Who’s Responsible for Items Stolen From Your Bag?

Regular travelers have scores of horror stories of their baggage being misplaced or delayed, and reaching them after a few days, or sometimes a week. What is less common, though not completely absent, are instances of things stolen from your checked in baggage. You might have got your baggage on time at the luggage carousel, but when you reach your hotel or home, you realize there are some items missing. So who’s responsible for items stolen from your bag, and what do you need to do in such scenarios?

Let us spend a quick minute talking about a precaution that can help prevent this. Before leaving for the airport, or even after parking your vehicle at the best parking at LAX, take a moment to see if there is anything of value you can move from your check-in baggage to your carry-on baggage. Move into the airport only after doing it, and then proceed for check-in, etc. One more precaution you can take is if the valuables are too large to go into your cabin luggage. In that case, you can have them shipped before proceeding on your journey.

But all this might not be as easy and foolproof as finding cheap JFK parking. In case you still manage to have a few valuables missing after you reach your destination, then you must first inform the local police immediately. This doesn’t mean that the police will solve the case always and get back your stuff. But the police report will be needed when you file a claim with your airline. For filing a claim with your airline, some more documents will be needed apart from the police report. You will need to give them a detailed description of the goods missing, and also the value of the same. If you have the original invoice for the purchase of those goods, then that should also be submitted.