In Long Island appearance, Hochul pledges effort to lower car insurance bills

In an effort to lower car insurance premiums for New York drivers, Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a Deer Park auto body shop Wednesday that she is trying to reform state law to prevent injury lawsuits from staged crashes.

New Yorkers pay about $1,500 more per year on car insurance, compared with the national average, which on Long Island can total between $4,000 to $8,000 per year, Hochul said.

The governor pointed to a root cause: staged accidents by drivers who work with attorneys, doctors and some body shops to extort large settlements or insurance payouts.

"So what is going on in New York, where we end up having to pay so much more?" Hochul asked at Best Way Auto Collision.

She said Long Island has seen an 80% increase in car premiums since 2019. In Deer Park, the average car insurance premium has gone from about $2,400 per year in 2019 to $4,000 in 2025, Hochul said.

"This isn't happening because New Yorkers are doing something wrong, that we’re worse drivers than in other states," she said. "They exist now because there's rampant fraud and runaway litigation costs that are jacking up the prices for everyone, and they're the result of a flawed system, one that rewards greed and dangerous behavior, a system that's exploited by a lot of bad actors and criminals."

Hochul has made the staged-crash proposals a signature part of her budget rollout this year. The governor said Wednesday she will offer up the propensity of staged crashes as evidence to state legislators of the need for tort reform.

State Democratic legislators have said they need to see the specifics behind the governor's proposals, but agreed the state can do more to crackdown on fraud.

The bills are pending before the legislature as part of Hochul's budget. Hochul said she expected a "huge battle from outside interests," including those she described as "billboard lawyers."

"I think there's institutional interests, the billboard lawyers that are out there," Hochul said. "This is something that you know as there's bad actors that can malign an entire industry. There's a lot of people not abusing the system. There's a lot of lawyers and doctors and repair places and people as part of this whole system doing the right thing."

The New York State Trial Lawyers Association has opposed Hochul's proposal, arguing it supports insurance companies.

"Seriously injured New Yorkers will be harmed again if the governor’s giveaway to insurance companies moves forward," the group said in a statement. "That’s why consumer advocates, state legislators, and street safety groups are urging the governor to slow down and not provide what amounts to taxpayer-funded bailouts for insurers."

In 2023, New York had 38,000 suspected cases of car insurance fraud, Hochul said.

Hochul pointed to a federal lawsuit that found that more than 70 staged accident cases had been filed in recent years by former Freeport residents alleging serious injuries from unwitnessed slip-and-fall accidents or car crashes.

The state is investigating several cases at Nassau University Medical Center, where Hochul said several "corrupt doctors" helped fabricate the seriousness of the injuries to boost insurance payouts before the state took control of the $1.4 billion indebted hospital.

Another scheme included two Brooklyn men charged with staging crashes on the Belt Parkway. Queens prosecutors said Jaime Huiracocha, 53, and Victor Murillo, 34, were charged with insurance fraud when authorities said they paid drivers to cut off other motorists and halt to a stop, resulting in crashes and insurance claims.

The New York Insurance Association said they support Hochul's proposal.

"Staged accidents are a common tactic used by criminals to fabricate injuries and fraudulently bill for medical treatments. These fraudulent and abusive practices cost law-abiding New Yorkers, threaten safety on roadways, diminish the quality of health care in our state and add financial burdens to New York families," the insurance association said in a statement.

Newsday's Steve Hughes contributed to this story.

By John Asbury

john.asbury@newsday.comJohnAsbury

John Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.