Your wedding should be the happiest day of your life, but taking out suitable wedding insurance can help make that more likely. Couples getting married today are typically spending the same amount of money on their wedding as a brand new family car. Clearly it’s a legal requirement to have car insurance, but even if it wasn’t, would you really take such a huge risk with such an expensive purchase?
The problem is increased when you consider than your wedding can be compressed to a period of just a few hours on one particular day. How confident are you that everything will go according to plan, when you are planning months in advance, bringing a large number of people, providers and services together into a single occasion on a single day? Sadly, things do go wrong, and that’s when having adequate wedding insurance can help make sure you don’t end up out of pocket.
Whether you choose to have your wedding insured or not is up to you, because clearly everyone’s wedding is going to be a unique occasion. For some people, particularly those hit hard by the recession it is a reasonably modest affair, with costs kept quite low. In this case, you may consider that you’ll be able to manage should things not work out quite as you’d hoped. Other people turn to their credit cards and accept that the chargeback or credit insurance already provided for purchases over 100 will be enough. Again, for some people, this is true.
But there are other issues as well. Such as those items which are not paid for by the bride or groom – including gifts. And if a provider goes bankrupt or simply disappears, you may find that you have a good deal of trouble trying to claim money back from them. If you don’t use a credit card or can’t rely on card protection, then you may be facing a big gamble. And a wedding should not be a gamble!
If you’re one of those lucky couples who are planning a full blown affair with all of your family and friends, a wonderful venue fully decorated, flowers, cake and magnificent dresses and suits, then it may well be worthwhile covering yourself. But just taking out wedding insurance may not always be enough. Just as with other forms of insurance, such as holiday insurance, there are often aspects not covered which you may otherwise have assumed would be. For those reasons, it’s always wise to compare wedding insurance policies before you commit to one.
For example, you may not have realised it but some of the insurers won’t cover you over more than one day. For those having their reception on a separate day to the wedding itself, this is an area worth investigating. Additionally some wedding insurers will protect those purchases which you have made yourself, but not those made by family and friends, which means that your wedding gifts may not be covered. Sadly thefts and accidents do occur, and so having these gifts covered too could well prove worthwhile if you are expecting expensive, valuable or delicate items.
Of course, one of the most valuable items is also one of the smallest – the rings. Your wedding rings are often not in your direct possession, handed over to the Best Man or Maid of Honour. Having such expensive items, not in your possession may prove worrying, no matter how carefully you have planned your wedding and chosen those to be involved. Again, wedding insurance can easily make sure that even if the worst happens and the Best Man runs off with the Maid of Honour and cashes your wedding rings in for a quick flight to Barbados, you’ll be covered. However, it would be fairly probable that your friendship could take a slight turn for the worse.
You might also consider how your home insurance policy might help in certain instances, such as your personal liability for injury or damage caused. Your home insurance may cover you, although not necessarily in all cases. However, the advantage of taking out wedding insurance is that in many cases your guests will also be covered, and possibly those service providers involved too. So should the Best Man get drunk and trip over the Bride’s dress, falling headlong into the cake and accidentally swallow the rings, you can at least know that your costs are covered, even if your nerves and friendships become somewhat strained.
