Elephant-astic! (Elephant.co.uk)

Name: Flibble

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Product:	Elephant.co.uk
Date:	13/09/01 (390 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great savings, Can save quote for a later date

Disadvantages: On-line forms can be annoying

Around this time of year I get a sick feeling at the bottom of my stomach (no, it’s not from that dodgy curry I had the evening before!)

It’s time for me to get car insurance renewal forms through the post. Like a great deal of people I often intend to shop around for comparison prices, but I just never seem to find the time to get round to it. More often than not I’ll just go with my existing insurer without really thinking about it. This time though I was determined to have a look around and see what’s available, I’m more than glad that I did!

Now, before I get fully into my review of Elephant Insurance services, I feel it my duty to print some of the GREATEST elephant jokes ever! (if this doesn’t earn me a crown then I don’t know what will) OK, here we go:

Q. Why is an elephant always ready to travel?
A. He takes his trunk everywhere with him

Q. How can you tell when an elephants been in your fridge?
A. Check for footprints in the butter

(and if they are my best jokes, you really don’t want to hear my worst!)

Right then, car insurance. Our current insurance is due to run out quite soon, and as I had some time to kill at work I decided to check out some of the car insurance companies that are springing up on the internet nowadays. I initially tried the more recognised insurance companies that we often see advertised on the television such as The AA and also Direct Line. It turns out though that the quotes I received from these companies were actually higher than the quote I received from my current insurer.

Back to square one then. Using the Lycos search engine I came across Elephant Insure. Like the other sites it offers an ‘on-line’ quote facility. Here you enter details about yourself such as where you live, your age etc. Next you enter details about the actual car you want to insure and the type of cover you require. T
here is also a phone number to call so you can arrange the insurance over the phone if you find it a bit difficult to complete the forms.

I found this to be a bit hit and miss to be honest with you. It’s easy to select your car type and model etc. as well as the type of cover you would like, but I found it really annoying that whenever I entered some information incorrectly it would refresh the web page and blank out all the information I had just entered. Meaning I had to re-enter the same details again. As I’m a bit dense though I would more often than not correct the mistake, only to make another one, which meant I had to start all over again – really, really annoying!

Once you’ve entered details about your car you need to provide information about any previous claims that you’ve made in the past as well as any motoring convictions you may have. Again this is quite easy to do. The user is presented with a list of descriptions that best apply to the type of claim such as ‘car stolen’ or ‘Damage to other vehicle’ and you click ‘Apply’ – that’s all there is to it really.

Once you’ve entered all the information required a figure is produced for your insurance quote. Now comes the good news – the quote I was given was almost £250 cheaper than previous quotes. A truly great saving and already I’m seriously considering going with this company.

Once you have your quote you can either take them up on the offer on-line or save the quote for a later date so you avoid having to re-enter all the same information again. To save the info you simply supply a password to retrieve this figure.

The only real downside with Elephant though is that there are no monthly payment options that I could see, you need to pay the amount in full, personally I prefer to pay for the insurance monthly as its not such a large amount of money to pay ou
t in one go.

I’d have to say that with such great potential savings to be had it really is worth shopping around, so give Elephant a try!

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