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By: New York Daily News Editorial Board
The New York State budget, due more than a month ago on April 1, is late because Gov. Hochul is insisting on several policy reforms and she has engaged the Legislature in a furious backroom debate on bringing down auto insurance prices, where Hochul has solid arguments and many of her ideas should be adopted.
She is taking on the trial lawyers lobby and saying that they have great sway with the Legislature is being subtle.
The lawyers do have a valid point that the state Department of Financial Services can do a better job of regulating auto insurance rates, which everyone agrees are too high and is the main impetus for Hochul’s reforms. Only annual increases of 5% or more need DFS approval; the lawyers say that all increases should get authorization, which seems reasonable if Albany’s goal is to reduce costs.
As for Hochul’s package, it’s buried deep inside the budget bills. The public protection and general government budget, S9005A, Part F and the transportation and economic development budget, S9008A, Part EE and Part FF.
Auto insurance fraud is real and adding to the insurance costs of honest drivers, just look at the ring that the Manhattan U.S. attorney busted last month. There the feds used conspiracy statutes to charge the alleged criminal enterprise. Hochul would correctly expand the circle of those who can be prosecuted under state law for fake accidents including a person “who hires, requests, encourages, orchestrates, or invites another individual to stage a motor vehicle accident.” Who can oppose that?
Another worthy change is putting a $100,000 cap on pain and suffering awards for anyone driving while uninsured, impaired or drunk or driving while committing a felony. Again, common sense.
Despite some fearmongering by the opponents, New York’s no-fault rules are unchanged, with its $50,000 in damages. Insurers would get more time to examine and to pay on any suspect claims, but they would have to also pay interest if the time goes beyond the current 30 days.
Another reform that should happen is to get rid of a loose catch-all category in the definition of “serious injury” in the law. The existing eight categories remain: death; dismemberment; significant disfigurement; a fracture; loss of a fetus; permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function or system; permanent consequential limitation of use of a body organ or member or significant limitation of use of a body function or system.
What would be removed from the “serious injury” list is the 90/180 day rule, which is when a person has an “injury or impairment of a non-permanent nature” for not less than 90 days during the 180 days after the crash. Note that this is for temporary conditions.
On tort reform, Hochul is right to change New York’s system, called pure comparative negligence, where the person who is most at fault for the accident can still recover damages, to the modified comparative negligence used by 35 other states. If the accident was mostly your fault as found by the courts, you could not get a recovery.
On joint and several liability, where lawyers seek deep-pocketed defendants, including the government itself, Hochul would cap the exposure of defendants who are less than 50% at fault to their proportional share. On that, Hochul and lawmakers may not be able to agree, but there is still plenty of reform to be had to lower auto insurance costs for New Yorkers.