Providing a Hassle-Free Insurance Experience: Elephant Insurance

Just like every other industry, the insurance industry is also growing at a rapid speed. As technology advancement, high customer expectations and disruptive newcomers are redefining the marketplace, insurers are trying to remain focused on growing the top-line sales, bottom-line profitability, and addressing challenges to stay strong in the competitive industry.

Consumers nowadays are increasingly looking for convenience and personalization from their online experiences, in addition to value for money from shopping online.

With a vision to deliver a simple and easy online experience to help customers save time and money without sacrificing on service, Elephant Insurance was founded in 2009. Backed by the Admiral Group, the United Kingdom-based parent company, Elephant Insurance today is one of the most customer-centric direct insurers that bring a hassle-free insurance experience to the U.S. market.

Admiral is a household name in the UK and the only FTSE 100 Company in Wales. The Admiral Group is one of the largest car insurance providers in the UK with businesses all over the world. After witnessing immense success with a particular insurance model for the consumers in Europe, Admiral saw the opportunity to offer something similar in the US and founded Elephant Insurance.

Elephant Insurance was first launched in Virginia, and it quickly realized that it is not a cake walk to setup an insurance company overnight, which reinforced the company to focus more on its customer and deliver what they need. At present, almost after 10 years, Elephant Insurance has entered more markets and has grown considerably. Looking forward, the company has a focus on building a scalable, sustainable business, which means serving its customers well in existing markets while preparing to expand into new markets.

In-Conversation with CEO, Alberto Schiavon:

Q. Why the name Elephant?

Qualities of an elephant perfectly align with how we do business and approach insurance. Elephants are big, strong, and built to last. At the same time, they are kind, caring, and known for their herd mentality.

When you insure with Elephant, you become a part of our herd. We are big enough to matter but small enough to care. Our company is built on listening to our customers when they have feedback and rapidly changing to make their lives easier.

Q. Big or small, every company must have the sense of authenticity and originality to succeed. Is your company a ‘Leader’ or a ‘Follower’?

There are many other companies in the industry who are challenging traditional agencies, but we think Elephant is helping best to demystify and remove the complication of insurance for our customers.

We think we’re a leader in pricing and rating changes; we optimize our rates to pass on savings to customers. We think we do a better job of providing tailored rates to individuals and their changing circumstances, and the changing environment.

We also think we’re a leader when it comes to culture; we believe that when people enjoy what they do, they do it better and that means a great experience for our customers.

Q. “Earning trust and respect of consumers is through consistent focus on delivering high quality in all of the actions,” how do you interpret this statement?

We put our customers at the center of everything we do and every decision we take. When you’re an Elephant customer, you become a part of our herd; we protect and care for you. We see our role as a ‘Pathfinder’ who guides its customers to the product that is right.

At Elephant, we recognize when we make mistakes, and we try our best to put them right. Even though we are constantly updating and improving our quality standards, we never settle for good enough.

We believe communication is very important and at Elephant, we ensure that everyone is open and transparent. Making management accessible to all, the management team holds a weekly meeting where they listen to random customer calls and discuss with employees about ways to make significant process changes or procedure improvements.

Q. What are the factors that make your brand one of the ‘Best’ companies?

We think our staff and culture makes us one of the best companies in the industry. With a unique workplace culture where people love their work, we at Elephant Insurance, believe that a company must win in its workplace to win in the marketplace. To ensure that customers receive a great experience, we make sure that our staff enjoys what they do.

To promote team building and help achieve goals, we offer an honest, open and fun at work culture where everyone is treated as an equal. At Elephant achievement is rewarded and recognized - we organize an annual awards ceremony, along with quarterly celebrations and an employee of the month award to encourage our people.

We invest in our employees and we believe it will pay off with the great experience that customers receive every day.

The Elephant Mantra:

“With a ‘start-up’ mentality, we try to avoid rigid long-term strategies that tie us in certain directions. While we do have a long-term vision, we try to maintain a degree of flexibility by staying nimble and trying out new things. An idea on a Monday might be designed and implemented by Friday. Some competitors can’t match this, and we think it’s important to maintain to help us continue to grow in the coming years.”

Meet the Leader of the Herd

Alberto Schiavon, CEO: The 32-year old, Alberto is a native of Venice, Italy. He became CEO of Elephant Insurance on Nov 1, 2017. To lead the marketing and pricing divisions at Elephant, Alberto moved to the Richmond, VA headquarters in March 2017. Prior to joining Admiral Group in 2012 as an international pricing manager, he held roles at American hedge fund Cerberus.

He attended the University of Padua, including an exchange program with Michigan University and earned his master’s degree in business from the Alliance Manchester Business School in the U.K. 

At Elephant the CEO doesn’t have an office, parking space, or even a special desk. So, Alberto sits on a desk just like every other employee. He believes that everyone at Elephant is playing a major role and making a big contribution to the success of the company.

“We deliver insurance that’s simple and valuable to our customers. We put the herd at the center of everything we do because we believe people deserve better; treat people right and good things will happen.”

keep in touch: www.elephant.com