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If You Can’t Afford a Second Party -- Get Insurance
Wedding dress, $1,200; banquet hall rental, $10,000; flowers, $5,000; cake $600; and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Before you know it, the cost of putting on a wedding can exceed a lot of people’s annual salaries. According to Condé Nast’s Bride’s Magazine, the average wedding costs between $20,000 and $25,000 to put on; many far exceed that amount.
“It’s not just the bride and groom’s happiness at stake on their wedding day. Dad has made a big investment and it would be a mistake not to protect it,” says Robert V. Nuccio, exclusive program administrator for the Fireman’s Fund wedding insurance program, and author of this exclusive policy. With all the details that need to be taken care of before the big day, Nuccio’s product is often the last thing people think about, but he says it should really be the first.
A lot of people have made that realization this past year. The recent California fires, this summer’s massive power outage in the Northeast, and Hurricane Isabel all forced the cancellation or postponement of a lot of weddings. Several of Nuccio’s customers were affected.
“The power outage could have spelled disaster for one of my clients,” says Nuccio. “He had a $175,000 wedding planned at a very high end hotel in New York. Because he had insurance, when the power went out, we were able to approve the event’s move to another hotel, 2 blocks away.” Nuccio authorized up to $43,000 in additional expense.
Wedding insurance policies also saved a lot of expense for people in California. At the height of this summer’s firestorm, four major airports in the Los Angeles area were shut down, causing massive delays. Country clubs and other wedding facilities in the San Fernando Valley area were under a mandatory evacuation order. Dozens of weddings and other special events had to be cancelled because people couldn’t get where they needed to go. “Those with insurance were able to recoup their non-refundable expenses and put their parties on at a later date,” says Nuccio.
When compared to the cost of the event itself, wedding insurance is relatively inexpensive. Depending on the coverage you select, insuring a $20,000 wedding would cost about $400.
Don’t Let Mother Nature Ruin Your Wedding  |
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