Why You Should Consider Travel Insurance for a Destination Wedding

Destination weddings, whether in your home country or abroad, are always exciting. But just like with any wedding, there’s going to be stress when planning the big day.

And not only do you have flower arrangements, guest lists, entertainment, and food to think about, but you also must consider the planning involved when traveling to another state or country.

Let’s look at how travel insurance can alleviate stress when planning a destination wedding, and how to decide which plan is right for you.

What You Need in Your Travel Insurance

First thing’s first—there’s no specific “Destination Wedding Travel Insurance” plan. Travel insurance in general encompasses a wide range of policies that you can select, depending on your needs.

There’s travel delay insurance, trip cancellation insurance, baggage and personal items loss insurance, medical insurance, medical evacuation and many other coverage types.

Each of these travel insurance coverage types has something useful to offer. The question is, which can be most beneficial for your destination wedding?

Here are the primary coverage types you should consider when planning a destination wedding and what they offer.

Trip Cancellation and Trip Interruption

Trip cancellation and trip interruption are the most popular travel insurance options.

Trip cancellation will offer you reimbursement for non-refundable travel expenses, such as airline, hotel, train, cruise, and other prepaid expenses if the cancellation reason is specified in the policy. This coverage type applies prior to your trip departure date.

Some qualifying cancellation reasons include sudden illness, death in the family, hospitalization, unforeseen natural disasters, and jury duty.

Trip interruption is similar but covers you while you’re on your trip. If something goes wrong, like a death in the family, and you need to return home suddenly, it can cover the additional costs involved along with your forfeited trip costs.

You’ll find that these two types of travel insurance are often bundled together in a comprehensive plan.

Travel Delays

It’s not uncommon that airlines will delay or cancel flights, but this could cause a major disruption to your planned destination wedding.

Travel delay insurance can cover you if your trip is delayed for a specific amount of time, and as a result, you can be reimbursed for a maximum dollar amount of expenses incurred. This includes things like extra meals, hotel accommodations, transportation, and prepaid non-refundable bookings.

So, for example, if poor weather results in your flight being delayed for six hours and your travel insurance plan states that the delay must be 6 hours or more in order to be a covered event, you would then qualify to receive reimbursements for travel delay expenses. If the delay was only 5 hours however, you wouldn’t qualify.

Medical Expenses

With recent global events such as COVID-19, having travel insurance to cover our medical expenses has never been more crucial.

Medical coverage as part of your travel insurance for a destination wedding can help reimburse you for a wide variety of medical-related costs, such as hospitalization, prescribed medications, x-rays and lab tests, transportation, and so forth.

Since COVID-19, many travel insurance plans have expanded to cover costs incurred from a required quarantine, such as hotel accommodations and meals.

Just keep in mind that there are limitations, as with any type of travel insurance. Medical expense travel insurance typically doesn’t cover alcohol or drug-related incidents, non-emergency procedures, and injuries incurred from reckless behavior.

Additionally, many countries do not accept United States health insurance policies, so they will require you have some form of travel medical emergency insurance.

Baggage and Personal Items Loss

If you’re planning for a destination wedding, chances are, you’re really going to need all the stuff you’re packing. But lost baggage and lost personal items can happen when we travel, so you’ll want to make sure you’re covered. After all, tuxes and wedding dresses aren’t cheap!

This type of travel insurance coverage can come in handy in case your items are lost, damaged, or stolen. Your baggage and personal items coverage will typically come with a total coverage limit and a per-item limit.

These kinds of limitations are outlined in the policy, so be sure to carefully review them. For example, you may find that your travel insurance plan only offers reimbursement for jewelry up to $1,000. If you’re planning a wedding, you may have jewelry that goes well beyond that amount that needs coverage. In this case, you’ll want to find a plan that offers a higher coverage limit or opt to purchase separate insurance for those high-value items.

The key thing to remember is that travel insurance policies vary greatly. The coverage limits and caps for one policy may differ greatly from another policy. So, pay attention to what you’re signing up for to ensure it provides adequate coverage.

What Travel Insurance Won’t Cover

Travel insurance policies cover a lot, but they don’t cover everything. Particularly when it comes to a destination wedding. Even if you choose the most comprehensive and broad travel insurance plan out there, it’s not going to cover the cost of the actual wedding event itself, no matter the reason.

This means that even if you have a qualifying travel insurance reason, such as an accident or death in the family that requires you to suddenly cancel the wedding, the travel insurance will not reimburse you for lost deposits on the wedding venue, flowers, entertainment, food, and so on.

You may be wondering, but isn’t travel insurance supposed to cover non-refundable prepaid expenses?

The answer is yes, but with caveats. It typically only covers travel-related expenses like cruise or airline tickets, hotels, tours, and excursions. Not major event deposits, like weddings.

This would require wedding insurance or event insurance, which is separate from travel insurance. When in doubt, always read the fine print of your travel insurance plan to see a full list of restrictions and limitations.

Final Thoughts

A destination wedding takes a whole lot of planning, which naturally can lead to some stress. Make your life easier by insuring your trip so you can have the peace of mind you deserve on your big day.

Since there are many policies and options available, think carefully about which plans can benefit you most. Will a flight delay make a big impact on your wedding day? Will the luggage you bring contain valuable items? What are the chances your trip may be canceled?

These are the kinds of questions you should ask yourself to determine what type of travel insurance you would benefit from most and which may not be necessary for this trip. Also, keep in mind that you can often bundle insurance plans to include additional coverage. Some also allow you to modify and upgrade your plans for more flexibility. For example, you can often upgrade from a basic trip cancellation plan to a “cancel for any reason” plan.

If looking at various policies, plans, price caps, and limitations all sounds a bit daunting to you, TravelInsurance.com makes it easy by allowing you to input your information and see multiple plans all in one place. You can compare plans and make your purchase online, at the guaranteed lowest price.

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