Wedding Insurance – Is it worth it?

Mar 22

When a couple book their wedding day with us at our blank canvas wedding venue in South Wales, we suggest in very definite terms that they take out insurance.

So many couples book us as their dream barn wedding venue months and sometimes years before the date and a lot of things can change in that time.

The typical cost of insurance is not terrifying in the scheme of things. A case of wine would give you about £10K of cover for example and even if you are spending, let’s say, £50K, the insurance is likely to be under £200…. So it all makes very good sense.

BUT – read the policy with care. There are several items that are usually not covered:-

Cold feet / change your mind and you aren’t going to get a refund!
Unreasonable cancellation – something minor goes wrong and you pull the whole thing.
Financial difficult other than redundancy.
Cancellation for a pre-existing condition that you didn’t notify the insurers about at the outset.

So do your sums carefully and complete the forms with care and honesty.

Nonetheless, there are a lot of issues covered and peace of mind comes pretty cheap compared with what you may be spending on your wedding.

Then there are the grey areas which some insurers cover and some don’t – a stand-out one in normal times is loss or theft or damage to presents, rings, outfits etc. Some do and some don’t.

But the big issue in these awful times is “What happens if I have to cancel because of the coronavirus?”

Again, it matters so much who you are insuring with – one of our biggest wedding insurers, John Lewis, will not cover your postponement if you are self-isolating but will if a key members actually has the coronavirus. Some insurers tell me they won’t cover because coronavirus is a “notifiable disease” .

Clsimd are being refused despite the customers having paid for a policy that states it will provide cover if 'the booked venue for the wedding or wedding reception is unable to hold your wedding due to an outbreak of infectious or contagious disease',

John Lewis said in a statement: 'The current UK government position is that, while advice in relation to social distancing has been issued, weddings are still permitted to take place. So if your wedding venue is still prepared to hold your wedding and you chose to cancel, then this would not be covered.' This is repeated by many other insurers – they believe it is a voluntary act to cancel or postpone your wedding in this difficult climate

They also warn those wishing to cancel that they must make an effort to 'minimise their losses' by attempting to re-book at a later date before agreeing to a cancellation with their venue - and say correspondence could be needed as evidence that this was carried out.

I speak for the whole wedding venue market I believe when I say we are all doing our very best to make later dates available and minimize the anguish for all our couples. But insurance companies should at least come some of the way to help with this.

But I still suggest you take out insurance!