Travel Insurance and Your Luggage: How it Can Help When Flying

Do the scenes of fields of bags spread out across an airport put a knot in the pit of your stomach, thinking that your bag could be in there? If so, read on.

There’s no question the number of mishandled bags is rising. According to the Department of Transportation’s Air Traffic Consumer Reports, the number of mishandled bags increased 59% from 2021 to 2022.

The percentage of bags mishandled is low – less than 1% – but a 59% increase is especially significant when you consider that the number of mishandled bags usually only changes a small bit from measurement period to measurement period.

While people have had some good results slipping a tracking tag into their luggage, that shouldn’t be all you do to ensure the safety of your luggage and its contents. Travel insurance that covers your luggage and personal belongings is an important piece of the baggage protection puzzle.

Generali travel insurance includes coverage for lost, damaged, stolen, and delayed baggage – which can be helpful when you’re flying.

Our Premium Plan has $2,000 in coverage for lost, damaged, or stolen baggage. If you think about what you spent on your bags and what might be inside them, it can be easy to blow past the $2,000 mark. One piece of jewelry or a camera could do it.

Some things our plans won’t cover:

• Musical instruments
• Phones and computers
• Money
• Medicine and cosmetics

See more exclusions

The good news is that many of the things you’d pack in a suitcase are covered. You probably wouldn’t pack your phone, money, or a tablet in a checked bag.

But clothes, shoes, jewelry, and other common traveling items may be covered under the Baggage benefit.

Yes, travel insurance doesn’t just cover lost, damaged, or stolen baggage. It covers baggage delay as well.

Baggage Delay coverage may reimburse you for replacement clothing and personal articles that are needed while the baggage is delayed, so save those receipts.

Sporting Equipment Delay coverage may reimburse you for the cost of renting replacement equipment and/or locating your delayed Sporting Equipment and having it returned to you.

Important Notes: To qualify for coverage, baggage must be delayed for at least 24 hours with a Standard Plan, 18 hours with a Preferred Plan and 12 hours with a Premium Plan. Sporting Equipment must be delayed for at least 18 hours with the Preferred Plan, 12 hours with the Premium Plan, and coverage is not included with the Standard Plan.

Pro tip: An additional benefit you might not have expected is that Generali may reimburse you for the cost of having your clothes cleaned while waiting for your luggage to arrive.

Also read: How to Keep Your Travel Bags Safe

When baggage mishandling occurs that is the fault of the airline, the airline will often pay for lost items or costs to reunite you with your bag. In these cases, it is the responsibility of the airline to provide agreed upon arrangements first and travel insurance may cover the remainder. See our handy list of links to airline customer service agreements to learn how the most popular airlines handle baggage problems.

Generali Baggage coverage is secondary, which means if you have coverage through your homeowner’s policy for baggage or items in your baggage, it will pay first, and then travel insurance will pay for any items that haven’t already been replaced or reimbursed.

In addition to letting your insurance company know about your lost luggage, you also need to notify authorities at the site where you believe it was lost – such as an airline’s baggage office. You also need to file a police report if it was stolen.

There’s a lot more to travel insurance for luggage than just paying for replacement bags. Get a quick quote to see options for protecting your trip.

 In the meantime, is that your bag in the security-camera footage at Heathrow?

B004602308