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By Ryan Law, retired officer and former president of PBA of New York State
As a veteran of law enforcement, I’ve seen the aftermath of too many motor vehicle accidents. Most are tragic mistakes—a split-second lapse in judgment or a patch of black ice. But increasingly, what looks like a routine fender-bender is actually a calculated crime scene. These aren’t just accidents; they are “jackpot” theater, staged by organized criminal conspiracies to siphon millions of dollars from the insurance system.
The scale of the problem is no longer a footnote in a budget report—it is a full-blown crisis. In 2023, New York recorded 1,729 staged crashes, ranking second highest in the nation for this type of fraud. Last year alone, a staggering 38,270 incidents of suspected motor vehicle insurance fraud were reported to the Department of Financial Services (DFS). These are record-breaking numbers, and they come at a heavy price for the average family. According to the Insurance Information Institute, these scams inflate every New Yorker’s premium by as much as $300 per year on average.
Essentially, every time a law-abiding citizen pays their insurance bill, they are paying a “fraud tax” to subsidize organized crime.
As someone who has spent a career pursuing justice, I know that we cannot arrest our way out of this problem using 20th-century tactics. Organized rings are sophisticated; they don’t just put a bad actor behind the wheel. They employ “runners” to scout locations, and more disturbingly, they rely on a network of complicit medical providers who sign off on phony diagnoses to justify enormous payouts. It is a white-collar crime with blue-collar victims.
That is why a “whole-of-government” approach is the best approach to curbing lawsuit fraud and abuse. By reinvigorating the Motor Vehicle Theft and Insurance Fraud Prevention Board, the state is finally putting real teeth into enforcement. For too long, our response has been siloed. Tasking the DFS, DMV, DCJS, and State Police with a proactive, coordinated strategy ensures that we are sharing intelligence as quickly as the criminals are sharing their tactics.
For years, law enforcement has been hampered by a legal loophole: it is relatively easy to charge the person behind the wheel, but notoriously difficult to take down the “kingpins” who organize the scheme from the comfort of an office. We need the ability to seek criminal penalties against the architects of these conspiracies, not just the drivers. When we pair this with tougher penalties for medical providers—including the loss of professional licensure—we begin to dismantle the financial incentive that makes fraud so lucrative.
Furthermore, we must address the “out-of-state” registration shell game. When New Yorkers illegally register vehicles in other states to dodge our insurance requirements, they artificially decrease their coverage and leave everyone else to pick up the tab. This isn’t just “gaming the system”; it’s a direct hit on the wallets of every honest driver in the Empire State.
In law enforcement, we prioritize the safety and security of the community. Staged accidents imperil the lives of innocent drivers and clog our courts and emergency services with fraudulent claims. By empowering our District Attorneys and providing dedicated resources to the New York State Police, we can stop being reactive and start being proactive.
New Yorkers deserve insurance rates based on risk, not on the success of criminal enterprises. It is time to shut down the organized rings that have turned our roads into a stage for their scams.