Escalator and Moving Walkway Engineer Insurance

Escalator injuries are not random and they are not mysterious. They happen at a small number of places, and each one is a clearance that is set by an engineer.

At the comb plate, where the steps run under the fixed landing, a gap or a damaged comb allows a shoe, a toe or a trailing lace to be drawn in. At the skirt, the fixed panel beside the steps, an excessive gap between the step and the skirt traps a shoe or a trouser leg and pulls it down, and soft footwear makes it worse. At the handrail entry, fingers can be drawn into the housing. Each of these has a specified clearance, a device intended to stop the machine when something is wrong, and a maintenance task that keeps it right.

So the engineer's protection is that the clearances and the devices are measured, recorded and proven rather than eyeballed. Clearances checked against the specification and written down with figures at each service, combs inspected and replaced when damaged rather than when broken, skirt panels and anti friction treatments maintained, every safety device function tested with the test recorded, and anything out of tolerance either corrected or the machine taken out of service. A service sheet with actual measurements on it is the single most valuable document when a claim arrives.

The thing that separates an escalator from most machinery is that the user is untrained, unsupervised, and frequently not paying attention.

Passengers ride with pushchairs and trolleys where they should not, stand on the yellow edge of a step, let children sit on steps or lean on the handrail, carry luggage that overbalances, wear loose or soft footwear, and attempt to walk up a stopped escalator or down a moving one. Elderly passengers fall at the transition where the steps flatten. A sudden stop, which is what a safety device does, throws standing passengers forward, so even a correctly functioning protective trip can injure people. None of that is within the engineer's control, and all of it ends up in an incident report that starts with the machine.

So the useful response is evidential rather than preventive. Keep the service and test records that show the machine was in specification when you left it, record the condition of signage, combs and demarcation even where they are the client's responsibility, report defects in writing with a priority and keep the client's response, and be specific in reports about anything that will cause nuisance stopping, since a client who disables a device to stop nuisance trips has created the next claim. Where you recommend remedial work and it is declined, that letter is the defence.

Escalators last a very long time, pass between maintenance providers, and accumulate history that is rarely documented.

Taking on a maintenance contract means taking on machines that may be thirty or forty years old, with parts no longer made, modifications carried out by previous contractors, non standard components fitted because originals were unavailable, controllers replaced and partly rewired, safety devices adjusted to stop them tripping, and no reliable record of any of it. From the first visit, an injury is assessed against what a competent maintainer should have found, and the fact that somebody else created the condition is not much help if it was findable.

So the takeover survey is the most important document in the relationship and it has to happen before the first service rather than when there is time. A written condition survey per machine covering clearances, safety devices, step and chain condition, handrails, combs, brakes and controller, with measurements and photographs, defects graded by urgency, and a clear statement of what must be corrected before the machine is suitable for continued public use. Give it to the client, keep their instructions, and where urgent work is declined, say in writing what the consequence is. Insurers rate a contractor who does this very differently.

Almost all escalator work happens in a building full of people, and much of it happens with the machine partly open.

Servicing means lifting steps or floor plates, working in the pit and the truss with moving parts exposed, and running the machine on inspection control while somebody is inside it. Meanwhile shoppers, commuters and children are a metre away, sometimes leaning over the barrier to watch. The recognised events are a member of the public stepping past a barrier onto a machine under test, an object dropped into an open truss, a tool left inside, and the machine being returned to service with a step or a plate not properly secured. The last one is the serious one, because the machine then looks normal.

So the controls are about the barrier and the handback. Full physical barriers with solid sides rather than cones and tape, machines isolated and locked off when unattended rather than left on a stop, the area under or around the work protected where anything can fall, and above all a formal check before return to service covering steps and plates secured, safety devices proven, nothing left inside, and clearances correct. A written handback per visit, even for a short call out, is what distinguishes a managed operation when an insurer asks.

The public using the machine unsupervised is what sets this placement apart. We are an FCA regulated broker and will not tell you we are the best choice. These are the questions that decide it.