In Albany, Governor Kathy Hochul issued one of her most pointed criticisms of New York’s personal injury and auto fraud system, characterizing it not as individual wrongdoing, but as a systematic network of criminal participants inflating expenses for average families.

“I will say that Newsday has done an extraordinary job cataloging and chronicling what has been going on here in Long Island,” Hochul said, pointing to what she described as “a whole ecosystem.” It’s not just staged crashes, she argued, “It’s corrupt actors who are willing to stage the accidents. But then there’s corrupt doctors. …They have doctors who will file fake or wildly exaggerated medical reports. They get kickbacks. You get sometimes alleged law firms that are setting this in motion.”

As the Governor noted, the scale and effect of this system is staggering.

Hochul pointed to the gravity of the situation: 

“So in 2023 alone, there’s been more than 38,000 suspected cases of auto insurance fraud in New York State alone, 38,000 in one state. That’s not nationwide. And that is a real driver of why these insurance premiums are so astronomical.”

State officials have also underscored that these aren’t victimless crimes. Each staged accident involves organized, deliberate criminal activity, they claim. Staged crashes are sophisticated, dangerous maneuvers that put innocent drivers at risk on our highways. New York now ranks second-highest in the nation for staged accidents, with 1,729 incidents in 2023 alone. Suspected motor vehicle fraud reports have increased from 24,238 in 2020 to 43,811 in 2023, a staggering 80 percent increase.

Governor Hochul provided striking examples of this issue. In Deer Park, a surgeon was accused of duplicating the same fraudulent medical report for two dozen patients, she said. “Imagine how brazen that is,” she said. “Someone thinking they’re never going to get caught, and defrauding a system where the rest of us have to pay out.”

Other examples she gave included the Park Beltway, where two men were caught allegedly staging crashes: swerving in front of cars and forcing violent collisions. “They even rammed one woman into reverse and then pretended they were the victims,” Hochul said. Those individuals now face up to 15 years in prison.

For Hochul, the issue is not about denying legitimate victims compensation. “I want someone who’s involved in an accident to be. …entitled to fair compensation,” she said. “But they should not be given a payday for millions of dollars for an accident they intentionally caused.”

She pointed to Florida’s reforms as proof that structural changes can reduce costs, citing how the state “implemented similar reforms just like I’m talking about. Their insurance premiums went down 20% over a couple of years.”

At its core, the issue is about cost and consequence. As fraud investigations mount and premiums strain household budgets, officials are spotlighting the networks driving those increases.