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When Aishwarya Rai tied the knot with Abhishek Bachchan in a much publicised wedding ceremony in the summer of 2007, the couple not only followed every ritual associated with a traditional wedding like mehendi, sangeet and baarat, but the most happening couple in Bollywood also ensured that their wedding was insured adequately.

With an ailing grandmother, Teji Bachchan, and a news byte-hungry media on hot chase of the family members, it was a wise thing to have covered the huge wedding expenses, experts in the insurance business said. Whether it is Aishwarya Rai or Abhishek Bachchan or even the poorest of the poor in the country, wedding is the single most important and expensive event in life. To provide coverage for any possible material losses during a wedding, many insurance companies in India now provide wedding insurance policies. In case the wedding is cancelled due to any unforeseen circumstances or if there is any material damage during the wedding, the losses can be covered through a wedding insurance policy.

Insurers usually provide wedding insurance as a part of event insurance. Each wedding insurance package is tailor-made for the event. "It can be taken by the wedding family or the wedding planner or the other parties involved like the wedding hall owners or wedding contractors, depending on the extent of their liability," says Rajive Kumaraswami, head of risk and reinsurance, ICICI Lombard General Insurance, to Financial Chronicle.

Apart from providing cover for cancellation of the wedding due to unforeseen perils such as a flood or death in the immediate family of the bride or groom, wedding insurance can also cover material damage to property like stage, sets, seats and wardrobe due to fire, apart from coverage for public liability. Companies like ICICI Lombard, offer wedding insurance, as a part of their event insurance policy, which covers all the events related to the wedding ceremony. The policy should be bought 10 to 15 days before the event.

Bajaj Allianz has an exclusive 'wedding cancellation/postponement insurance' which, apart from other inclusions, provides coverage for accident to bride/groom, accident to blood relatives resulting in hospitalisation about seven days prior to the wedding and burglary, among others.

The premium paid for wedding insurance cover depends on the extent of protection that the insured wants. Premium rates are calculated based on factors like wedding location, number of days, number of rituals to be covered like mehendi, sangeet or cocktail party, number of guests and the safety and security arrangements at the venue. Interestingly, most insurers do not provide coverage for food and catering.

"Wedding insurance covers are usually taken by high net worth individuals (HNIs), corporate honchos and celebrities, who conduct large and lavish weddings. The size of the insurance cover starts at about Rs 10 lakh and may even go up to Rs 1 crore," says Pranav Shah of Alliance Insurance Brokers. The premium to be paid would be about 0.75-1 per cent of the sum insured, according to Shah.

Bajaj Allianz, which has an exclusive wedding insurance package, offers four fixed options for sum insured ranging between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 73 lakh for which the premium amount would range between Rs 2,252 and Rs 8,273.

The Indian wedding market is one of the biggest in the world. According to the wedding portal bigindianwedding.com, the Indian wedding market is worth $11 billion. However, the concept of wedding insurance is largely unheard of and even unwelcome among a majority of Indians.

"Weddings in India are considered to be very auspicious and a sacred institution, where even the thought that anything can possibly go wrong is unwelcome. This social milieu becomes a major obstacle in selling wedding insurance," says Tapan Singhel, chief marketing officer, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance.

Since only a very small number of people take wedding insurance policies, and most of them are celebrities, they prefer to keep such information under wraps. Thus, it becomes difficult to ascertain the size of the wedding insurance market in India, experts say. "There are no official numbers on the claims ratio of such wedding insurance policies too. Claims ratio in this line of business cannot be more than 10-20 per cent," Shah says.

In the west, such insurance plans are popular purely because of higher awareness. There wedding insurance cover includes the loss of a wedding ring, the elaborate wedding gown not reaching on time and also coverage for the expenses or loss due to the late or non-appearance of the photographer and so on.

Indian weddings, over the years are increasingly becoming extravagant, right from the $128 million wedding of Sahara Group chairman Subroto Roy's son, where 10,000 guests were flown out in 26 planes to Lucknow and chauffeured in Mercedes convertibles, to Congressman Kanwar Singh Tanwar's son's wedding, where a helicopter was given away as dowry to the groom, to the recent wedding of socialite Pinky Reddy's daughter, Mallika, in which Bollywood stars including Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra shook a leg.

"With weddings becoming bigger, fatter and grander, there is a lot of financial investment in planning this elaborate affair. Insurance is the only option to cover financial loss in case of uncertainties related to this sacred event," according to Singhel.

Since Indian weddings are highly complex affairs involving many stakeholders, service providers, an array of rituals, innumerable material required for these rituals and the different venues where the various ceremonies happen, placing the claims and getting the settlement may also be a huge problem.

For instance, in a marriage where the sets or pandals were damaged due to rain, unless one gets an official voucher from the pandal erectors, it may be difficult to place a claim. If a grandmother's jewel passed on to the bride gets lost in the wedding mayhem, since the original bill may not be available, one should have the jewellery estimation slip to place a claim with the insurer.

It is very important to have clear records of the expenses incurred, all the vouchers, invoices, proof of expenses, booking receipts and valuation certificates in case of jewelleries and valuables, to place a claim.