Landing at your destination and finding that you've lost your luggage en route is a very unpleasant experience – even for people who travel very often.

There are several ways in which you can lose your luggage – you could lose it on the way, it could get stolen from the airport baggage claim, mistakenly carried away or consciously stolen by another passenger, it can fall over the edge as it's being stacked onto the aircraft, it can even be grabbed from the back of your taxi or lodging. If and when your baggage is lost/stolen/missing it becomes imperative to understand how your insurance covers this lost luggage situation.

We need to understand that insurance claims for lost baggage differs, primarily because it depends on the situation of your baggage, on whether its temporarily or permanently lost:

• Baggage that is permanently lost is covered by the insurance luggage cover, which will compensate the insured person for the estimated worth of the lost baggage and the individual belongings inside, subject to the policy limit.
• Baggage that has been lost temporarily i.e. baggage that is not in your possession currently, and will come back to you in some time, is covered under travel insurance luggage delay cover, which compensates the insured person so that you can purchase personal items which are vital (subject to the policy limit) until your baggage arrives.

In most cases the airline carriers have a cap on what they will be willing to pay/compensate the insured for the baggage that they’ve lost. It could also take a long time for the carrier to conclude that they’ve lost your luggage forever.

Your travel insurance acts as a buffer when an airline carrier loses your luggage. In addition, travel insurance cover for lost luggage, covers you wherever you go on your journey.

Constraints on travel insurance cover for lost baggage

Travel insurance claims for lost baggage have caps put on them by the insured person’s travel insurance. While each travel insurance plan has its own characteristics, terms and conditions, there are some normal caps that are set unilaterally on lost baggage claims. It's imperative to know that:

• If your airline also provides you with an insurance plan, the baggage cover under your travel insurance becomes secondary to the cover provided by the airline carrier. On the off chance that you lose your baggage during your journey, the secondary cover will take precedence over your primary cover offered by the airline carrier when, say, the airline wasn’t responsible for your loss.
• Every travel insurance plan characterises a maximum pay-out and a per-individual item-limit. Your arrangement may have Rs. 70,000 as an upper limit cap, for instance, and a Rs. 20,000 per-thing limit for more costly things.
• Under your travel insurance plan, there might also be a list of items that an insured person can store in the baggage but won’t be eligible for any cover under the plan. The list includes credit cards, dentures, keys, contact lens and other such items etc.

To completely comprehend your travel insurance cover limit caps, make sure you go through your insurance plan, especially the section on luggage and the prohibitions thoroughly.

Extra Cover for lost Baggage

Seasoned travelers make it a point to carry credit cards with travel benefits and a portion of those include a cover for lost luggage. Obviously, those journey protection advantages will likewise come with limits similar to those offered by travel insurance plans, yet now and again, the cover that a traveller has with the credit card plan is superior to the baggage cover they have with their travel insurance plan.

On the off chance that you do need to make a claim for lost luggage, you ought to take a gander at all the cover you have. Your credit card travel advantages should be your first claim option, followed by your travel insurance plan. In the event that whatever you lost was valued at more than what you recovered through your credit card plan, an optional claim on your travel insurance benefits for lost baggage might very well compensate for any shortfall.