Gov’t withdraws proposed requirement for elevator maintenance insurance

The government has made a U-turn after just two days on its proposal to require those maintaining elevators and escalators to purchase civil liability insurance, a parliamentary committee confirmed yesterday.

The parliament’s First Standing Committee had been reviewing the draft of the Elevator and Escalator Safety Legal System bill. In the bill, it was proposed that, going forward, maintenance service providers must purchase such insurance to cover potential third-party liabilities.

On March 22, members of the committee questioned whether such insurance was available in the market and, if so, how wide the scope of its coverage is. In this meeting, the committee obtained a pledge from the government that it would negotiate with the insurance industry about the relevant insurance.

Yesterday, two days after this commitment, the same government officials told the committee that the proposed provision would be deleted, because the government found that this kind of insurance was not available.

Lawmaker Ella Lei, president of the Committee, said that the government’s intention was to cover maintainers’ liability should elevators or escalators they have serviced malfunction and cause accidents.

Lei added that this kind of insurance is not available in Hong Kong or mainland China.

With the provision removed, property owners will have the discretion to decide on whether it is necessary to purchase insurance.

The bill proposes two types of maintenance service contracts, namely basic and full service contracts.

As of November 2021, there were 929 engineers eligible to be registered as elevator and escalator technicians. AL