Most disputed travel claims fail on paperwork, not coverage. A practical guide to the documents each claim type needs — and the ones travellers only discover they needed after it is too late to get them.
A travel claim is decided twice: once by what happened, and once by what you can prove. The first is out of your hands. The second is almost entirely within them — and the deciding evidence is usually a document that could only be obtained at the scene, in the moment, from a counter you were desperate to walk away from.
This guide covers the four claim types that dominate travel insurance, the documents each one turns on, and the general rules that apply to all of them. The single most useful sentence in it: get the report before you leave the airport, the hospital, or the police station, because the document you cannot obtain retroactively is the one your claim will hinge on.
Lost, delayed or damaged baggage
The pivotal document is the Property Irregularity Report, the PIR. Airlines issue it at the baggage desk in the arrivals hall, and it is the formal record that your bag did not arrive or arrived damaged. Insurers treat a claim without a PIR with deep suspicion, because it is the one document that proves the airline — the party actually responsible for the bag — was notified.
- Get the PIR before leaving the airport. Desks can and do refuse to issue them later.
- Keep boarding passes and baggage tag stubs; they tie the bag to the flight.
- For delayed bags, keep receipts for essential purchases — toiletries, a change of clothes. Policies reimburse reasonable essentials, and reasonable is judged from receipts, not memory.
- For lost bags, insurers ask what was inside and what it was worth. Photographs of packed contents and purchase receipts for valuable items turn an argument into a checklist.
- Claim against the airline first where required. Many policies pay on top of, or net of, the airline's own liability, and ask for the airline's settlement letter.
Medical treatment abroad
Two documents matter more than everything else: the medical report stating diagnosis and treatment, and itemised bills. Not a credit card slip — an itemised account of what was done and what each item cost.
Call the assistance line before treatment when the situation allows it. This is not bureaucracy; it is usually in the policy as a condition. The assistance company can direct you to a network hospital, guarantee payment so you are not funding a hospital deposit from a holiday budget, and open the claim file while you are still in the emergency room. For genuine emergencies, call as soon as someone can.
- Ask the hospital for the report and itemised bill before discharge; obtaining them from another country afterwards can take months.
- Keep pharmacy receipts alongside the prescriptions that generated them.
- If the illness relates to a condition you had before travelling, expect the insurer to ask for medical history. Undeclared pre-existing conditions are among the most common reasons medical claims fail — the time to deal with them is at purchase, not at claim.
Trip cancellation
Cancellation claims need proof of two separate things: the reason and the loss. The reason must match a covered cause — a medical certificate declaring you unfit to travel, a death certificate, an official weather or airline notice. The loss is the money you could not recover: booking invoices, the cancellation confirmations, and crucially, evidence of what the airline or hotel refunded or refused to refund. Insurers pay the non-refundable remainder, so the refusal letters are as important as the receipts.
Cancel with suppliers the moment the trip is off. Policies cover what was unrecoverable, not what became unrecoverable because the cancellation waited a week.
Delays and missed connections
Flight delay claims are the simplest documentarily — a written airline confirmation of the delay and its cause, plus receipts for meals or accommodation if the policy reimburses them. Airlines routinely issue delay confirmation letters on request, and some insurers now verify delays directly from flight data, reducing this to no paperwork at all. Missed connections add one document: proof that your planned connection time met the policy's minimum, which your original itinerary shows.
The rules that apply to everything
- Report within the deadline. Policies set notification windows; late notification is a rejection reason that has nothing to do with the merits.
- Police reports for theft, within 24 hours where the policy says so. A theft claim without a local police report is close to unpayable.
- Photograph everything at the scene — damage, documents, the queue you stood in. Storage is free and hindsight is not.
- Keep originals; submit copies. Insurers may ask for originals of key documents later.
- Read the exclusions before travelling, not after claiming. Alcohol involvement, unattended belongings, and activities outside the covered list are the recurring surprises.
The honest summary: insurers reject claims for documentary reasons because documentation is how a paper promise distinguishes real losses from invented ones — the process protects the premiums of everyone who did not claim. A traveller who spends ten minutes at the right counters collects everything a fair claim needs. This guide is general; your policy's exact document list and deadlines are in its wording, and when the two differ, the wording wins.