elephant car insurance review

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Average Ratings

Customer Service	3.3/10
Value for Money	4.7/10
Reviewer Rating	3.9/10
Overall Rating	3.9/10

38% Recommended18 out of 47 Reviews

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By DeeJayP on 16th Jun 2007

DeeJayP's Ratings

Have you made a Claim	Currently Claiming
Reason for going with this company	Cheapest Quote
Cover Taken	Comprehensive
Driver Type	Male Driver
Previous Insurance Company	Tesco
Customer Service	0/10
Value for money	0/10
Overall value	0/10
DeeJayP's recommendation

Good Points

Cheap premiums, easy to use website.

Bad Points

Claims Service

General Comments

I used Elephant for several years and was perfectly satisfied with them until I had to make a claim! A tree collapsed onto my car and, for the first time in 20 years, I had to claim on my own insurance. Despite their authorised repairer initially stating that the car was repairable (the damage was minor cosmetic) Elephant subsequently decided to write the car off.

But worse, they gave us no notice whatsoever, not a courtesy call, nothing: A letter dropped onto the mat, on a Friday before a bank holiday weekend, telling us that we were no longer insured to drive the car. Which left my wife and I without a car and with no time hire a replacement. We had to cancel a long weekend away with zero notice.

Aside from having to pay the Policy Excess of £300, Elephant cancelled my insurance and kept the remainder of the premium. That's right: I paid for a year's insurance and 3 months into the policy it was cancelled with no refund (small print, see). They also docked us 2 years NCB for this one incident.

And it didn't end there: A few days later another letter arrived which stated that I'd asked to buy the car back and offering to sell it back to me. Except that I hadn't asked to buy it back and Elephants own terms & conditions specifically state that it's not their policy to allow this. So they don't even appear to know their own policies.

Subsequently, we had several other letters again telling us that they were writing the car off (which, of course, we already knew) and giving different dates as to when the policy would end (despite the fact that we'd already sent all the documents back to Elephant).

Whenever we chased matters on the phone, we were given a different version of events depending on who we spoke to.

Overall, the claim was handled appallingly and the overriding impression was one of total incompetence.

Then came the final straw: Despite their literature stating that they would pay out Glasses Guide retail price in the event of a write off, they then offered us 25% less than that. By the time they deducted the excess, we were left with barely the trade price. I am currently pursuing the outstanding amount via the small claims court.

Elephant may be cheap but you find out why when you have to make a claim.

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Total Respect: +1