Hochul's insurance proposal: a disaster for crash victims

Nassau and Suffolk counties continue to rank highest in New York state in traffic-related injuries and fatalities. As drivers, cyclists or pedestrians, even when we do everything right, we're still one bad driver's actions away from the E.R.

Now Albany wants to make it worse.

Gov. Kathy Hochul's latest budget proposal would quietly strip away basic legal protections for people injured by cars and dump the costs of traffic violence onto victims, their families and taxpayers. Bad drivers and their insurance companies would get a pass. Redefining "serious injury" is wrong.

New York's no-fault insurance system is designed so that anyone involved in an accident gets medical care and compensation for lost wages, up to a maximum of $50,000. That goes fast with hospital stays, physical therapy and months off work.

To seek damages beyond the $50,000 in no-fault coverage, a victim must meet the legal definition of a "serious injury."

For decades, one category of a "serious injury" has been an injury that keeps you from living your normal life for the first 90 days after a crash.

The governor's proposal would wipe that away.

Anyone who has ever been in a serious crash knows how absurd that is. These injuries might not be permanent, but are still serious and, indeed, take a lasting toll. They can keep you from caring for your family and out of work. Three months out of work isn't just inconvenient — it can be devastating to you and your family. Hochul's proposal would eliminate the right to sue the negligent driver who caused this category of injury and harm to you and your family.

Letting big companies off the hook.

Most serious crashes aren't simple. They often involve multiple negligent actors: a speeding vehicle, a poorly designed roadway, a multi-vehicle crash caused by more than one driver. Multiple bad decisions lead to an injured victim. The term describing this is "joint and several liability."

The longstanding legal concept of joint and several liability exists so that innocent victims aren't left uncompensated when more than one party is responsible. It ensures that the risk falls on all the people who caused the harm when a jury decides that more than one party contributed to the crash. The budget proposal would gut that protection.

Crash victims would be left without full compensation. Insurance companies would avoid fiscal responsibility, and the financial burden would shift back to the injured victims.

"Modified contributory negligence" is open season on victims.

New York, like most states, has long used a comparative negligence standard. This system evaluates each party's actual level of responsibility in causing a crash. A jury, at trial, decides fault and addresses any comparative negligence of the claimant by apportioning any share of their own responsibility and then awards a dollar amount that corresponds to fault.

Hochul's proposal would throw that out. Under the new rule, if you were found just 51 percent at fault, you would get nothing. A driver could be 49 percent responsible for a crash and the insurance company would pay nothing. It would reward dangerous driving and leave victims without recourse.

It won't make streets safer or insurance cheaper.

None of this will prevent crashes. None of it will protect victims, and it won't guarantee lower insurance premiums, the guise of these changes. The states that have implemented similar measures did not see rates drop. Don't be fooled — the ones behind this change are the insurance companies, and Big Tech, such as Uber, which have dumped millions into the governor's campaign as she goes about the state, reciting their talking points.

A recent report by the Center for Policy and Justice showed that insurance company profits have ballooned. S&P Market Intelligence reported in November 2025 that "the U.S. property/casualty insurance industry had its best quarter in at least a quarter of a century — and maybe longer." Insurance companies continue to profit at the expense of you, the ratepayer.

What this proposal will do is make New York's streets more dangerous by removing accountability, discouraging safety, and forcing injured victims to rely on public assistance instead of the insurance system that is supposed to cover their claims.

Daniel Flanzig is president of the board of directors of the New York Bicycling Coalition and a partner in the law firm Flanzig and Flanzig LLP.

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