How falling in love can impact your insurance

Valentine's Day is the most romantic day of the year and many couples find it the perfect day to get engaged! Should you be one of those lucky couples, there are a number of insurance-related topics to keep in mind before your wedding.

Car Insurance for Married Couples

Insurance companies in Ontario set their own criteria for determining car insurance rates. While not all insurance companies consider marital status a significant factor, marital status does play some role in this calculation.

It's not mandatory to include your spouse on your insurance policy but your insurer may not settle a claim if your spouse was driving your car.

Per the Ontario Automobile Policy, section 1.4.1, it is your responsibility to notify insurers of any change in marital status. "You also agree to let us know of any change that might increase the risk of an incident or affect our willingness to insure you at current rates."

When both spouses have clean driving records, combining car insurance policies will often drop your rates and the main reason for the drop is a multi-car discount. Further combining home insurance or renters insurance policies can provide additional rate decreases.

Home Insurance and Renters Insurance for Married Couples

When two lovebirds move in together, they combine their possessions in one dwelling. Therefore, making sure the contents limit of your homeowners insurance policy or tenants insurance policy will cover the combined contents replacement value is critical.

It's always a great idea to complete an inventory of all your possessions including wedding gifts. We also recommend you take photos of all the rooms in your home and at multiple angles. This will make the claims process much easier during a difficult time. You will be able to identify all of the lost/damaged items by the photos. You can upload your inventory and photos to cloud storage. You may also send them to us and we can store them on our server.

Consider Adding Guaranteed Replacement Cost

Policies often include "Actual Cash Value" of your possessions which means in the event of a claim, insurers will reimburse the value of your possessions less depreciation. For example, if you own a 10-year-old $5,000 TV, insurers will take into account the age of the TV.

However, if you include Guaranteed Replacement Cost, insurers will replace your contents at the price it would be to replace today! That $5,000 TV will be replaced with an equivalent TV in today's prices.

So, if you've recently gotten engaged or married, contact your insurance broker and we'll help you and your significant other decide what's right for you both.