Your wedding day is supposed to be the best day of your life. It’s a special celebration of two people falling in love and starting a new life together. Everything is meant to be happy, and wedding days should be full of smiles and laughter.
Unfortunately, there are times where problems can happen. Unforeseen circumstances could cause you to cancel your wedding, or a freak accident results in your gown being ruined. The point is, issues may occur that end up costing you lots of money, as well as ruining your day.
With wedding insurance, you can get protection in these horrible situations. While this protection might not save the day, it will at least help you recover some physical losses. Very few people actually know what wedding insurance is and how it can help you. So, we’ve put together this guide to help you understand more about it, and whether or not you should buy it.
A Brief Overview Of Wedding Insurance
But what is wedding insurance? Before we dive into all the nitty gritty points, it’s important to gain a brief understanding of wedding insurance. Essentially, it works like any other type of insurance out there; it protects you against things that cause you financial distress.
Think of anything bad that can happen on your wedding day and cause you to lose money. There are small-scale things such as a cake being dropped in the morning, causing you to quickly order a new one. Then, there are many larger things like a full on cancellation meaning you have to rebook your entire wedding for a different day.
In essence, wedding insurance is a safety net that’s there to protect you and ensure your special day doesn’t harm your finances if things go wrong.
What’s Covered?
Of course, now we know that wedding insurance protects you on your wedding day. But, what does wedding insurance cover? Furthermore, are there any things that aren’t covered by it? When buying wedding insurance be sure to do extensive research on wedding insurance companies first.
Covered
Weather: If your wedding is disrupted by any weather conditions, your insurance will cover it. If you’re forced to reschedule thanks to a storm or blizzard, then your insurance helps you pay for the costs of rescheduling.
Ceremony/Reception Venue: If the wedding venue insurance for your ceremony/reception suffers damages that mean you have to cancel, your wedding insurance will cover it. There are loads of problems that can happen to mean a cancellation of venue is needed. In extreme circumstances, the venue could fail a health inspection and get shut down. In less extreme circumstances, they could have a power cut and not be able to get up and running until after your booking.
Job Movements: There are certain lines of work where you may be forced to pack your bags and go to work whenever you’re called upon. This happens in some corporate industries where high-level employees may need to fly halfway around the world for an emergency investor meeting. It also happens in the military when people are shipped out without much warning. Should this happen to you or your partner, wedding insurance covers the cost of canceling or rescheduling the wedding.
Health Problems: Should you fall sick or get injured on the day of your wedding, you may be forced to rearrange it. Your insurance can cover this, and it can also cover anyone else that gets sick and is important to the running of your wedding.
Cancellation Of Services: What happens if the caterer you booked decides to cancel or not show up on your wedding day? You’re screwed and need to act fast to book a new one, or just rearrange the whole thing. Thankfully, this type of scenario is covered by wedding insurance policies.
Not Covered
Cold Feet: If you or your partner gets cold feet and decide you don’t want to get married, then insurance won’t cover you when you cancel.
Jewelry: If any jewelry gets damaged or lost, then this won’t come under the wedding insurance policy either.
Engagement rings: Speaking of jewelry, the only item that is covered is your wedding ring. However, your engagement rings aren’t included in this, and they won’t be covered by insurance.
Extra Coverage
As well as all the coverage in the above point, you can also take out extra coverage of other things too. Some couples decide to do this to be extra careful on their wedding day. Some of the things you can purchase additional wedding insurance coverage to include:
Photos & Videos: You can ensure your photos to make sure they’re retaken if your photographer decides they aren’t going to show up on your wedding day. Likewise, you can ensure your wedding video in case the recording gets damaged, or the file is corrupted.
Gifts: Any gifts that get damaged or stolen can be covered by additional insurance. This means they can be repaired or replaced in due course without you or the gift giver having to spend any extra money.
Personal Liability: If accidents happen during the wedding, and someone gets hurt, this additional insurance can help you make sure you’re not liable to pay any medical expenses.
Who Needs Wedding Insurance?
The big question on everyone’s lips is who needs wedding insurance? Is it a mandatory requirement for everyone, or can some couples get away with not purchasing it?
The answer to this question depends on many other things. However, as a general rule, wedding insurance won’t do you any harm. The amount you pay for wedding insurance is a lot less than the amount of money you could lose if something goes wrong and you don’t have any coverage.
No one can predict the future, we have no idea what could possibly go wrong on our wedding day. Sure, everything could go fine, and there are no issues at all – that’s great! But, there are so many potential things that could go wrong. There are loads of things out of our control that can affect our wedding day.
Take the weather as an example. You book your wedding day for a summer’s day, hoping you get some lovely hot weather. Then, when the day rolls around, there’s a freak storm, and it’s raining like crazy. It could cause flooding that means half of your guests can’t get to the venue, and you’re forced to cancel the wedding.
That’s an extreme example, but there are other less extreme examples too. What if the rain causes a muddy puddle right outside the church and one of your little cousins accidentally splashes into it, getting muddy water all over your dress?
Or, take the elements out of the equation and think about the other potential problems. The gift table breaks and some of your expensive wedding gifts crash to the floor and break. With insurance, you’re covered and can get money for replacements.
The point is, everyone should at least consider getting wedding insurance because there are so many potential problems, and it’s the safe thing to do. Having said that, there are exceptions where wedding insurance doesn’t make sense, and we’ll discuss this in the next point.
When Shouldn’t You Get Wedding Insurance?
You must realize that some businesses may already include insurance in their prices when you book them. For example, the company you bought your gown from may have protection in case of gown failures or emergency replacements. Whenever you buy anything for your wedding, check with the company to see what their insurance policy is.
If you’re in a situation where most things are already covered by the vendors you’ve booked with, then you don’t need to get additional wedding insurance on top of this. You’re already covered, and there’s nothing to worry about.
What’s The Cost Of Wedding Insurance?
The cost of wedding insurance varies depending on the policy you take out and the company you’re buying it from. However, we can get a rough estimate of how much it costs by looking at the average ranges.
First, you have a basic wedding insurance policy. This is a standard insurance policy that covers you if you suffer losses regarding your clothes, rings, physical objects such as presents, and digital information such as videos or photos. With this policy, the cost of wedding insurance will be around $150 to $600. Again, this depends on who you buy from.
Then, you have something called general liability insurance which can cover you in the event of any accidents. This is much cheaper, and you can get it for somewhere in the $200 region, possibly even less from some providers.
So, Should You Buy Wedding Insurance?
After reading this article, you now know what wedding insurance is and how it can help you on your special day. So, should you buy it? You should certainly consider it and make sure you’re protected in some way!
