What happens if your suitcase is lost?

I'm about to get on a plane for Dallas and I've packed very carefully for a number of occasions from rodeos to line-dancing (yes). I always put a lot of thought into what I'm taking on trips and I usually spend the week ahead placing things in my suitcase, reconsidering, and taking them out again.

In the back of my mind, however, there is always a dark shadow. What happens if my suitcase never gets there?

A few times over the years my bag's arrival has lagged behind me. I'm never quite sure how this happens. From what I understand, if you don't board the plane, your suitcase comes off for security reasons. So I always assume it's safely in the luggage hold while I am happily engaged watching movies in the cabin above.

I'm touching wood like crazy now because an airline has only once lost a suitcase of mine.

But it was such a traumatic experience and such a salutary lesson that I'm going to recount it now.

Sometime in the early 1990s, when Ansett was still flying and I was living in Melbourne, I flew Sydney to New York return on Northwest Airlines, connecting to Melbourne with Ansett at Sydney airport. When I arrived in Melbourne, my suitcase wasn't there. The airline couldn't find it.

I was insured. I can't remember the insurer. I'd done a lot of shopping in New York and luckily I had receipts for everything that was new, including a camera and a silk nightgown. My husband's photographic portfolios were in the suitcase too but you couldn't put a price on them.

Because my claim was for a few thousand dollars, the insurer sent a private detective to check us out. We went through everything thoroughly and she was pleasant enough. The portfolios were worth only the nominal value of the albums, even though the loss of them affected his career. The claim was accepted and we were compensated.

A whole year later I received a phone call from Ansett. My suitcase had been found in the storeroom of a backpacker's hostel in the city. Would I please come to collect it?

There was no explanation as to why no one had reported the said suitcase for a year but I was happy to see the portfolios again. I was also glad that the appearance of the suitcase proved I was being truthful about its contents.

Ansett and the insurers didn't see it this way. I turned up at Ansett HQ to be greeted by two airline representatives (one from security) and a hard-faced female detective sent by the insurer. It seems as if two items were missing from the suitcase – the silk nightie and the camera. I therefore was a liar.

I pointed out that a camera and a nightie were not unusual things to be stolen at a backpacker's. Who was to say someone hadn't grabbed what they wanted from the unlocked suitcase and left the rest in the backroom?

But they weren't having it. They dragged out every item in the suitcase and interrogated me about it – how come I claimed it was worth this? Luckily, again, I could produce evidence of most things, but all three continued to intimidate and bully me. (I still don't understand why the airline cared.) They wanted me to repay everything. I refused. I'd been without my things for a year.

I was allowed to slink out of the office with my suitcase, humiliated. They didn't pursue me. When I went to the body that governed the insurance industry, a helpful officer told me I would have been in my rights to claim more at the time, including loss of income from the missing portfolios.

I'm still smarting, you can tell. And this is the wisdom I can impart:

Buy travel insurance, by all means, to cover yourself against medical emergencies and cancellations.

Assume your suitcase will be lost.

Don't put anything in it you care about, especially if you're sentimentally attached to it. You won't get the value of what you've lost, especially things that have stories attached to them – those shoes you found in a bazaar in Morocco, that old bracelet that belonged to your grandmother.

Don't assume your insurer will be your friend.

Assume your suitcase will be lost.