Can Your Travel Insurance Claim Get Rejected?

It's one of the ultimate travel nightmares: something happens in your trip that leaves your belongings lost, stolen, or damaged. It's even worse when the items that are lost or damaged happen to be the expensive ones. Travel insurance is one way to set your mind at ease, but is it possible that your claims can be rejected?

As a matter of fact, travel cover claims get rejected often, and it's important as a consumer to make sure you know what circumstances are used against people when they put a claim in on lost or damaged goods during their travels.

Here are some of the ways your online travel insurance claims can be rejected and what to do to avoid that.

Drinking Can Cost You

Vacation seems like the perfect time to have a cocktail, but this can be used against you in your claim later, so you will want to be careful with your alcohol intake. Any loss or damage that occurs while you are drunk or under the influence of drugs will mean the claim will be denied.

Of course, your insurance companies aren't expecting you to stay sober your entire vacation, but they do find that any damage that occurs as a direct result of you being under the influence isn't their responsibility to pay for. Your best bet is to keep your belongings stowed safely somewhere if you plan to drink excessively.

Keep Valuable Items With You

One way that a claim can be denied is when the insurance companies decide that proper care wasn't used for your valuable items. Hiding things in your room like cameras or jewelry is not what they view as good care. They can deny a claim saying you left them where they could be found easily and you will be left without their help to replace the items. You also don't want to leave them in cars where the bag they are in is visible. They say that isn't good care.

The best way to keep your items safe, or to keep yourself from being denied for these reasons, is to otherwise keep your valuables with you at all times, or to have them locked up in the safe at your hotel. Either of these methods will help lower the chance of anything happening to your belongings where you would need to make a claim, and it will help insure that you won't be denied if something does happen to them.

Get a Written Statement in the Deadline

Most insurers will want you to follow a certain procedure when something is stolen and that includes getting a police statement done as soon as possible. For many companies, you may only have around twenty-four hours to get a police report done and filed in order for them to accept your claim. As soon as you find your valuables gone, you should call the police and get the process started.

Keep a copy of your insurance policy with you as it contains all of the deadlines. My online travel insurance from ICICI Lombard allows me to keep a copy of my policy right on my phone and tablet. Make sure you keep a record of who you spoke to with the police and that everything has been accurately written down.

Know Your Policy

It's your responsibility as the consumer to make sure you have read over everything within your policy. This way you will know what you are and aren't covered for. Some claims will be denied simply because the policy you got doesn't cover the items you did the claim for.

This is also a good practice when it comes to injury or illness claims. If you policy doesn't cover injuries that happen during certain activities, then it might be best not to sign up for those activities. By knowing your policy, you can better protect yourself against a claim denial.

Don't Embellish

Whatever you do when making a claim, do not embellish your losses in any way. For some it may seem like a good idea to make the losses seem worse than they are, but this could get you into a lot of trouble if you are found out. People who do this can be charged with insurance fraud and could end up with fines or community service.

What to Do if Your Claim is Denied

If you had a genuine claim that didn't fall under any of these circumstances for denial, there are ways to try and repeal it. Check your policy to see what the referral procedure is as outlined by your insurer. You will have one or two more avenues to try and get your claim settled.

(This article has been written by Utkarsh Sahu, who writes for various tech mags and admires technology with paradigm-shifting attributes.)

Image credit: BCCL