Evidence needed for travel delay insurance claim-how do I get it?

June 6, 2011 6:36 PM

The RER B trains which go to the Paris airport were severely delayed on the morning of June 6, causing me to miss my flight. I have travel delay insurance, but the insurance company requires evidence of the train delay before I can make a claim. How would I get this evidence?
posted by ajackson to travel & transportation (8 answers total)

I would ask the insurance company what they suggest would be suitable proof. If they are unhelpful, you could write RATP and ask them to confirm the delays.
posted by grouse at 6:49 PM on June 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

http://naufragesdurera.blogspot.com/2011/06/lundi-6-juin-2011-perte-de-memoire.html :

A Châtelet j'ai pris le RER B là encore sans problème. Cependant, il semble que je sois passé au moment propice car apparemment un peu plus tard un retard important d'une 1/2 heure s'est produit sur cette ligne, dû à des dégradations de matériels et du vandalisme organisés par des bandes de "sauvageons" pour rester politiquement correct, à de la racaille si le naufragé du RER qu'il soit du A ou du B, perd son calme et son sens de la mesure.

"At Châtelet I caught the RER B without trouble, but it seems I got there at a lucky moment, because shortly after that there was a delay of half an hour on that line because of damages and vandalism by gangs of "savages" who wanted to be PC - to them, "people on RER A and B lose their cool and sense of proportion if they are inconvenienced".
posted by jet_silver at 7:56 PM on June 6, 2011

I found "bulletins de retard" on the Transilien site, but unfortunately they're only for trains going to Paris, not those going out. Just for info: http://www.transilien.com/web/site/accueil/etat-trafic/bulletin-retard

I think your best bet would be to contact the RATP using their form: http://www.ratp.fr/contact/client
posted by fraula at 1:16 AM on June 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wow that's interesting jet_silver, I'll probably copy that blog post as part of increased evidence for the claim, but they probably won't put too much legitimacy into a blog post. I wonder if there are any news articles that will describe the same thing. Unfortunately I don't speak French so it's hard to google correctly.

I've also contacted RATP, hopefully I get a response.
posted by ajackson at 2:17 AM on June 7, 2011

This should help too: "Meteo du RER" for the 6th of June:
http://www.courbis.fr/La-meteo-du-RER-mis-a-jour-en.html#20110606

Unfortunately it's not an official RATP or SNCF page.
posted by rom1 at 3:16 AM on June 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just FYI, I disagree with jet_silver's translation and think that blog has some overtones of racism. Instead of "gangs of 'savages' who wanted to be PC" it should be "gangs of 'savages,' to be politically correct." In other words, instead of saying the French equivalent of the n-word, the blogger calls them savages, which isn't much of an improvement. The word "racaille" is derogatory and inflammatory although I don't know if it's as bad as the n-word. Sarkozy got in big trouble for saying it.

Note: I am not a native speaker of French.

Anyway, IMO you'd be tanking your case if you sent the insurance company that blog post.
posted by desjardins at 10:57 AM on June 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

Thanks desjardins, that's good to know. I won't add it to the claim. After looking at the rest of the site I think you're right, when I first looked at it I was just happy to find another person in the world actually observing the same delay I did, haha.

RATP did email me some information confirming the delays, hopefully that will be enough. I plan on printing out that email along with the courbis site since it looks relatively legitimate.
posted by ajackson at 8:06 PM on June 7, 2011

An update: I emailed the RATP and got them to confirm the delay, and I also printed the courbis.fr link and was able to succeed in my claim. Thanks so much for helping!
posted by ajackson at 6:59 PM on July 31, 2011