes a very serious, hard lined, scary elephant. Well thought out!

Thankfully I've never had an accident so I can't really comment on what their service is like past making the quotes easy, cheap and fast. For me, they have been the best insurer on the market for the last few years.

As much as they are cheap for me, I do, however, know that my friend, who is the exact same age (minus one day if you want to be really pedantic), who has been driving for a month more than me and is of the female variety, has found quotes a billion times better than myself regardless of the fact she's totalled a few cars in her time. So they might not be best for those of you who own...*shudder*...one of THOSE. I've always been tempted to remind the insurers of my sexual preference to see if it would get me out of that "boy racer" category I've clearly been shoved into due to my age and reproductive (ha, how redundant) organs.

The moral of the story is: It sucks to be Male, 21 and in need of car insurance, but elephant may help ease the pain.



Some Boring Stuff that can be found on their website:

Elephant is part of Admiral Group PLC and is the trading name of EUI LTD.

Opening times are Mon - Fri 8am - 10pm (9pm for claims dept), Sat 9am - 5pm, Sun 10am - 4pm. I noticed they are closed bank holidays too.

They can be contacted via the following means:
Phone
Sales: 0800 118 1644
Customer Services: 0871 882 2233
Renewals: 0844 848 0050
Claims: 0870 608 0668
Overseas Line: +44 29 2060 1299

Website: www. Elephant.co.uk
Address: Capital Tower, Greyfriars Road, Cardiff, CF10 3AZ.


(review also on Ciao)

Summary: A cheap, cheerful car insurer with a creepy mascot.