Most people are familiar with and/or pay for things such as medical insurance, homeowners or renters insurance, and car insurance. If you’re really savvy about your personal finances, you might even know about things like gap insurance on a new vehicle purchase or long term disability insurance to ensure you protect your income from a bad accident or disease.
However, the insurance industry doesn’t end there. Here are some insurance product that you may have never heard of, but may want to consider if it makes sense for you and your family’s situation.
Wedding Insurance
Who knew that you could insure your wedding? I certainly didn’t, and never even thought about taking out an insurance policy as I was spending $20,000+ on my wedding earlier this year. Looking back, it is a product I wish I knew about.
What happens if your reception venue goes out of business? Or what if the photographer just doesn’t show up? What if you’re all set to get married and all of a sudden you need your appendix removed the night before the wedding?
Wedding insurance can cover all of these issues. For someone like me who spent well over $20,000 on my wedding, it might have been worth it to insure myself against some of these disasters. Luckily everything went great on my wedding day, but for just a few hundred dollars it could be worth it.
Multiple Birth Insurance
No, my wife isn’t pregnant yet, but if we start trying to have a kid we may want to look into multiple-birth insurance. I’ve never had one but kids sound very expensive. The idea of having 2 at the same time a little scary.
If you are really worried about it, you can buy multiple birth or twin insurance, and the policy will pay you a lump sum if your wife blesses your household with twins (or more!).
That extra cash in your pocket will definitely help when you need to buy 2 cribs (or a single crib for two kids), twice the amount of clothes, diapers, food, and everything else that comes along with it. Plus you might need to drop the kids off with grandma and grandpa and use some of that money for a well deserved vacation!
Payment Protection Insurance
This is an insurance policy that you may have and not even know about it. If you have a loan out for a mortgage, vehicle, or some other large purchase, sometimes a bank will offer or include payment protection insurance, or PPI.
The purpose of PPI is to help you make payments against your loan if you lose your job, become ill, or even pass away (in which case it helps your spouse). It’s a popular product in the UK but is available in the US as well.
Readers: Have you heard of some other crazy insurance policies? Share them in the comments.
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.