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What Does Wedding Insurance Cover

What Does Wedding Insurance Cover And What Does It Not Cover What Do Couples Misinterpret When Purchasing

Does Insurance Cover Marriage Counseling? Does Insurance Cover Life Coaching?

Wedding cancellation insurance can cover lost deposits a couple suffers if they need to cancel or postpone their wedding. Covered reasons for cancelling or postponing include illness or injury, severe weather, fires, flood and more. It can also cover things like no show vendors, lost or damages wedding dress or gifts. Liability insurance can protect the wedding couple if they are legally responsible for bodily injury or property damage. Examples are lawsuits for damage to the wedding venue, an accident caused by someone leaving the wedding drunk, or an injury at the wedding.

Insurance generally excludes claims where the loss was foreseeable and/or under your control. The most pressing one at the moment are coronavirus issues, which are unfortunately absolutely foreseeable these days. So canceling because of fear of traveling or being at a large gathering is within your control and cant be covered. A pandemic in and by itself does not rise to the level of a covered item. As with all insurance, claims are handled on a case-by-case basis and decided individually. Generally, it would have to be of the nature that prevents more than half the guests from attending different than more than half the guests choosing NOT to attend.

What Are The Typical Wedding Liabilities And Risks

While we’ve mentioned some of the perils wedding insurance can protect against, there are plenty more situations where wedding insurance could save the dayand your financial investment. While each policy lists its own included perils and exclusions, here are some typical wedding liabilities and risks you should plan for:

  • Issues with wedding vendors, including financial insolvency
  • Injury or illness before the event
  • Extreme weather
  • Property damage during the event
  • Lost and stolen gifts
  • Liquor liability to protect against alcohol-related accidents and injuries
  • Loss of deposits
  • Food poisoning at the event
  • Vendor no-shows
  • Job loss

Some examples of common wedding mishaps include:

  • The wedding venue becomes uninhabitable due to smoke damage from a wildfire a few days before your event.
  • Your mother has a heart attack the night before your wedding.
  • Your wedding DJ makes a scheduling mistake and doesn’t show up for your event.
  • An elderly guest trips over wedding decor at the event and sues you for medical expenses.
  • Your ringbearer loses your wedding ring before the ceremony, and you never find it.

Interestingly, WedSafe offers some information on the top claims they paid out in 2019. These include:

  • Cancellation
  • Theft

Wedding Insurance Provides Peace Of Mind

Weddings can be expensive. Often couples and their immediate family members spend large sums of money to pull off a dream wedding from the hall to the food to the music and everything in between. According to theknot.com, the average couple spends nearly $30,000 on their wedding. When you are investing that kind of money, you want to make sure the day goes smoothly. Wedding insurance protects you in two ways. Wedding cancellation insurance covers your financial obligations should your wedding have to be cancelled or postponed. It also provides coverage for damage to your wedding attire and jewelry, lost/stolen gifts, photographs, lost deposits from no-show vendors and more. Wedding liability insurance, on the other hand, covers you when you are legally responsible for injury or damages that occur at your wedding. Having this type of insurance can take a huge weight off your shoulders, so you can enjoy your big day.

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Best Wedding Insurance Customer Service: Eventhelper

Event Helper

  • Apply for a free quote online

  • Solid customer service reputation

  • Tailor your policy to your needs

  • Inexpensive plans are for basic weddings, and prices go up from there

  • May not offer enough coverage for very expensive weddings

This company lets you buy wedding and event liability insurance, wedding cancellation insurance, and other specialized coverage for damage or theft.

Insuring your wedding can cost as little as $66 for minimal coverage, and you can personalize your coverage inclusions to ensure your policy meets your needs. However, you should note that the price of your policy will climb based on the value of the wedding you want to insure and any add-ons you want your policy to cover. You can also get a quote for EventHelper by filling out an online form.

As a side note, you should be aware that you can purchase insurance directly through EventHelper, which is backed by Evanston Insurance and Lloyd’s of London. Either way, coverage limits for your policy will vary, as will the total cost, depending on the types of coverage you choose to purchase. However, EventHelper does not offer more than $4 million in aggregate coverage.

When Should You Get Wedding Insurance

Wedding Insurance 101: What You Need To Know

The sooner the better. Let’s say you put a deposit on your wedding reception hall 12 months prior to your wedding date and then it burns to the ground a few weeks before the big day. With wedding insurance, you’ll be sure to get your deposit back. But note: Most insurance companies have limitations on how far in advance you can purchase insurance.

Recommended Reading: How To Know What To Wear To A Wedding

Wedding Cancellation And Postponement

There are multiple scenarios where you may have to postpone or cancel your wedding. In the midst of a global pandemic, this is all too familiar for couples who planned to get married in the spring and summer of 2020. While a health advisory is one reason you may have to postpone your nuptials , its not the only one:

  • Extreme Weather: Freak storms, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, and the like, can not only affect your actual wedding date, but can also cause venues in affected areas to close for indeterminable periods of time, leaving couples out in the cold.

  • Illness: If theres a family emergency, or the bride, groom, or an immediate family member becomes ill, cancellation policies will cover the costs incurred to postpone or cancel the wedding.

  • Deployment: Deployments and other military leaves can happen at a moments notice and force you to reschedule or postpone your wedding. Thankfully, most insurance plans offer coverage for postponement or cancellation in case of unplanned military leave.

The Future Of Wedding Insurance

For policies purchased before COVID-19 became a known event, some companies are paying out for cancellations. Since that is not sustainable as the pandemic continues, some wedding insurers have stopped selling new policies. McDonald says Wedsure never stopped selling cancellation policies since their language already excluded coronavirus and other communicable diseases. Other companies have started selling again with a specific exclusion for COVID-19 and future pandemics.

Its important to remember, COVID-19 isnt the only reason weddings are canceled, so wedding planners still recommend buying wedding insurance policies as soon as you set a date.

I always tell people to look at how much going to be out the day of the wedding, thats what you should be insuring whether its invitations or save-the-date costs or even honeymoon expenses, McDonald says.

When buying a wedding insurance policy, look at how the company has handled the past few months. Have they paid claims? Who is their underwriter and is it stable? Have they been easy to work with?

Other things to look for:

  • Validity in your state or destination.
  • Policy inclusions and exclusions.
  • The number of events and days covered.
  • Covered expenses and approximate wedding cost.

When thinking of COVID-19 and weddings, remember this is something that hasnt happened before and everyone is adapting.

Read Also: What To Wear To An Evening Beach Wedding

What Does Wedding Liability Insurance Cover

Just like with your home or auto liability insurance policy, wedding liability insurance covers both personal and property damage that happens during the event. That includes the rehearsal dinner, ceremony, and reception. These days, some event spaces will require you to purchase wedding liability insurance in order to have your event in their space.

Here are some examples of how you might use wedding liability insurance:

Example 1: A guest gets too intoxicated and causes damage to the event hall. You might be on the hook for repairs or replacement costs if you don’t have liability insurance.

Example 2: An elderly guest trips over the bride’s long train and has to be taken to the hospital for injuries. Your insurance would cover their medical costs up to your liability limits .

Examples 3: Your wedding dress is lost, stolen, or damaged before the big day. You’ll obviously be put into a bind because most wedding gowns need to be altered a few times before your big day, but at least you can depend on getting the replacement value back.

The second type of wedding insurance is called Cancellation and Postponement Insurance.

Types Of Wedding Insurance

What Is Wedding Insurance?

In a nutshell, wedding insurance exists to protect a couple’s investment from circumstances beyond their control, and to reimburse them for any financial losses due to those circumstances. Exactly what is covered depends on the specific details of each insurance policy, but there are two basic types of wedding insurance:

  • Liability and Property Damage Insurance offers protection against unforeseen events such as property damage, loss or theft, along with physical injury and accidents.
  • Event Cancellation and Postponement Insurance cover losses and nonrefundable deposits in the event of a cancellation due to extreme weather, unexpected illness or similar circumstances beyond your control.

Before you buy wedding insurance, it’s worth reaching out to your wedding venue and vendors to see what kind of insurance they already carry. If they are already insured, then buying your own insurance policy may be unnecessary.

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I Have To Cancel The Wedding What Does Your Cover Include

Emerald has you covered if you are left with unrecoverable expenses for wedding outfits, flowers, photographs, caterers, transport, accommodation and anything else that is booked and then not used. Under an Emerald wedding policy, a valid reason includes the following : if your wedding venue cannot hold your wedding or reception because of damage to the venue, outbreaks of disease, closure of the venue by the relevant authority, death or illness of one of the participants or a close relative, or the failure of a minister, registrar, or wedding services supplier to turn up on the day, loss or damage to ceremonial attire, redundancy of one of the participants or any close relative paying for the wedding, adverse weather conditions meaning that the participants, their parents or most of the guests cannot reach the venue, or a military posting overseas of one of the participants, attendants or close relative.

Before you cancel a Wedding and/or a Wedding Reception, we strongly recommend that you call our claims helpline on 0333 234 3723 to understand the scope of your cover. We don’t want you to be in a position where you cancel the Wedding and/or the Wedding Reception, but then find out that you are not covered.

Why Should I Get Wedding Insurance

While it’s easy to think wedding insurance is only for such situations as severe weather or a freak accident or illness, there are plenty of important reasons to purchase this coverage. First off, many venues require liability coverage to be purchased to protect against injury and damage that might take place during an event. If you don’t buy liability wedding insurance, you may have a limited number of venues from which to choose.

With the average wedding coming in at $19,000, it’s also just plain smart to hope for the best but plan for the worst. Wedding liability coverage can save the day if someone is injured during your event, and they knock on your door for help covering their medical bills.

If you plan to serve alcohol at your event, you’ll want to make sure you purchase a policy with liquor liability, which protects you against damages caused by liquor-related accidents or injury. On the other hand, cancellation coverage can protect you against an array of situations you could never plan forsevere and sudden weather, vendor bankruptcies, a water leak that ruins your wedding gown overnight, and more.

Recommended Reading: What To Look For In A Wedding Venue

The Wedding Dress An Intriguing History

Have you ever thought why a dress? And why, for that matter, a white dress? In many societies the colour white has long been associated with purity and virtue, and that is one reason why brides choose to wear white, especially in the West. But in other cultures such as in India, for example, their wedding dress is usually a reddish tone because in Hindu thought, red is considered an auspicious colour.

For most of history, brides rarely purchased a dress specifically for their wedding day, and the dress they wore to their wedding often wasnt white. Prior to the Victorian era, a bride was often married in any colour dress, even black.

The first documented instance of a princess who wore a white wedding dress for a royal wedding ceremony is that of Philippa of England in 1406, when she married Eric of Pomerania.

White didnt become a popular wedding dress colour choice until around 1840, after the marriage of Queen Victoria to Albert of Saxe-Coburg. Up until this time, no woman expected to wear her wedding dress only once and never again this idea would have been absurd even to the rich. More often than not, a woman got married in the best dress she already owned.

Wedding Insurance Policy Basics

Does Wedding Insurance Cover No Shows

The cost of a wedding can be considerable, and tying the knot often means being tied to specific dates and financial commitments with a variety of vendors.

A basic wedding insurance policy can reimburse you for non-recoverable deposits and purchases if covered circumstances beyond your control cause your wedding to be postponed or canceled. It also helps provide protection again no-show or bankrupt vendors, damage to wedding attire, gifts and much more, including:

  • Postponement due to family illnesses or travel delays.
  • Military deployment.
  • The Caribbean Islands
  • Cruise ships leaving from a port in any of these locations

*Note: Our Wedding Protector Plan® is not currently available to residents of Alaska, Hawaii and Louisiana.

** Note: Extreme weather exclusions apply to cancellation or postponement of the wedding/event if they occur less than 15 days after the policy inception date.

Yes, as long as the policyholder and both brides or grooms are 18 years of age or older. Any resident of the United States may purchase a basic policy. Our Wedding Protector Plan®, however, is not currently available to residents of Alaska, Hawaii and Louisiana.

Upon purchase, your policy and all related documents will be emailed to the email address you provided during the application process.

Policy premium, taxes and any other charges are fully earned once the policy is issued, with exception for residents of New York and Oregon.

Read Also: What Should I Include In My Wedding Invitations

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