Personnel lifts require both maintenance and statutory inspections. So here's the discussion: - We have been told that statutory inspections must be carried out by insurance appointed personnel. While that may be an aspect of the insurance policy, if we disregard the commercial requirements of an insurance company what is required by law? Surely if the aspects required by LOLER are carried out by a suitably qualified and competent person isn't that meeting legislative requirements? While I'm sure there's a lot of opinion about this what I'm really after is a definitive answer which has back-up evidence to support it. Let's just say we have one opinion someone else has another!!

The only requirement for statutory examination is that it must be carried out by competent person, one with the necessary technical and practical knowledge etc. The HSE guidance (indg339) carries the comment that "However, few owners or lift operators have the necessary competence in-house." There is then the question of independence and impartiality to consider. Often the cost of using your insurers compares very favourably with using another external competent person. There is also the fact that if you use your insurer then you may feel more relaxed about having to check the competence of the people they use. Thus most if not all businesses use an external competent person and many use their insurers to the extent that it quite common for them to be referred to as insurance inspections. This has over the years become best practice rather than arising as a legal requirement. p48