Wedding insurance is as essential to your wedding planning as the dress. Consider how much you spent on your car, was it less than the sum you are about to invest in your wedding? Would you even consider not having adequate car insurance? No? Then why wouldn't you insure your wedding - when the average cost these days can fall between two and three times the cost of an average family saloon car?
A wedding insurance policy is comparatively cheap for insurance which covers a wide range of different parts of your wedding day. Cover can be arranged that gives you reassurance about the largest disasters (cancellation) through to some parts that may give minor disruption but not devastating consequences (cars not arriving, for example).
Before deciding on the items that you need insurance cover for, and the value of cover that you will need, it will be worth investigating a couple of other sources of cover that may be available to you. If you have sufficient limits on your household insurance policy, you may find that items such as the wedding gifts, rings and wedding dress/attire are covered whilst in your home. A call to the insurance broker should be able to confirm this and/or give you a quote for the extension of cover required to the household insurance.
Items purchased or booked for your wedding and paid by credit card will often carry a level of insurance cover from the credit card provider. In these cases, a wedding insurance policy may be duplicating cover that you already have. For example, if the florist went out of business before your wedding day, your credit card supplier would most likely cover the refund of any deposit or payment made by the card.
When you have considered each of the alternative insurance options available to you, if you decide that a more comprehensive wedding insurance policy better serves your needs, start shopping for it as early as possible. Most wedding insurances offer cover on a fixed scale of fees, providing cover until 24 hours after your wedding date. The sooner you arrange insurance cover the more reassured you can be about issuing deposit payments to the various suppliers, etc., so make wedding insurance one of the priorities when you're making the planning list of items.
When assessing the level of cover you may need, take into account the various items that come together to make your wedding day:
Wedding Cars / Transport Cover
If the transport fails to show or they go out of business before your wedding day, the wedding insurance will cover a refund of your costs, enabling you to make alternative arrangements without incurring additional costs on the budget.
Wedding Rings Cover
The age-old 'joke' of the best man losing the rings - it can happen, and it's not funny! It's also possible for theft or loss of the wedding rings to happen any time up to your marriage service. Check that the amount specified in the wedding insurance policy is adequate to cover the total value of both the bride and groom's wedding rings.
Wedding Flowers Cover
If the florist goes out of business before the wedding day or doesn't arrive with the floral decorations or buttonholes on the day, although the wedding insurance won't replace these, it should cover the cost that you have outlaid to the florist supplier. It means that your last minute replacements won't be an additional cost to your special day.
Wedding Dress / Attire Cover
Accidental damage to the wedding dress ranks amongst the highest of claims made against wedding insurance policies. Imagine the loss and devastation that you would feel if a burst water pipe or fire or other unexpected event was to cause loss or damage to your beautiful gown. Most wedding insurance policies will cover the wedding dress and the outfits of the main bridal party, but where suits, etc. are to be hired, check who's responsibility it is for insurance, the supplier or the hirer (most will be the responsibility of the hirer, but some suppliers will offer their own additional insurance cover).
Wedding Caterer Cover
If the chosen caterer goes out of business or - even worse - fails to show up at your reception venue on the date, adequate wedding insurance will cover a refund of the large sum that you have paid to them, leaving you to be able to make emergency alternative arrangements without suffering the additional inconvenience of extra costs to your budget.
Wedding Reception Venue Insurance Cover
If a last minute disaster prevented you from using the reception venue that you had booked, fire or flood for example, wedding insurance would cover the last minute alternative that you had been forced to arrange. If your chosen reception venue were to close or go out of business the wedding insurance policy would reimburse the payments you had make, allowing you to choose a different reception venue location without suffering a financial loss.
Wedding Cake Cover
The extravagant creation of your masterpiece wedding cake will be finished and then transported to the reception venue. In almost every case this is done by experienced people and it is successful, but disasters can happen! If your wedding cake isn't delivered, or anything causes it to be damaged, the wedding insurance policy will cover the cost.
Wedding Photographer and Photography Insurance Cover
A lot of things can happen surrounding your plans and wedding day that are totally beyond the couple's control; the photographer not turning up, the photographs not being able to be processed because of technical problems, etc. Adequate protection from wedding insurance will help alleviate the cost should these difficulties occur. If your photographs don't turn out, then you have the opportunity to have the bridal party and many of the guests reassembled and have them re-taken, thanks to your wisdom of having your wedding day adequately insured against such mishaps.
Wedding Present Insurance
A good wedding insurance policy will reimburse the cost/value up to a specified sum for damage to, or theft of, wedding presents. One of the higher number of claims relating to wedding insurance policies is the collapse of tables holding the gifts at the reception, or accidental damage of more delicate presents such as glass or crystal items.
Wedding Guest Liability Cover
Most wedding insurance policies give a level of liability insurance if someone is injured at your wedding. The level of cover often has an option to increase the amount should you need to do so. Some of your suppliers (marriage location, reception venue, etc.) will carry their own liability insurance, so it may be prudent to check this out before extending the level of inclusive cover.
Wedding Cancellation Cover
If the bride or groom change their mind or run for the hills, this won't be covered by wedding insurance! However, if an event beyond your control, such as the death of a close family member or illness in the family (or of the bridd or groom), that causes your wedding to be canceled or postponed, then the insurance will cover a refund of your expenditure up to a stated amount. If extreme weather conditions cause cancellation due to the guests being unable to attend, or the venue being adversely affected, then the wedding insurance will apply. However, if you are unfortunate enough to have bad weather on the day it is unlikely that the insurance would cover such circumstances (you may wish to try a bookmaker!).
Marquee Cover
Most wedding insurers offer marquee cover as an optional extra. Not all weddings will need this and those using a marquee should check with the hire company if an additional level of insurance cover is needed before adding it to the policy.
The months before your wedding day can be quite stressful, while you're trying to get everything organized and perfectly timed. No one wants to think of things going wrong, but wedding insurance will give you the peace of mind that your deposits and outlay to the various suppliers are insured and will be refunded in the event that anything did go amiss in the period leading to your big day. Wedding insurance will take away some of the worries that you may have and is a good investment to make.
