Full story in The Buffalo News

By Ryan Law

New York drivers pay some of the highest auto insurance premiums in America. The average policy now runs about $4,000 a year – roughly $1,500 above the national average. The reason isn’t just inflation or repair costs. A growing share of the bill comes from fraud.

There is finally a policy response. Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed a series of reforms aimed at cracking down on staged crashes, fraudulent medical claims and lawsuits that inflate insurance payouts.

The numbers illustrate how widespread the problem has become. In 2025, insurance carriers reported more than 40,000 incidents of suspected motor vehicle insurance fraud in New York, representing a more than 80% increase since 2020. Industry estimates suggest these scams add roughly $300 a year to the average driver’s insurance bill.

Court filings and investigative reporting describe a system built around the claims that follow accidents. Recruiters known as “runners” solicit accident victims and steer them to specific lawyers and medical clinics, sometimes coaching participants to exaggerate injuries. Clinics may then order treatments that can dramatically increase the value of an insurance claim and a related lawsuit.

In one case, conspirators recruited hundreds of patients to stage or falsely claim trip-and-fall accidents, generating fraudulent lawsuits that attempted to extract more than $31 million from insurers and businesses.

Once these operations establish themselves, they expand quickly. Recruiters find new participants. Clinics perform more procedures. Lawsuits multiply.

Analysts estimate that the state’s legal system imposes more than $7,000 per year in costs on the average household, while excessive litigation pushes consumer prices, including insurance, higher across the economy.

Hochul’s reforms confront that reality by tightening liability rules, cracking down on staged accidents and strengthening enforcement tools.

A legal system designed to compensate legitimate victims shouldn’t function as a business model for organized fraud. For millions of New Yorkers who depend on their cars every day, bringing that system back into balance is the difference between an insurance bill that keeps climbing and one that finally begins to come down.

Ryan Law is a retired state police officer and former president of the Police Benevolent Association of New York State.