The 6 Best Wedding Insurance Policies of 2024 (2024)

Mila Araujo is a personal lines insurance broker and the director of personal insurance for Ogilvy Insurance. She is a personal insurance expert.

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Elizabeth Brownfield is a writer, editor, and researcher who specializes in food, travel, home, and lifestyle content. She's worked on the staffs of Domino, Martha Stewart, Metropolitan Home, and Every Day with Rachael Ray magazines, and was Senior Digital Editor at Food Network.

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Best Overall : Markel Specialty

Best for Destination Weddings : Travelers Wedding Insurance

Best for Last-Minute Changes : Wedsure

Best for Wedding Liability Coverage : WedSafe

Best National : Event Helper

Best For Members of the Military : USAA

What Types of Wedding Insurance Are There?

When purchasing wedding insurance coverage, you will have a few options:

Wedding and event liability: Covers liability at the venue for property damage or injuries to guests that you may be held responsible for.

Host liquor liability: Will protect you against liquor-related incidents. If you are hosting a wedding at home, this may also be something you need to consider.

Venue or additional insured liability: If your wedding requires you to provide liability coverage for the venue or additional named insureds, you may have to add them to the policy.

Cancellation or postponement: Reimbursem*nts of any nonrefundable lost deposits up to the limit of the policy.

Additional or special coverages: If you want to insure your dress or tuxedo, gifts, photographs or other items against damage or theft (i.e. if you rip your wedding dress accidentally).You should purchase engagement ring insurance separately.

Although all the wedding insurance companies we reviewed offered liability and cancellation insurance, each one has its own special features. Each service also had its own policy wording and exclusions. The verbiage in the policy can make a big difference in providing coverage for (or excluding) items that may be important to know about with regard to your wedding.

Key Takeaways

To find the best coverage and price for your situation, we found knowing the answers to the following would help you:

• Know your wedding costs to help decide if you need a policy with more customization, or if standard limits will be enough.
• Identify any big-ticket expenses that you may want to make sure are insured vs. smaller items that will not impact you if you lose the deposit.
• Consider if you can afford a higher deductible to save money (not all insurers let you customize the deductible or coverages); if your costs are lower, a no-deductible plan might be a better choice.
• The number of guests, how many days of coverage you need, and the type of venue you choose will drive the cost of the wedding insurance up or down.
• Shop around once you have your list of needs, expenses, deposits, and other items you may or may not want to insure ready, and see what each insurer will offer you.

Methodology

To select our top picks for wedding insurance providers, we wanted to make sure that the services we recommended were accessible, could provide adequate expertise, and had enough coverage offerings to protect you.

To do this, checked several factors for wedding insurance providers in the U.S., including how long they were in business, their availability throughout the country, who underwrites their policies, if they offered online quotes, if they offered sample policies online, if they provided FAQs, testimonials, and claim examples, and if they offered the base types of wedding insurance coverage (liability and cancellation).

Companies that not only offer their own program, but act as the selling partner behind other brands, or other providers, were identified. Similarly, those who appear to sell their own insurance, but then redirected to one of our top picks were eliminated unless we found value-added coverages or differences that might give you an advantage in checking both out. For example, USAA could provide member advantages in addition to the wedding insurance itself.

Once an insurer passed these criteria, we dug deeper and then compared our finalists side-by-side to see what differentiated them from each other, and which ones could provide that extra value add:

What We Compared

Coverage specifics:We read the wording and definitions in liability and cancellation contracts wherever possible, keeping key coverage concerns in mind to see how each one might cover you in a claim.

Value-added services:We checked each company to see what the coverage differentiators were, and noted any items that stood out. For example, we looked at insurance for policy cancellation due to financial hardship like being unemployed suddenly, change of heart coverage (only offered by one insurer), or the ability to add a small rider to cover cancellation, instead of making you buy a separate policy, to name a few.

Deductibles and coverage limits:We checked the maximum coverage limits available, if there were customization options, or if it was a “one size fits all” plan. Where clarification was needed, we called the insurers to ask them how coverage applied and paid attention to how intuitive everything they were explaining was. We also asked questions to cross-check information when we did not see a certain type of coverage, to make sure we weren’t missing something.