Are you planning an overseas wedding? Travel insurance policies are great for your typical overseas trip, but can be limiting with large expenses like jewellery, wedding attire, venue costs or cancellations when planning your big day.
With the average wedding costing $50k, it’s important to know when you’re covered and when you’re not. Keep reading to learn the ins and outs of travel insurance when it comes to weddings abroad.
Delayed items: You arrive, but your wedding dress doesn’t. We will reimburse you up to $250 if any items of your Luggage & Personal Effects are delayed, misdirected or misplaced by a carrier for more than 12 hours
Lost or stolen items like jewellery: We cover items of jewellery up to $750 only for items that are lost or stolen. You cannot add items of jewellery as a high value item with 1Cover policies
Cancellation: If you cannot go on your trip due to a covered unforeseen reason, we cover for unlimited cancellation fees and lost deposits relating to your travel like flights and hotels. But wedding venue cancellation fees are not included
Overseas Emergency Medical and Hospital Expenses: Should you fall sick or injure yourself, we cover for overseas medical treatment as well as 24/7 emergency assistance
Additional transport expenses: If you’re scheduled transport is cancelled or delayed for a covered reason, we cover your reasonable travel expenses to get to the wedding on time
*Terms and conditions, limits and exclusions apply. please see PDS for full details.
Items lost by airlines and other transport carriers. We do not cover for any loss or damage to items jewellery, wedding attire, mobile phones, tablets, cameras, video cameras, personal computers, computer equipment or their accessories after you have checked them into the hold and until you have collected them again from the luggage conveyor as the transport is at fault for their loss or damage and you should seek compensation from them
Wedding jitters: If you decide you do not want to go ahead with your wedding, travel insurance will not cover for cancellations for change of mind, only unforeseen covered circumstances as listed in our PDS
Failure of wedding suppliers: Standard travel insurance will not cover you if your florist or musician doesn’t show. You would require specialist wedding insurance to cover the specific wedding day expenses
Unsupervised & unattended items. We will not pay if you leave items unsupervised in a public place when they were taken
Drugs & Alcohol. If you're intoxicated, taking drugs (that haven't been prescribed) and your claim results from these actions, then you're not covered by travel insurance
What are your options?
Look for specalised wedding insurers if you’re looking proper cover for your overseas wedding. Sometimes home insurance can cover items of jewellery when you take them overseas.
OK, you want somewhere exotic. But if you’re based in New Zealand and announce that you’re getting married in Cuba, you can be pretty well assured that the wedding party might be made up of your immediate family only. Destination weddings are indulgent by their very nature, but you don’t want to completely price people out of being able to attend.
The really great thing about a destination wedding is that you get a long, multi-day celebration with everyone you love. Friends bond. Worlds collide. And the best way to enjoy that is to ensure you pick a venue big enough for everyone to stay. If you have guests scattered among different hotels you’ll spend as much time ringing around trying to find everyone as you do actually
Yes, weddings are technically supposed to be all about you, but if you have a destination wedding you have to understand that people are spending a lot of money to be there, and their happiness deserves to be considered as well. That means planning things with your guests in mind. Are they involved in the activities? Do they have something to do each day? Are they aware of where to be and what they should be doing? These are things you’ll need to think about.
Staging a successful destination wedding is going to require you to put a huge amount of trust in someone else. You can’t organise this whole thing from home on your own – it’s just not possible. The trick is to find a local wedding planner you think you can trust to coordinate the whole event, to deal with local organisers and venues, and to iron out the little kinks that will inevitably come up. Those things are very difficult to sort out from another country.
It’s probably tempting to be different and to host your wedding in, say, the Soloman Islands, or some unknown place in Indonesia. The trouble is, however, that the infrastructure for an event like that just isn’t there. There are no wedding planners, no photographers, no florists – not even any venues used to putting on large events. If you really want to go with an option like this it could be great fun flying by the seat of your pants. But if you want to ensure nothing goes wrong, opt for a popular destination like Fiji or Bali or even Vietnam.
Don’t simply assume that because you’re booking your wedding on a tropical island that the weather will be amazing. It might be
This one is essential. You only have the slimmest of
The great thing about a destination wedding is that you’re forced to leave much of the organisation to someone else. Your choice, therefore, is to constantly worry about what that someone else is doing, or to just relax and go with the flow. We would recommend the latter.
You’re getting married in some far-off land. You’re asking friends and family to take time off work and travel at their own expense to join you in that far-off land. Don’t be offended if some people aren’t able to do that – even if they’re people you consider close friends. Destination weddings are a big demand on everyone involved, and it shouldn’t be taken as a personal sleight if some people can’t commit to it.
The golden rule of destination weddings. Because you’re not the only couple with this idea. In fact pretty much everyone else is thinking the exact same thing, which is why if you want the best venue in the best destination, you have to book… Now!
If your wedding is in any of the destinations below, we’ve got some very comprehensive and useful guides to help you minimise your risk and have a fabulous time
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