Insurance Commissioner’s office says 36% of Georgia elevators late for this year’s inspections

ATLANTA — The Georgia Officer of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire is responsible for multiple items in public life, including insurance fraud, amusement park safety and elevator inspections.

The Office of the Commissioner of Insurance told Channel 2 Action News that of the state’s thousands of elevators, more than a third are not up to date on their inspections for 2024.

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Of the thousands of elevators in Georgia, about 36% are not up to date on safety inspections, year-to-date. That’s equal to roughly 11,520 elevators that have not been inspected on time, based on OCI’s baseline count of just over 32,000 elevators in Georgia.

The state of Georgia requires elevators to be inspected and recertified every year.

In the metro Atlanta area, there are 13 inspectors currently, and two full-time positions open for hire, according to OCI.

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Statewide, the state has almost twice as many inspectors.

“We currently employ 25 full-time inspectors, three supervisors, and one chief inspector. We are in the process of hiring and training additional inspectors, though these positions can often be difficult to fill due to direct competition with the private sector,” OCI told Channel 2 Action News.

As far as how inspectors work, OCI said each inspector has a goal of eight elevator inspections per day in metro areas and six per day in rural areas.

However, the number of inspections completed by OCI inspectors per day “can vary depending on the specific circumstances of an elevator or set of elevators inside a building, the travel time between locations, etc.”

Due to the number of elevators in the state of Georgia, OCI said “It is nearly impossible for our inspectors alone to reach every elevator,” so at times they “work with third-party inspection companies, approved by our office, to assist in completing annual elevator inspections.”

On top of elevator inspections, OCI said “some of these inspectors double as boiler/pressure vessel inspectors or amusement/carnival ride inspectors, which may impact their ability complete six or eight elevator inspections in a given day.”

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