Your Building Insurance and Your Lift: What Most Policies Do Not Cover
Appointing a maintenance contractor does not protect your insurance position. Insurers look for evidence that you oversaw the contractor, and most owners cannot produce it.
- Published
Quick summary
Appointing a maintenance contractor does not protect a building owner’s insurance position when a lift-related claim is lodged. Insurers examine whether the building owner exercised adequate oversight of the contractor’s performance, not simply whether a contractor was appointed. In the absence of independent compliance documentation, claims can be disputed, reduced, or denied. Most building owners discover this after a claim is already in progress.
The maintenance contractor’s report is not independent verification#
This is the gap most building owners do not see until a claim is contested.
A maintenance contractor’s service report documents what the contractor did. It does not independently verify whether what was done was adequate, whether the system meets current compliance standards, or whether all identified defects were properly remediated.
Accepting a maintenance contractor’s report as evidence of compliance is not the standard regulators and insurers apply. Under WHS legislation, the building owner’s duty of care is non-delegable. Appointing a contractor and paying invoices without independent verification is not oversight. It is contract administration. The distinction matters when a claim is lodged.
What insurers examine when a lift claim arrives#
An insurer investigating a lift-related incident does not review the maintenance contract. They review whether the building owner knew the condition of the lift and whether they acted on that knowledge.
| Document Requested | What It Demonstrates | Typically Present? |
|---|---|---|
| Independent compliance audit report | Owner verified compliance against a standard | Rarely |
| Documented defect remediation records | Owner acted on identified issues | Often partial |
| Contractor performance oversight records | Owner monitored contractor quality | Almost never |
| AS1735 / NCC compliance documentation | System assessed against current requirements | Rarely |
The pattern is consistent. Building owners produce invoices and attendance records. They rarely produce documented evidence of independent oversight or compliance verification. That absence is what insurers and their legal advisors focus on.
Common policy exclusions that apply#
Policy wording varies between insurers. However, several exclusion categories appear consistently in commercial property and public liability policies.
Gradual deterioration. Most policies exclude damage or injury from gradual deterioration where the owner knew or ought to have known of the condition. A lift flagged for attention by a contractor but never remediated falls directly into this exclusion.
Non-compliance with statutory requirements. A policy that excludes incidents arising from non-compliance with statutory requirements excludes incidents involving a lift that does not meet AS1735 or NCC 2025. Building owners with non-compliant lifts may be carrying uninsured risk without knowing it.
Failure to maintain. Most policies require the insured to maintain property in reasonable repair. For a lift, that means more than contractor attendance. It means verification that the contractor’s work is adequate.
What changes when independent documentation exists#
An independent compliance audit or maintenance management report creates a documented baseline that demonstrates the building owner knew the status of the lift, took steps to verify compliance independently of the contractor, and acted on the findings.
That documentation does not guarantee a claim is paid. It changes the evidential position significantly. An insurer disputing a claim against a building owner with comprehensive independent oversight documentation is in a materially weaker position than one disputing against an owner with contractor invoices alone.
What a lift compliance audit produces and why the documented output matters when a claim or regulatory inquiry arrives is covered in detail on this site.
The review to complete before the next insurance renewal#
- Request maintenance service records for the past two years and review them for completeness
- Confirm whether any identified defects were remediated and documented
- Establish whether the lift has been assessed against current AS1735 and NCC 2025 requirements independently of the maintenance contractor
- If no independent assessment exists, commission one before the renewal date
The cost of an independent assessment is a fraction of the cost of a disputed claim, or the premium loading that follows an uncontested one.
ILCPL provides independent lift maintenance assessments and insurance reports for building owners and strata bodies across Australia. Call 0417 784 245 to arrange an independent report.
