You don't think twice about insuring your car or home, or taking out insurance for going on holiday, but have you considered getting insurance for your impending wedding? For most people, a wedding is the single most expensive day in their lives, and apart from buying a house or car, the most costly thing they will buy. The average cost of a wedding is around £15,000 and yet, amazingly, nine out of ten couples do not take out insurance.
Wedding insurance is even more crucial in the current economic climate where no business seems to be safe. Imagine having ordered and paid for a wedding dress, only to find the shop closes down before your big day and before you receive your dress. This is something that happened to many people in Southsea, when the town's largest wedding shop, Brides of Portsmouth, shut up shop. Not only were many customers out of pocket, but they had to start again to find the perfect dress with very little time (and money) to spare.
As with other kinds of insurance, wedding insurance varies widely from policy to policy and from provider to provider. Most policies will cover common problems such as cancellation and/or rearrangement due to serious illness, injury or death, as well as damage to wedding attire and cover for when suppliers go bust. However, be aware the most policies do not cover the costs incurred when one (or both) of the couple gets cold feet! It is also important to point out that most policies don't provide protection for rings either.
Unique engagement rings and wedding rings, such as if you choose to design your own wedding ring or have a vintage engagement ring passed down from a family member, cannot be replaced with the funds from an insurance policy, but all the same it can go some way to providing a replacement ring. As engagement rings aren't usually covered on wedding insurance policies, you need to make sure that you have cover elsewhere. This will often depend on the value of your ring, as most home insurance policies have a single item value limit (check with your provider) which may not cover the value of the ring. Alternatively, you can take out a separate policy specifically to cover your ring.
Around 10% of married women confess to having misplaced or lost their engagement ring at some point, which is often taken off to prevent it from becoming damaged. A survey by insurance provider Allianz Insurance found that this would usually happen in everyday situations such as gardening, putting out the rubbish, doing the garden, while on holiday or while exercising.
When it comes to wedding insurance, you can often take out policies as far as two years before the wedding takes place. Try and get cover before you start handing over any deposits to people, and make sure that your policy provides the right level of protection you need and offers an excess that you are willing to pay.
