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Law-enforcement unions including for New York City police and firefighters are backing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to attack car-insurance fraud and rein in personal-injury lawsuits.
Hochul’s reforms aim to put the brakes on soaring auto-insurance premiums as New Yorkers pay an average of $4,000 a year — a whopping $1,500 more than the national average.
Her plan includes targeting high premiums with a crackdown on staged accidents, saying insurance companies are “jacking up prices” because of fraud and “runaway litigation costs.”
“Our members don’t just keep New Yorkers safe on the road. We deal with the same high costs of driving as every other New Yorker, including high insurance premiums,” said city Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry in a statement.
“We applaud the governor’s efforts to reduce these costs and make New York affordable for working class families like ours.”
United Firefighters Association President Andrew Ansbro added, “We completely agree that the high cost of auto insurance is a problem for our members both at work and at home, which is why we support the governor’s efforts to lower auto insurance.”
Other backers include the New York State Fire Chiefs Association and the County Fire Coordinators’ Association. The groups wrote a joint letter to state Senate Majority Leader Andra Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie to support the measures as part of the state budget.
The coalition also includes the chairman of the Nassau Suffolk Fire Districts Legislature Committee, the Monroe County Sheriff’s PBA and the Chaverim Coalition representing community service organizations.
Part of Hochul’s reform plans includes putting a cap on damages such as pain and suffering for drivers engaging in criminal behavior at the time of an incident. That would bar uninsured motorists who have violated state financial responsibility laws, individuals convicted of driving while impaired and those committing a felony or fleeing the scene.
Additionally, she is proposing legislation to ensure prosecutors can seek criminal penalties against any individual responsible for organizing a staged accident, not just the person behind the wheel.
The Assembly and Senate did not include the proposed auto-insurance package in their recently released budget resolutions.
Hochul said during an interview Sunday on CBS’ “The Point with Marcia Kramer” that “there’s a lot of time to get it back in.”
She said her plan, similar to a Florida law, could slash insurance premiums for New York driversby 15% to 20%.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority last week claimed it could save $48 million annually under the governor’s plan by not being forced to pay “jackpot” settlements for crashes in which their buses were not primarily to blame.
But Hochul’s pitch to change the state’s nebulous “serious injury” threshold to weed out minor lawsuits is opposed by the NYS Trial Lawyers Association, a high-octane lobby whose members donate big bucks to Democratic legislators.
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