Latest Legislative Developments

Amendments to Insurance Companies Ordinance introduced by Merchant Shipping (Local Vessels and Miscellaneous Amendments) Ordinance 2005

The Merchant Shipping (Local Vessels) Ordinance (Cap. 548) and its subsidiary legislation extend the types of vessels, i.e. from launches, ferry vessels and pleasure vessels to local vessels, that need to take out third party liability insurance covers (¡§new requirements¡¨).

To cater for the new requirements, the Merchant Shipping (Local Vessels and Miscellaneous Amendments) Ordinance 2005 [PDF], gazetted on 9 December 2005, has, inter alia, introduced consequential amendments to Part 1 and Part 8 of the Third Schedule to the Insurance Companies Ordinance (Cap. 41) (¡§ICO¡¨).

Under the consequential amendments to the ICO, paragraph (b) of the definition of ¡§statutory business¡¨ under Part 1 of the Third Schedule was amended to cover insurance business relating to the new requirements. The table on vessel insurance business in Form 5 of the Hong Kong General Business Returns under Part 8 of the Third Schedule was also amended to for collecting statistics of statutory business relating to the new requirements.

The consequential amendments to the ICO commenced operation on 2 January 2007.