Elephant Insurance: An Innovative Wave for Insurance

After selecting the car you’ll be driving, the next important decision you’ll make is determining which auto insurance provider you’ll entrust to keep your investment safe. Consumers want a trustworthy, experienced, and reputable insurance company that can guide you to the right insurance plan that fits your needs – and that is Elephant Insurance’s specialty.

Founded in 2009, Elephant Insurance is an offshoot of Admiral Group, U.K.’s leading insurers with additional brands operating in eight countries and millions of customers worldwide. Headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, Elephant provides auto insurance in 8 states of Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. They are renowned for their customer centric approach, innovative pricing, and inclusive culture.

The Elephant website and staff of licensed insurance agents educate customers on the different insurance plans to guide customers in the right direction and save them money. This approach provides Elephant’s customers with the necessary knowledge to help them make informed decisions. The company’s competitive rates and high-quality service are one of the main reasons for its tremendous growth over the past few years.

We met Alberto Schiavon, CEO of Elephant Insurance who shared some interesting facts and facets of this fast-growing company. When asked about the company’s ethos he said, “Elephant is a company that cares. We were founded with the belief that we could empower customers to make better insurance decisions that will save them money. We care about doing right by our customers, employees, and investors, and we ultimately want to be a force of good change in our communities.”

Schiavon is a numbers and math enthusiast and always marveled at how they could be applied to real life circumstances. He started his professional career as a civil engineer after graduating from the University of Padova. When he graduated in 2008, the world was experiencing one of the largest financial and real estate crises and no one needed another engineer, so he decided to leave Italy to pursue a career in management, an in-demand career. He received his MBA from Manchester Business School in England and worked for a private equity firm in London.

During his MBA, he met some interesting people from Admiral Group and applied for an international pricing manager role. Five years later, he moved to the US to lead marketing and pricing at Elephant Insurance, Admiral’s US subsidiary. Less than a year later, Schiavon was promoted to CEO.

Every journey has a few roadblocks and challenges, Schiavon remembers his journey vividly and reminisced, “When Elephant first launched, we expected price comparison websites to develop quickly like they did in Europe, where our parent company operated. While it has taken longer to develop than anticipated, we do see signs of it growing. We’ve kept our focus on direct marketing and cultivating relationships with independent agencies to reach new customers.”

As a company trying to make their mark in the fast-paced technological world, Schiavon told us how the company is maintaining itself as an innovative hub in today’s global market.

“At Elephant, we put our people – our customers, employees, and stakeholders – at the center of everything we do. This sense of culture has given us the ability to approach problem solving creatively.” said the CEO. “The past year we have focused on developing our partnerships with independent agencies, creating new tools to make it easy for agencies to present Elephant to their customers, including an exclusive agency portal, integrations with existing agency platforms and a dedicated agency support team.”

Another example of a recent innovation at Elephant is their quick rollout of Work from Home DiscountTM. When the Covid-19 pandemic led to a shift to remote working, they quickly developed and launched this discount to allow their current and future customers an opportunity to save on their insurance premiums if they are driving less.

When asked about his team and the relationship he shares with them, Schiavon said, “Happy employees deliver great customer service—people who love what they do, do it better. Our goal is to offer every employee compensation and development opportunities that allows them to flourish, grow, and be the best version of themselves. We work hard but we enjoy doing it. We are friendly, goofy, and fun while we work, and we have managed to keep that culture alive and well in the virtual work environment.”

On Future Plans

“Our goal is to continue to expand our offerings to customers across the United States. We are strong believers in building an evolving and sustainable business. We take the time to make sure we get the fundamentals right, then scale to provide coverage in more states,” said Schiavon.

To budding entrepreneurs, Alberto Schiavon suggests, “Look not just above you to find answers, but around you. One of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs can make is thinking they need to have all the answers. That is never the case. While we’ve worked under some incredible leaders, we’ve often learned the most from our co-workers.”