Loss of Checked Baggage

A bag is not lost because it did not appear on the belt. Airlines run a tracing process first, and under the Montreal Convention baggage is generally treated as lost once the carrier admits the loss, or once 21 days have passed from the date it should have arrived.

Until one of those happens, you are in delayed-baggage territory, and the benefit that applies is the delay benefit rather than this one. Insurers will not entertain a loss claim while tracing is still open, which is why the Property Irregularity Report matters so much.

Underneath every baggage claim sits the Montreal Convention, the treaty governing international air carriage. It caps an airline's liability for baggage that is lost, damaged or delayed at 1,519 Special Drawing Rights per passenger — a limit raised from 1,288 SDR with effect from 28 December 2024. SDR is an IMF unit of account, so the rupee value moves with exchange rates.

Your insurer will ask what the airline paid and deduct it. This is not the insurer being difficult: paying you twice for the same bag would be indemnifying you beyond your loss, which policies expressly prohibit.

So the practical sequence is: claim against the airline, get their settlement or their written refusal in writing, then claim the shortfall from the insurer. Skipping the airline step is the most common reason a loss claim is held up.

Cover is typically expressed as a total limit with a per-bag and sometimes a per-item sub-limit inside it, and settlement is on depreciated value rather than replacement cost. A three-year-old laptop is settled as a three-year-old laptop.

Most wordings exclude a long list of contents outright: cash and currency, jewellery and precious stones, important documents, securities, and in many policies electronics and cameras unless separately declared.

Because of those exclusions, the realistic recovery on a lost suitcase is usually the clothing and ordinary contents, not the valuables. That is the argument for keeping valuables in cabin baggage rather than for buying a higher limit.

Do not leave the airport without a Property Irregularity Report. It is the founding document of both the airline claim and the insurance claim, and obtaining one afterwards ranges from difficult to impossible.

Report in writing within the treaty deadlines — damage within 7 days of receiving the bag, delay within 21 days of the bag being placed at your disposal.

Keep the baggage tag stubs, the boarding pass and the ticket. Insurers ask for all three to establish that the bag was checked in on that sector.

Build an inventory with whatever proof of value exists: invoices, card statements, or photographs of the contents packed. A list written from memory after the loss is worth much less than a photograph taken before it.

No Property Irregularity Report, or one raised days later.

Claiming for excluded contents — cash, jewellery, documents — that were never covered.

Unattended baggage. A bag left in a public place, an unlocked car or a hotel lobby is usually excluded as negligence rather than treated as theft.

No evidence of the airline's settlement or refusal, leaving the insurer unable to work out the shortfall it is meant to pay.

Filing outside the policy window, commonly 30 days from return.

Three separate mechanisms cut the settlement down, and they apply in sequence rather than as alternatives.

First, depreciation. Insurers settle on the current value of the item, not what a new one costs. A common approach is a percentage reduction per year of age, so clothing and electronics bought two or three years ago settle at a fraction of purchase price.

Second, sub-limits. A total baggage limit is rarely payable on a single item. Wordings typically cap any one article at a percentage of the total — meaning a suitcase containing one expensive item and a lot of ordinary clothing settles far below the headline figure.

Third, the airline deduction. Whatever the carrier paid under the Montreal Convention comes off the top.

The combined effect is that a traveller expecting to be made whole is frequently disappointed, and the disappointment is usually with the arithmetic rather than with the insurer. Understanding it before you travel changes what you put in the hold.

Everything the policy excludes is, by definition, something you should not check in: cash, jewellery, precious items, and travel documents.

Add to that anything whose absence would derail the trip rather than merely inconvenience you — prescription medication, spectacles or contact lenses, chargers, and any device you need for work.

Business travellers should treat laptops as cabin items without exception. The per-item sub-limit on most policies is well below the replacement cost of a work machine, and the data on it is not insurable at all.

A change of clothes in the cabin is worth the space. It converts a lost-baggage crisis into an inconvenience, and it removes the argument about what constitutes a reasonable emergency purchase.

Sports equipment — golf clubs, skis, bicycles — is commonly excluded from standard baggage cover or subject to a separate, much lower limit. Airlines also apply their own conditions to it. If you are travelling with equipment, look for a plan that names it.

Musical instruments are treated similarly and are often excluded outright.

Items posted or couriered separately are not baggage and are not covered by this benefit.

Baggage on a domestic sector within your destination country may fall outside a policy written around international carriage — worth confirming where the itinerary includes internal flights.

Where a bag is damaged rather than lost, most wordings cover repair cost up to the item's depreciated value, and the 7-day written-notice deadline to the airline applies.