Elephant.co.uk
When I received a letter from my current insurers informing me that renewal of my policy was going to cost me £1,200 pounds (the previous year it had cost me about £900), I was overcome with a compelling urge to shop around for motor insurance.
I tried all of the major brand names that I could find on the Internet and met with varying levels of success. If the site didn't time out, fail to work or (in the case of Norwich Union Direct) let me select my car then the quote it came up with was far too close to the £1,000 mark for comfort. All, that is, apart from Elephant.co.uk.
On first opening their web-page I was presented with a large picture of a friendly looking elephant in a purple suit (the one you've seen tap-dancing on the telly), with a big button which you should press if you want an 'instant' quote. Needless to say, I pressed the button and up popped another browser window. It's only a minor niggle (and I am sure that there could be some perfectly good reason for it), but why did they need to open a second browser window? What was wrong with the one I was already using? Anyway, I proceeded to enter the details they asked for (Title, First name, Surname, Date of Birth and Post Code) and continue through the quote generation process, entering the appropriate information as it was requested. The whole thing took about 10 minutes, with some agonizing waits in between pressing the 'Next' button and the next page actually appearing. In my experience, this is either a sign of a badly designed website or one that is exceptionally busy. Subsequent visits, with MUCH quicker response times, pointed at the site being busy rather than poorly built.
So after spending 10 minutes entering my various details and navigating through the options, I ended up at the page which gave the price for my insurance. To say that I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement! The price at the top of the page was £588, less than half what I was going to have to pay to renew with my current insurers. But what was this? As I continued to read down the page I found out that this included a whopping £350 excess, with no 'freebies' thrown in except for windscreen cover. But each of these factors could be adjusted by clicking a button or selecting a different value from a drop-down list, what's more the cost of the insurance updated each time you selected a new option, to reflect the new price. After a bit of fine-tuning of my policy (legal cover, protected no-claims etc), the cost had risen to £650, but still significantly less than everyone else.
But I wasn't convinced that I'd found the cheapest. If Elephant could do it this cheap, then surely someone else could come close, and maybe beat it? So I continued to search the web, but found no-one that could compete. So I resorted to the telephone... 45 minutes later (and fed up of repeating the same bits of information) and I was still no closer to a quote that could match the Elephant price, let alone go lower. So I returned to their custard-yellow frontpage and once again clicked the 'Instant Quote' button. On entering my details (Title, First name, Surname, Date of birth and PostCode) I was prompted for the password that I'd entered on my first visit.. so I typed it in and hit submit. Lo and behold, I was taken to a page which listed the quote I had previously generated and gave me the choice of accepting that quote, changing it or generating a new one. I opted to change it and had to go through the whole quote generation process again, but this time all my details were already filled out and all I needed to do was change the bits I wanted. When I finally ended up at the last page again I re-selected the options I wanted and clicked the 'Buy' button upon which point I was whisked to a page which gave me another set of options, including extended personal injury cover and hire-car cover which I could add to the policy at additional cost. Moving swiftly on, I ended up at a page where I could enter my credit-card details. A few mouse-clicks and some typing later and I had confirmed that they could take the appropriate amount of money from my credit card. A couple of hours later I received a 'welcome' email which informed me that a full 'Welcome Pack' was in the post and would be with me in a matter of days. Sure enough, two days later and my welcome pack, including my policy certificate and etc, arrived on the doormat.
My only concern is that Elephant are 'just another dot-com' and prone to going bankrupt in meteoric style. But a bit of research revealed that they are backed by the Admiral Insurance group, so they do have a bit of weight behind them. Enough that I am happy to take out a policy with them.
All in all, the most proficient insurance company I have ever had the pleasure to deal with. Not to mention the cheapest! It will be interesting to see if they maintain their competitive pricing once they become more established as a name. I have a nasty feeling that next year my premium will be significantly higher...
Reproduced with the permission of Dooyoo UK Ltd