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By Randi F. Marshall

The biggest debate in Albany as budget season heats up is about auto insurance.

And some of New York’s biggest forces are emerging as key players in the showdown over Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposals to tackle auto insurance fraud by limiting payouts to bad actors, prioritizing consumers and combating the potential for staged accidents. Such changes, she says, will result in lower premiums for all car owners.

The battle revolves around Hochul’s proposals to crack down on auto insurance fraud, including staged accidents, by empowering the state’s Motor Vehicle Theft and Insurance Fraud Prevention Board to support fraud-related investigations and prosecutions, allowing prosecutors to seek criminal penalties against anyone involved in organizing a staged accident, as opposed to just the driver, limiting insurance payouts for those who commit illegal acts in the course of an accident, such as impaired driving, and firming up the definition of serious injuries. Hochul has said that in 2025, insurance carriers reported 43,811 suspected car insurance fraud cases, including 1,729 “staged crashes.”

Hochul, who has framed the issue as part of her affordability agenda, also wants to extend legislation that would require insurers to return profits above a certain point to consumers.

Among the other advocacy groups supporting Hochul’s plans is Protecting American Consumers Together, a 501(c)(4) that just this week released data from a new poll of three New York congressional districts, including CD4, that showed broad support of the auto insurance fraud reforms. The poll showed that 75% of CD4 voters said their auto insurance rates had gone up in the last year, and that 79% of those voters would support “legislation to reform the cost of lawsuits, settlement and related legal fees to reduce the cost of your auto insurance.” The poll also specifically targeted the legislature, finding that 84% of those polled would support a lawmaker that supported the reforms.