You’ve surely heard of insurance in terms of home insurance, health insurance or car insurance, but how about wedding insurance? Just as those types of insurance help protect you against paying tons of money out of pocket for unforeseen circumstances, wedding insurance can give you peace of mind for one of the biggest days of your life.
If wedding insurance is new to you, you’re probably not alone. Marcella Bogs, founder of Marcella Camille Events, says she wishes couples would ask about wedding insurance more often.
“Wedding insurance tends to be one of the least thought of questions, in my experience, unless the venue requires it,” Bogs says.
To decide whether wedding insurance is something you need, it’s important to first understand what types of things might be covered under the wedding insurance umbrella.
According to WedSafe, a wedding insurance specialist, there are generally two types of wedding insurance, which are very different from each other. The first, often referred to as wedding cancellation/postponement insurance, covers exactly what it sounds like. If something happens that causes you to postpone or cancel the wedding (your venue burns down in a fire, you or your beau are suddenly too ill to get married), this type of insurance helps protect any money you might otherwise lose from deposits or payments. The second type is liability insurance, which protects you against financial liability arising from your wedding, and is often required by venues. This protects you if a guest was injured, the venue was damaged, or if there’s any sort of alcohol-related incident that leads to a bill.
According to Steve Lauro, vice president of Aon Affinity, the company that provides WedSafe insurance, there’s been a trend of more couples purchasing policies as education about wedding insurance spreads.
“The average wedding across the USA is over $25,000,” Lauro says. “When you choose not to insure something, you are essentially assuming that risk on your own. Would you go without insurance on a car of that price?”
Bogs agrees that insurance is worth looking into, especially if a couple’s vendors don’t include any. Some venues and vendors will have their own liability insurance, so it’s good to check.
While Bogs hasn’t experienced any wedding horror stories (where insurance would have come in handy) firsthand, she has heard about instances where people are injured while dancing on, say, an alcohol-soaked dance floor.
Because something can arise that causes a couple to reschedule or cancel and because liability in incidents involving alcohol could fall on the newlyweds, Bogs says it’s always a good idea to look into wedding insurance. However, note though that wedding insurance typically doesn’t cover when a couple has a change of heart.
“It is never a bad decision to add that little bit of extra coverage to protect yourselves and your family on one of the most important days of your life,” she says.
