Wedding insurance offers safety to help couples prevent disaster on their big day

Jim Hartley, owner of River City Insurance in Red Bank, knows firsthand that the best-laid wedding plans can go awry.

When Hartley and his wife were married in 1983, they got ripped off by the wedding photographer.

"They went out of business, so they took our money and ran," he said. "I don't have any wedding pictures."

These days, couples can buy wedding insurance from Hartley and other insurance providers to help make sure their big day isn't ruined.

And there are no-cost steps, too, that couples and their families can take to avoid wedding-day disaster - as was the case for at least 10 couples who lost money they prepaid toward all-inclusive weddings at Lindsay Street Hall. The high-profile downtown Chattanooga wedding venue recently was sold at foreclosure auction on the courthouse steps after its owner stopped paying the mortgage and left many of those who had prepaid for their weddings out of luck.

One free thing that couples can do to avoid being stiffed by venues and vendors is to check to see if they are accredited with the Chattanooga-based Better Business Bureau of Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia, said Jim Winsett, that organization's president and CEO.

"Check the Better Business Bureau web site for its business reliability report on each vendor you have under consideration," Winsett said.

Another easy-to-take safeguard, he said, is to pay vendors with a credit card, instead of paying with a check or cash. That way, the credit card company can assist with disputed claims.

Choosing a larger vendor with a bigger staff makes sense, said Tara Plumlee, who owns a catering company and four event venues in the Chattanooga area - including 901 Lindsay, the downtown building that she bought at auction - because that way a wedding party won't get stuck if the one person who runs a one-person business gets sick.

"We're not a one-man band," Plumlee said.

Insurance options

Vendors and venues that don't perform are the biggest risk to weddings, said an executive at Traveler's Insurance, which is one of a number of companies to offer wedding insurance. Others include Nationwide, Wedsure and Wedsafe.

"Our biggest claims are really venue-related," said Todd Shasha, a managing director at Traveler's, a publicly-traded insurance giant that has about 30,000 employees. "[Wedding] pictures never show up. Your florist does not deliver the flowers."

Insurance typically covers the cost of lost deposits if a venue goes out of business. It also can pay to reconvene the wedding party to retake photos if the photographer doesn't show.

Insurance can cover costs in the case of natural disasters, such as tornadoes, that make weddings impossible, and reimburse in the case of other wedding disruptors, such as the illness of a bride or groom or their military deployment.

"Obviously, you never know when you're going to get deployed," Shasha said.

Traveler's least-expensive policy is $160, Shasha said, and covers such things as $7,500 toward the venue and $1,500 toward the wedding photographer. Traveler's wedding insurance tops out at $1,025, which covers a $175,000 wedding. "The average cost of a wedding, I think it's around $30,000 today," Shasha said. "If you don't have the coverage, you're really putting it all at risk."

Wedding insurance isn't a big product line for insurance companies, though Traveler's spokewsoman Sperry Mylott said its popularity is growing.

There are no deductibles with Traveler's wedding insurance plans, so couples who buy one don't have to pay anything out of pocket.

Hartley said he's only sold two wedding insurance policies.

"It's not popular in this area," Hartley said. "In Tennessee, [many] people go to the JP - justice of the peace."

Cold feet is one thing that wedding insurance is not good for, he said.

"If the bride backs out or the groom backs out - that's not covered," Hartley said.

Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/MeetsForBusiness or twitter.com/meetforbusiness or 423-757-6651.