Elephant.co.uk, value for money (Elephant.co.uk)

Member Name: philb2076

Product:	Elephant.co.uk
Date:	11/06/09 (298 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap, quick, and always answer phone

Disadvantages: not for paying monthly, doubts over claim handling performance

Being a young driver (23) I dread the yearly week's worth of scouring the length and breadth of the internet and phonebook to try and find a better deal for my car insurance. I spend hours filling in online forms, listening to Lionel Richie down the phone, and generally getting fed up of people telling me I'm paying too much then failing to offer me anything better. However one way or another for the last two years this process has resulted in me choosing Elephant.co.uk as my insurer.

A lot of good and bad reviews have been posted on here that either rave about the price or complain about the service should something go wrong. I personally have never had a bump or scrape (touching wood as I type) through my 6 years of motoring, and thus I have never had to deal with elephant when things go wrong; but if it should I will happily endure a troublesome claims procedure knowing I saved myself a good chunk of money.

I look at it this way; through choosing elephant I can save between £250-£300 per year against the other major insurers (Direct line, Norwich Union, Tesco etc...), if I were to crash say once every three years then the cost of having fantastic customer service, a speedy claim procedure, and courtesy car would be up to £900 if I were to choose another company... This to me is bad math, given that there is also no guarantee that any other company would deal with it any better.

Obviously this is greatly tailored to my personal circumstances, but hopefully you can see my point.

Below I have decided to put my personal + and - for elephant.co.uk based on my experiences:

POSITIVES

+ PRICE - Obviously the main drawing point is that elephant are very good on price. This is however based upon paying for the policy in full on your renewal date... if you want to pay monthly have a look in my negatives section!

+ HAGGLING - The elephant team are incredibly quick to drop their price at the slightest bit of fuss, and will always aim to beat any other quote you have found. This means there is always room for a good old fashioned haggle.

+ ANWERING THE PHONE - I have found that no matter when or which department I call, I immediately get through to a real person who has been able to help me. From the accent I have to assume the call centre is in Ireland.

+ ONLINE ORDERING - The online forms are easy to fill in and can be tailored when you have finished to say add a second person, add extra cover or change your details (very handy to see what factors of your insurance are really costing you the most, and if you can live without them).

NEGATIVES

- PAYING MONTHLY - If you are going to go with elephant.co.uk DO NOT pay monthly. Given my one off payment quote of £850, I enquired as to how much it would be should I pay monthly instead... wait for it... £1150!! That works out at an extra 35%, and defiantly could be beaten by shopping elsewhere.

- RENEWAL PRICE - I'm sure this is true of many insurers but whatever you do, never except the renewal price given by elephant. In the example above I was originally quoted £1100 as my one off renewal price. I subsequently anonymously ran a quote though their own system online, and came up with £900! Thankfully as mentioned earlier they are very open to haggling, so when I called up and kicked up a massive fuss I got it down to £850, job done!

- ARE YOU YOUNG - If you are under 25 (which I am) fully comprehensive cover does not allow you to drive other cars with the owner's permission. This is true despite it not mentioning it anywhere in the policy booklet when I looked last September. I did try to say that I should be entitled to a discount given the loss of this feature within my policy, claiming that they are already subsidising the extra risk associated to my age in the high premium of my insurance... sadly they failed to see my logic on this matter.

- MATH - This is only based on one experience where I was contemplating paying the first two months of my policy on monthly instalments then paying off the rest in a lump sum. I called up three times and got back three different answers for the amounts it would cost me. Finally I did all the sums myself (after getting all the % information from them), and after another 45 min phone call, they agreed with me... then after all that I ended up paying it off in full anyway, but at least I learned to always challenge my insurer on their calculations.

Thanks,

Phil

Summary: Cheap insurance pays off if you do not make regular claims.