Insurance is important. You insure your health, your wealth, or maybe even your life, because life is unpredictable and can crumble in matters of minutes. When that happens, you’ll want to have a security blanket lied out under you, so the blow won’t be so hard, and you can salvage as much as you can.
Wedding is a part of your life, and as much as we don’t want to believe it, wedding is also unpredictable. Imagine how unfortunate – but also how realistic – for a problem, either major or minor, to arise on the big day. Maybe you’ve planned a winter wedding since summer and have sent out invitation in early December, but turned out that on the wedding day ice storm happened. Maybe you’ve planned a beautiful fairy-tale themed wedding, but just a month before your wedding, the castle you’ve rented as a venue collapsed.
No doubt, you’ll get stressed about it. You’ll have to reschedule, book another venue or book another vendor. However, all of those require money. If you have purchased a wedding insurance, depending on the type of insurance, at least you won’t have to worry about the cost, because the insurance will cover it.
Now, where can you get wedding event insurance? What is the best wedding insurance and where can you get it? In this article, you’ll find the answers for the basic questions about wedding insurance.
Wedding Insurance Companies
You can purchase wedding insurance from wedding insurance companies. These companies are not rare, in US alone there are hundreds of them. However, based from the rank from reviews.com, we recommend you these companies to get your wedding insurance.
Markel American is recommended because they have broad type of insurance for you to choose. Their policy is flexible and can be tailored according to your need, and they have 10 levels of cancellation coverage. WedSure is another company that scores high on reviews.com’s list. Their strength lies on the cancellation or postponement insurance.
Other companies you should check out are WedSafe, Travelers Wedding Protector Plan and The Event Helper. All of them are head in head in the industry and the best company is different for every couple. Make sure to research the type of insurance available and their policy and customize them according to your need, and you will get the best wedding insurance, no matter from what company it is from.
Wedding Insurance Policy
There are various types of wedding insurance policy offered by wedding insurance companies. You can purchase them as one package or “a la carte”. The most common menus are usually:
Based on the Events
Wedding is a series of events. At the very least, there are two events in wedding: ceremony and reception. Usually, there is rehearsal dinner the day before the wedding and honeymoon after the wedding as well. Based on your plan, choose which of the event you want to cover with your insurance.
Based on the Vendor
The common, basic wedding insurance policy will usually cover the cost of photographer, videographer, attire, wedding ring and wedding gift. However, with additional deposit, you can request for a policy that cover wider aspect of wedding, such as jewelry.
Interestingly, according to Traveler Insurance, most of the claim they get (around 44%), comes from this category. Their clients got vendor that doesn’t deliver the expected performance – and therefore they need either to find another replacement. Imagine if one day before the wedding, your photographer calls and said that his entire team got into an accident on the way home from another wedding. You need to hire another photographer – fast!
It is unlikely, but it happened before. Insurance will help you if such case happens.
Liability
There is accident before wedding (that can lead a wedding to be canceled or postponed) and there is accident during wedding as well. Sometimes you invited too many guests and they inflict damage on the venue (accidently or not). Liability will take care of this for you.
This is also common, because nowadays, wedding venue usually require you to purchase this insurance. Sometimes they even provide the insurance service themselves. If it still doesn’t convince you, Traveler Insurance revealed last year that 28% of their wedding insurance claim is about liability from property damage.
Cancellation or Postponement
Sometimes, there are outside forces that cause the wedding to stop. They are including but not limited to weather, sickness, accident or even military deployment. Imagine, what if you received a prediction that on the day of your wedding, there will a big storm and the government has warned for everybody not to leave their home? All of those money and effort you’ve done to prepare for the big day will go to waste, unless you’ve applied for insurance.
However, please note that most of the companies usually don’t provide cancellation policy for “change-of-heart”. So, if you want to cancel your wedding because you break up with your partner, find other option outside of insurance.
Destination Wedding Insurance
Holding a wedding outside of US is getting popular. What’s better than uniting your love under the warmth of Caribbean sun or under the exotic nature of Bali? However, while it is impressive and unforgettable, destination wedding costs a lot and possess greater risk as well.
The risks involved in destination wedding are basically the same with wedding inside US. However, they may amplify by themselves because you won’t know the location as well as if you hold the wedding in your own city or your own neighborhood. The typical risks you will likely to face in destination wedding are these:
- Climate
One of the main reasons for us to have a destination wedding is to seek different climate. Some of us want to wed in a warmer climate and some in colder one. However, unfamiliar climate means unfamiliar weather. Carribean, for example, can have quite unpredictable storms that may force you to cancel or postpone the date. - Unexpected local price rise
Since you will pay with local currency, the price of everything will depend on the economic situation in that country. What if few months before your wedding, the country is struck with natural disaster that disturbs the distribution of a lot of products and drives the price of everything up? - Custom
For some things that can’t be obtained in that country, you may want to ship them. However, passing everything through custom always posses some risk. There may be mix-up that makes your item delayed in the custom for weeks and you’ll need to stretch your budget to make up for that.
If any of these happens to your wedding, imagine how stressful that would be. Thankfully, there is a wedding insurance policy specifically designed to address this problem. Destination wedding insurance is a specific wedding insurance for couples who want to hold their wedding outside of US. It can protect you from financial loss and emotional distress should those risks happen to your wedding.
So, do you think you’ll need wedding insurance? In my case, if I were about to have my own wedding, I think investing in a wedding insurance will help me sleep more soundly before. What about you? Do you have any experience with a wedding insurance? Tell us about it on the comment.