Do I Need Wedding Insurance? A Simple Guide to Planning Your Wedding Insurance Coverage
Wedding Insurance
Something that the thousands of wedding websites and social media pages often don’t mention during the blissful experience of wedding planning is the sort of uncomfortable topic of wedding insurance. You may not think it’s necessary to shell out between $100-$1,000 more than you’re already paying for the “what if?” scenarios. As a wedding planner and coordinator I will tell you that YOU DEFINITELY SHOULD!
Those day ruining scenarios happen way more than they should, and you need to make sure you are covered in case something happens that is out of your control! Sure, you can plan (or hire us to be your wedding planner to plan) your beautiful day down to the minute, but you have absolutely no control over whether your venue gets damaged or your caterer goes bankrupt. Most wedding insurance claims have to do with vendor issues! Let’s break down the two major types of wedding insurance coverage:
1. Wedding Liability Insurance
This type of insurance covers you for bodily injury or property damage. For example, if your guests get rowdy and damage the tables or some equipment, this will help cover those costs. If you are serving alcohol, it’s 100% necessary to make sure the plan includes Host Liquor Liability. This will cover alcohol-related accidents, like if a guest consumes too much alcohol and drives home and gets into an accident, or if a belligerent guest gets in a fight with other guests and causes an injury.
2. Wedding Cancellation Insurance
The other type of wedding insurance you can get is cancellation insurance. This will cover costs for rescheduling or cancelling your wedding due to an immediate family members illness, your illness or injury or severe weather prohibiting you from getting to the venue or holding the ceremony. If a vendor cancels and you decide to postpone the wedding (i.e. the caterer cancels that morning and you understandably don’t want to have your wedding without the food you so carefully planned), that could be covered as well. If you or your spouse is in the military, this would also cover the rescheduling costs due to deployment.
Wedding insurance won’t cover cancellation due to change of heart or cold feet, or any other “preventable” reason. It’s meant to cover you in the chance that something out of your control prevents you from having the wedding you planned.
How Do I Get Wedding Insurance?
If you own your home, you may be able to get wedding insurance through your Homeowner’s Policy. If a parent is financing the wedding and owns their home, they may be eligible too. It’s really important to look over the exact specifications of what the Homeowners Policy may provide, and verify if your venue requires you to provide certain terms on the insurance. It’s also worth noting that if you do end up having an issue and have to file a claim, this could increase the amount you have to pay in the future for your Homeowner’s Policy.
I always recommend getting at least a basic Liability with Host Liquor Liability from a third party insurance company (like The Event Helper or WedSafe). It only takes a minute and the cost is so justifiable. Like all insurance, it’s worth it to pay the cost upfront in the hopes that the day will go perfectly, and if it doesn’t then you won’t get stuck with thousands of dollars in medical or legal costs, or the debt of losing all the deposits! If you have any questions about what kind of policy you should get, reach out now for wedding planning help!
Photo Credit: Captures by Justine