Event Liability Insurance Recommendations

June 8, 2007 1:08 PM

Wedding liability insurance. We're hosting a ceremony at a local school, and they require liability insurance for the day of the event at $100K.

When I look online, it seems like some insurance companies will offer a one day policy option add-on for around $50 -- unfortunately my insurance company (Allstate) doesn't seem to offer that option. I've seen companies like Wedsafe mentioned tangentially in other questions, and it looks like their offering is $1,000,000 in coverage for about $195. There seems to be a ton of people offering this kind of insurance online, though, so I was wondering if anyone has had experience working with one of these companies, and if there might be a better deal out there, perhaps customized to the actual liability amount I need.

posted by curse to Grab Bag (11 answers total)

Is the event being catered by a professional firm? Then tell your caterer to deal with it. They should have all manner of liability protection.

Otherwise, just look in the yellow pages for insurance agents and call one to ask him or her this question. If the first one you talk to doesn't have the product you need, he will sure as sh!t be able to refer you to the right place.

Congrats and good luck!
posted by BigLankyBastard at 1:40 PM on June 8, 2007

Response by poster: No, this is for just the ceremony, the reception will be at a different location, so we're not worried about that.

We could just start calling insurance providers to see what's up, but I thought perhaps someone here might have some direct recommendations or experiences with particular companies to avoid / work with.
posted by curse at 1:45 PM on June 8, 2007

Have you called your homeowner's or rental insurance provider? Maybe they can help.
posted by astruc at 2:16 PM on June 8, 2007

Response by poster: Yeah, my homeowner's insurance provider (Allstate) doesn't provide the service, they referred me to another outside agency, K&K that charges $395 for a one time event.
posted by curse at 2:30 PM on June 8, 2007

This is why sometimes the Allstates and State Farms of the world don't provide well for their clients. As an independent broker, I commonly write policies for events. In my experience, in NYS and NJ, this type of coverage should be under $300. Unless, of course, they also want you to have liquor liability, that's expensive.

Is Allstate not willing to write a $1 million Umbrella Policy for you? Do you have both Auto and Homeowners/Renters insurance them? If so, they should have offered the possibility to you.

I would think an umbrella would satisfy your venue's requirements.
posted by digiFramph at 2:38 PM on June 8, 2007

Best answer: Special event insurance is what you want and there are plenty of online purveyors that specialize in weddings, bar mitzvahs, and the like. I'm putting on an event tonight that required liability insurance that I applied and paid for online through R.V. Nuccio I got quotes from a a few providers and they seemed the most reasonable. We've used EventInsure in the past, too, but they seemed more expensive. As for customizing liability amounts, RV Nuccio had a choice between $500,000/$1,000,000 or $1,000,000/$2,000,000. Most seemed to offer only a few options in this regard and in the end most of the cost of our policy was the admin fee. In our case, the total premium was $58 (I assume that's based on the event type and level of coverage) but the fee was $125 and i think that's a flat fee so I don't think changing the amount of coverage would have really mattered all that much.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 2:47 PM on June 8, 2007

If you can find it online for under $200, even with a fee, I'd take it. Just know your venue is looking for $1,000,000 per occurrence. So, you'll need to purchase the $1M/2M option. That means $1M per occurrence. $2M in the aggregate. In layman's terms that means you can have two (covered) $1 million dollar lawsuits defended that arise in any given policy period.

Congats, by the way!
posted by digiFramph at 3:09 PM on June 8, 2007

We used wedsafew for our wedding. Never had to file a claim or anything, and god forbid neither will you, but it seemed pretty harmless. It's also pretty standard these days.
posted by Pollomacho at 7:51 PM on June 8, 2007

When I got married I went with the same insurance company that provided the year round insurance for the venue. Since they are usually the ones dictating the amount of the policy required they usually have an event policy that is an exact match. It turned out to be very cheap in my case. Who provides insurance for the school?

Also, sometimes you need separate insurance from the caterer.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:13 AM on June 9, 2007

Response by poster: At this point, I'll probably follow up with some of the specific vendor recommendations in the thread on Monday and see how things go from there, hopefully one of those will work out...
posted by curse at 10:59 AM on June 9, 2007

Response by poster: I applied online with R.V. Nuccio listed above, and got the $1,000,000 / $2,000,000 liability amounts for $95.
posted by curse at 9:04 PM on June 10, 2007