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If you're a savings-hunter and think you'd be able to qualify for the discounts offered, Elephant Insurance could be a good choice for you. Elephant Insurance offers auto and motorcycle coverage, and many ways to save, including multi-policy discounts for customers who purchase additional types of insurance from the company.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Multiple discounts available | Only available in a few states |
| Full coverage includes pet insurance |
| Elephant Insurance Customer Service 855-ELEPHANT 9950 Mayland Drive Henrico, VA 23233 |
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Admiral Group PLC, a large British insurance company, founded Elephant Insurance in 2009. Since then, it has grown to offer auto insurance and other types of policies in Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Rather than working with branch-based insurance agents, Elephant Insurance sells policies directly to consumers online and over the phone.
Car Coverage Offered by Elephant Insurance
State laws require you to have certain types of auto insurance coverage, and mandate minimum coverage amounts. Elephant provides all the essential coverages in the states where it operates, and offers or automatically includes a few extra types of coverage you may find helpful.
Liability Coverage
Elephant Insurance offers bodily injury and property damage liability coverage, both of which you may be required to carry. If you cause an accident, bodily injury coverage will help pay for the other person's injuries and expenses, including medical bills and lost income. Property damage coverage helps pay for damage to another person's property, such as their vehicle or a fence around a yard. Both types of coverage can also help pay legal fees.
Comprehensive and Collision Coverages
Whether or not you cause an accident, collision coverage will help pay to repair or replace your vehicle after an accident. Comprehensive coverage pays for repairs or replacement from damage that was not caused by a collision, such as theft or water damage after a flood.
"Full coverage" refers to having liability, comprehensive and collision coverage. If you have an auto loan or lease, you may be required to maintain full coverage on your vehicle. Additionally, Elephant Insurance includes pet injury coverage (up to $1,000) if you purchase full coverage.
Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage
You can get uninsured motorist bodily injury, underinsured motorist bodily injury and uninsured motorist property damage coverage from Elephant Insurance. These types of coverage will help cover bills if the other person doesn't have insurance or doesn't have enough coverage to pay all your bills.
Loan or Lease Payoff
If you have a lease or auto loan, payoff coverage could pay the remaining balance when comprehensive or collision coverage doesn't cover what you owe. Before this coverage kicks in, you'll need to pay your deductible for your comprehensive or collision coverage.
Medical Payments and Personal Injury Protection (PIP)
MedPay can cover medical bills for you and your passengers. Your health insurance may already cover the bill, but sometimes the coverage includes types of treatments that aren't covered by standard health insurance, such as dental work. PIP may cover similar medical expenses and other types of injury-related expenses, such as lost wages if you can't work after an accident.
Additional Coverage Options
You can also choose to purchase additional types of insurance or benefits from Elephant Insurance with your auto insurance policy:
- Rental reimbursement: If your vehicle is damaged or stolen in an incident that's covered by comprehensive or collision coverage and undrivable for over 24 hours, you can get reimbursed for the cost of a rental vehicle.
- Roadside assistance: Through a partnership with Urgent.ly, Elephant Insurance coverage can give you roadside assistance to help with common troubles, such as a tow, jump start or tire change.
- Custom parts and equipment: Elephant Insurance covers up to $1,000 in custom parts and equipment with its comprehensive or collision coverage. This add-on bumps that up to $5,000 in coverage for custom parts or equipment.
- Legal assistance: Get discounted (but not free) access to attorneys with a membership from Legal Resources. You can use the plan for auto and non-auto related questions or cases.
- Income loss coverage: Receive up to $100 a week for up to 52 weeks if you were working and lost income due to an injury related to an accident or maintaining your vehicle.
Figuring out how much insurance you need can be difficult. Your state may require minimum amounts of liability, medical payments, PIP and uninsured or underinsured coverage. And your lender may require comprehensive and collision coverage.
Even if it's not required, you may want to buy other types of insurance or get a policy with a limit that's higher than the requirement. But it's a trade-off, as more coverage means higher costs. Consider your budget, savings and the other types of insurance you have to narrow in on the right amount for you. And, look for additional ways to save on your auto insurance to help free up room in your budget.
How to Save on Car Insurance with Elephant Insurance
Elephant Insurance offers a variety of discounts that you may qualify for to help lower your insurance premiums. Combined, these may save you up to 40% on your Elephant auto policy. Some of the discounts are also fairly easy to qualify for if you're comfortable applying and managing your account online:
- Online quote discount
- Electronic signature discount
- Paperless account discount
- Pay in full discount
- Multi-car discount
- Multi-policy discount
- Responsible driver discount
- Safe car discount
- Good student discount
In addition to premium discounts, there may be other opportunities to save money. For example, Elephant offers an optional "diminishing deductible" coverage that can slowly decrease out-of-pocket deductible expenses you have to cover before your insurance kicks in.
To get the benefit, you'll need to enroll when you first get a policy on a vehicle or renew the policy. Then, depending on your policy's term, your deductible will be reduced by $50 every six months or by $100 every 12 months if you don't get into an accident. If you do get into an accident, your reduced deductible amount stays for that term, but you can qualify for a diminishing deductible again in the future.
Additionally, think carefully before adding optional coverages to your auto insurance. The higher premium might not be worth it, especially if you're already covered or can get similar coverage elsewhere for less. Add-ons like the income-loss coverage can be appealing, but you may already be covered by disability insurance that will pay you for lost wages if you're unable to work.
Getting a Quote From Elephant Insurance
You can get an auto insurance quote from Elephant Insurance online or get help over the phone, but there's an online quote discount, so that may be the better option. Before you start, you may want to use Elephant's Coverage Wizard tool, which will ask you a series of questions and suggest coverage types based on your answers.
When you're ready, you can get a quote online in about 10 minutes. To do so, you'll need to share some basic information, including your name and date of birth, driver's license number and information about the vehicle you're insuring. If you purchase a policy online, you'll receive your coverage and insurance card within a few minutes.
A Car Insurance Quote Won't Affect Your Credit
Applying for auto insurance won't impact your credit scores. This is because an auto insurance inquiry is a soft inquiry. Unlike hard inquiries, which can result from applying for a loan or credit card, soft inquiries don't impact credit scores at all.
Elephant Insurance may pull your credit report and use a credit-based insurance score to help determine premiums, which is allowed in the states where it currently offered auto insurance. However, if Elephant expands into other states, know that the use of credit-based insurance scores is illegal in California, Hawaii and Massachusetts. In Michigan, the use of credit scores to determine rates is prohibited.
Report Elephant Auto Insurance Claims Online
If you have Elephant Insurance and want to report a claim, you do so online or by calling 844-937-5353 during business hours. You'll want to have your policy number ready, along with the other person's insurance information and phone number, if you have it.
For glass-only repairs, Elephant partners with Express Glass Service for repairs or replacements. Otherwise, you'll deal directly with an Elephant claims specialist who will review your claim and may ask you, or other witnesses, questions.
If your vehicle is damaged, you can send photos of the damage to get an estimate for how much money you'll receive. There are pre-qualified Elephant Approved Repair Service (EARS) shops you can go to for the work, or you can choose a shop of your own. However, you might not be reimbursed for the entire expense if a shop that you choose charges more than Elephant Insurance considers the fair and reasonable rate.
When a vehicle isn't repairable, or the cost of repairs exceeds the vehicle's current value, it may be considered a total loss. Elephant will then pay you, or your loan or lease holder, based on the vehicle's value.
Additional Insurance Available
In addition to auto insurance, Elephant offers several types of other insurance. Purchasing more than one policy may allow you to receive a multi-policy discount on each of your policies. The options include:
- Motorcycle
- Homeowners
- Renters
- Condo
- Life
- Umbrella
While bundling may offer you savings, don't assume getting a discount will always lead to paying less overall. You'll still want to shop for insurance from several providers to compare the price and coverage.
Is Elephant Insurance Right for You?
If you live in one of the states where Elephant Insurance offers auto coverage, you may want to take 10 minutes to get a quote and see how much a policy will cost you. It may wind up being a good option, particularly if you want some of the less common options that Elephant Insurance has, such as pet coverage.