TRAVEL INSURANCE: My wife was traveling from London to Rome, She forgot purse on the plane.

andycorleone

My wife was traveling from London to Rome. She forgot her purse on the plane. We filed a police report and opened a lost item report with the airline. After two weeks, it was declared lost by the airline. I concluded that somebody found it and stole it (maybe another passenger or airline cleaning staff).

We have travel insurance and opened a claim. They have asked in numerous direct emails for extra information, like receipts, the police report, the airline report, etc. I will have a phone call with them soom about this claim. Now, upon double-reading their documents, I'm worried that they may claim the item was left unattended. Is it normal for an insurance company to ask for all this extra information instead of just saying no right at the beginning? What are my chances in this particular situation?

eskbanker

Well it sounds like the item was indeed left unattended, but that's surely inevitable when something is lost, so if her policy covers lost items then it would be difficult to do so without these being left unattended!  What does the policy wording actually say on this point?

Edit: just to clarify, I assume that they're actually referring to items knowingly being left unattended, whereas forgetting about something when disembarking wouldn't fall into this category....

diveunderthebonnet

andycorleone said:

My wife was traveling from London to Rome. She forgot her purse on the plane. We filed a police report and opened a lost item report with the airline. After two weeks, it was declared lost by the airline. I concluded that somebody found it and stole it (maybe another passenger or airline cleaning staff).

We have travel insurance and opened a claim. They have asked in numerous direct emails for extra information, like receipts, the police report, the airline report, etc. I will have a phone call with them soom about this claim. Now, upon double-reading their documents, I'm worried that they may claim the item was left unattended. Is it normal for an insurance company to ask for all this extra information instead of just saying no right at the beginning? What are my chances in this particular situation?

I suppose how much was in the purse will affect the speed of the claim ,if it is 100 euros or so as opposed to 10,00 euros ,the bigger the claim the more they will do due dillagence.

NoodleDoodleMan

Would there not be an excess fee to pay on the claim ?

Obviously depending on how much is being claimed as lost that might make the claim not worth pursuing.

DullGreyGuy

andycorleone said:

My wife was traveling from London to Rome. She forgot her purse on the plane. We filed a police report and opened a lost item report with the airline. After two weeks, it was declared lost by the airline. I concluded that somebody found it and stole it (maybe another passenger or airline cleaning staff).

We have travel insurance and opened a claim. They have asked in numerous direct emails for extra information, like receipts, the police report, the airline report, etc. I will have a phone call with them soom about this claim. Now, upon double-reading their documents, I'm worried that they may claim the item was left unattended. Is it normal for an insurance company to ask for all this extra information instead of just saying no right at the beginning? What are my chances in this particular situation?

I assume you mean the UK definition of purse, rather than US which we would call a handbag. 

What is the value of the claim? Purses, short of Hermes, dont tend to be that expensive, cards have no value, cash tends to have limited cover on travel insurance. What's the policy excess?

In answer to your penultimate question, yes, insurers generally will gather all the details and decline on a dozen points rather than see its likely they can decline on one and go with that with no further investigation. This is more true with matters that are more subjective like "due care" rather than saying you accidentally trod on our laptop when your insurance doesn't cover accidental damage. 

Eldi_Dos

@ andycorleone, sounds to me as if insurance company is getting ready to make you a offer you cannot refuse.