I was recently in an RTA. I've only once before been in a car accident but this time my car was quite badly damaged and the damage was judged to be "borderline". This means that the cost of fixing the car is in the same region as the car value. In this case a decision has to be made on whether the car will be fixed and this is done by "elephant.co.uk engineers" viewing the damage either via video link (yeah, right!) or, as I was told, digital images (much more likely). Once this has been done the insurance agency will make a decision on whether the car is written-off / a total loss. If it is written-off / a total loss then your car won't be fixed and the insurance agency will make you an offer for your car. So, in effect the insurance agency is buying the car off you.

The first of my gripes is that elephant.co.uk don't provide you with a courtesy car. The car is supplied by the garage that will be repairing your car, but only if the car is going to be repaired. It's therefore obviously that the speed at which a decision is made on the cars repair status has a direct relationship with the speed at which you will know if you will get a courtesy car. If the car is deemed written-off / a total loss you will need to organise a hire car.

It took the wonderful elephant.co.uk ten days (until 26th December 2006) to make a decision and the only reason it was done this quickly was because I kept phoning to chase things up. Maybe I forced them into scrapping my car?! Yep, it was Christmas and people would have been on holiday and things maybe weren't getting done as quickly as normal. But, YEP, it was Christmas and I needed a car to visit family. Anyway, by the time a decision was made it was all too late and I ended up having to make less than ideal alternative arrangements.

I had my accident on the Saturday 16th of December 2006. Today is the 29th of January 2007 and I have still not recieved a Total Loss Offer for my car from elephant.co.uk. They are claiming that the paperwork is the hold-up however I have completed and returned any paperwork that they have requested from me within one day of receiving any request. The last letter I sent to them contained my vehicle registration documents and that was at the very beginning of January. Just over a week ago I was told that all the required paperwork was in place and I would have an offer by the end of the week. This week I have been told that the paperwork is just now in place and I will have an offer by the end of this week.

It's now fourty four days since my accident and I still don't have a car or any money to buy one with!

The unfortunate truth about elephant.co.uk is:

• elephant.co.uk do provide cheap car insurance
• elephant.co.uk do answer the phones quickly
• elephant.co.uk are moving call centres back to the U.K
• elephant.co.uk will provide a courtesy car (via the garage) but only if your car is being repaired
• elephant.co.uk will leave you without a car over Christmas
• elephant.co.uk will take ages to make a decision on whether your car can be fixed or if it is a Total Loss
• elephant.co.uk do take ages to get all the required paperwork in place following a claim and will most probably blame it on the DVLA
• elephant.co.uk will leave you without a car or money to buy a new car for over fourty four days and counting

The worst of it is that I'm sure that the Total Loss offer that elephant.co.uk will give me will be way below what it would cost for me to get the same make/model/extras and that I'll have to spend weeks proving the amount that my car was actually worth!

Whinge over!

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Update February 1st 2007:

I got a call from Elephant today, fourty seven days after my accident, with a Total Loss offer. It wasn't quite as much as I was hoping so I queried the amount and asked where they came up with it. It looks like they use AutoTrader to justify the offer along with some other standard price guide - fair enough really. After a few questions I found out that they had added an extra 20,000 miles onto my cars milage. The guy then had to go away and confirm that my milage was 20,000 miles less than he originally thought. He then upped the offer by £400.00. So, the offer in the end was reasonable and I could get a replacement car on AutoTrader for it so I accepted. I guess I could have haggled but I felt the offer was fair and that's all I ask.