On The Deficiency And Improvement Of China's Public Liability Insurance Of Fire Disasters In Legal System

Public gathering places,with their high density and poor mobility of population,large storage of combustible goods,and great difficulty in emergency evacuation,are extremely prone to accidents of mass casualties,causing great personal and property damage.Compensations then become a matter worth consideration.Although there are legal regulations on liability compensation,it is unreasonable and impractical to rely solely on business opeerators,taking into consideration of their severe economic iosses.The vulnerability of business operators and the lack of compensations will increase social instability,putting pressures on the government to resort to public property as compensations,which,nevertheless,is only a temporary approach,unfair to other tax payers and invalid in the long run.To spread risk,reduce business risk for operators or owners of public gathering places or social units with high fire risk,ensure the interests of victims,and maintain social stability,public liability insurance of fire disasters is emerging as a result,with the insured replacing or supplementing the offender for compensations.Public liability insurance of fire disasters in China is currently at the initial stage,having deficiencies and problems.Marked among them is the lack of compulsion on insurance mode by current laws,lack of enthusiasm by policy holders,reliability on government compensations,a weak sense of participation,limited markets and arrested development.Drawing on the experience of certain developed countries and regions and summaring several representative pilot projects in China,this essay proposes that public liability insurance of fire disasters in China be advanced in the following aspects:establish compulsory public liability insurance of fire disasters in legal rules,that is,amend the Fire Protection Law of PRC to ensure compulsory insurance mode,and draw up implementing rules at the regional level;regulate fire risk pricing mechanism;promote the development of public liability insurance of fire disasters among the insurance industry;improve legal supervision;establish multi-path risk prevention and management mechanism,experimenting risk securitization and establish special relief fund for fire disasters.