VIDEO, AUDIO, PHOTOS AND RUSH TRANSCRIPT: GOVERNOR HOCHUL HIGHLIGHTS PROPOSALS TO BRING DOWN COSTS OF AUTO INSURANCE RATES AND TACKLE FRAUDULENT CLAIMS

The following information was released by the office of the Governor of New York:

Governor Hochul: "It's time to slam the brakes on fraud. It's been going on too long. Nobody's taken it on because there's strong opposition on the other side because a lot of people are benefiting from the status quo... If you're driving drunk, driving without a license, committing a felony at the time of the crash, or caused the accident in the first place, you should not get a payday. Full stop. It's not how it's supposed to be."

Hochul: "I just proposed last month in my State of the State address, that in this year's Legislative session, this year's Budget, we're looking to reform the tort laws, the laws that guide how lawsuits are filed, on what grounds. And we'll protect people who play by the rules... We'll also make it easier to prosecute these stage accidents, strengthen penalties for those who break the law, fund a new cross agency task force to catch these perpetrators and reimagine the motor vehicle theft and insurance fraud board to make them more aggressive. I'll empower our State Police and local Department of Financial Services to clamp down on the car insurance con artists."

Earlier today, Governor Hochul highlighted her proposals to bring down costs of auto insurance rates and tackle fraudulent claims across New York State. The Governor is taking common-sense steps to battle fraud, limit damages paid out to bad actors and ensure that consumers, not insurance companies, are prioritized. These proposals build on Governor Hochul's ongoing efforts to make the state more affordable and put money back into the pockets of hardworking New Yorkers.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Great to be back here in a warm, warm, toasty Long Island. I'm delighted to be at this location where we talk about a crisis that is unfolding, and it's one that is having an effect on every single person who owns a vehicle, everybody, and that's the skyrocketing costs of insurance.

And oftentimes, the individuals you'll be hearing from today are the ones who see first the results of staged accidents and people willing to have a criminal enterprise to defraud insurance companies and then what happens then is the insurance companies pass it on, in premiums, to all motorists. And so, that's the unfairness of this. I want to acknowledge the fact that we're here with the owners. Ibrahim and his wife, Necla, have welcomed us. Their son, Mert Duman, will be speaking on behalf of the family in a couple minutes. And, of course, our great supervisor from the town of Babylon, Richie Schaffer. We also have Jason Richberg, Suffolk County Legislature Minority Leader, and Tom Donnelly, our legislator from the district.

Very happy to have our elected officials represented here as well as a very important local business that's been here since about 2014. Since the moment I took office, I have focused on affordability. It is one of the cornerstones of my agenda because it's hitting people so hard. They're just at the end of the month. The dread that people have when it comes to paying their bills and they're just piling up. And if you're paying for even a college education we're going to be hearing from Mert who's in college right now. Where's Mert? Mert's in college. University of Buffalo. He came down here to warm up a little bit, I think, and I'm talking about his loyalty to football teams, but that's another conversation we'll talk about that later.

If you had to pay for a tuition bill, now you're paying for child care; you got your groceries; you've got the rent, your mortgage; and then all of a sudden the car insurance bill comes in and it's gone up higher than you ever could have imagined. So that's what we're focused on.

Last year we put a lot of money back in people's pockets, over $5,000 for many families, but we're going to keep our foot on the gas to find more ways to bring down costs. And so, when I think about what's happening with car insurance, we compare ourselves to other states. And this is the shock value that the average cost of car insurance across the state is about 4,000, upward of six, seven, $8,000 per year on Long Island. But on average, that's about $1,500 more than our neighboring states.

So what is going on in New York where we end up having to pay so much more? On Long Island, some areas the insurance union has spiked 80 percent, 80 percent increase since 2019. Here in Deer Park, the average premium went from nearly $2,400 and twenty nineteen to nearly $4,000 in 2025.

Now, this isn't happening because New Yorkers are doing something wrong that we're worse drivers than other states. They exist now because there's rampant fraud and runaway litigation costs that are jacking up the prices for everyone. And they're the result of a flawed system, one that rewards greed and dangerous behavior, a system that's exploited by a lot of bad actors and criminals and this is criminal behavior.

And I'm talking about this scenario. Imagine this: a drunk driver crashes into somebody. They're under the influence. They made the decision to drive while intoxicated. They cause an accident, cause harm and they're the ones who can recover fully. They can recover fully for emotional distress. They can end up suing the person they hit got this? They can sue the person they hit and recover emotional distress.

You can have reckless drivers who slam into your car then walk away with a big payday. Now these are staged accidents. Then they get a payday to recover for their pain and suffering. Uninsured drivers who the rest of us end up paying for. And again, I was talking about these staged accidents. I will say that Newsday has done an extraordinary job cataloging and chronicling what has been going on here in Long Island.

And you also it's a whole ecosystem. It's corrupt actors who are willing to stage the accidents. But then there's corrupt doctors, who we're finding out trying to find out what's happening over at NUMC or had been happening before we assumed authority over it.

So you have doctors who will file fake or wildly exaggerated medical reports. And they get kickbacks. You get, sometimes, alleged law firms that are setting this in motion. So in 2023 alone, there's been more than 38,000 suspected cases of auto insurance fraud in New York State alone 38,000 in one state, that's not nationwide. And that is a real driver of why these insurance premiums are so astronomical.

As I said, we're seeing it on Long Island and across the entire state. And back to Deer Park, a surgeon was recently accused of participating in a staged accident scheme. He allegedly copied and pasted the same phony medical report for two dozen patients. Imagine how brazen that is someone thinking they're never going to get caught and defrauding a system where the rest of us have to pay.

Out in Freeport, an organized network of scammers allegedly filed over 70 bogus lawsuits attempting to collect millions in payouts. And just last summer, two men were caught staging crashes on the Belt Parkway. They'd swerve in front of cars, making it impossible to avoid a violent collision. They even rammed one woman into reverse and then pretended they were the victims. Those two people are now facing 15 years in prison, but it's continuing to go on and there's others like them.

And every time they win one of these sham payouts, as I said before, who's paying the price that's being passed on to law-abiding motorists in the form of monthly premiums? So it's time to slam the brakes on fraud. It's been going on too long. Nobody's taken it on because there's strong opposition on the other side because a lot of people are benefiting from the status quo. But the status quo sometimes just doesn't work, because if you're driving drunk, driving without a license, committing a felony at the time of the crash, or caused the accident in the first place, you should not get a payday. Full stop. It's not how it's supposed to be.

What are we going to do about it? I just proposed last month in my State of the State address, that in this year's Legislative session, this year's Budget, we're looking to reform the tort laws, the laws that guide how lawsuits are filed, on what grounds.

And we'll protect people who play by the rules people who are seriously injured, they deserve to recover that's what insurance is all about and help them pay for their car repairs. But we want to insulate the personal injury system from abuse. Now, Florida had a similar problem. I don't usually model anything we do after Florida, I just want to put that out there. But they implemented similar reforms, just like I'm talking about. Their insurance premiums went down 20 percent over the couple of years. And I want someone who's involved in an accident to be I believe they're still entitled to fair compensation, but they should not be given a payday for millions of dollars for an accident they intentionally caused.

And we'll also make it easier to prosecute these stage accidents, strengthen penalties for those who break the law, fund a new cross agency task force to catch these perpetrators and reimagine the motor vehicle theft and insurance fraud board to make them more aggressive. I'll empower our State Police and local Department of Financial Services to clamp down on the car insurance con artists.

So let me wrap up by this. We talked about how high the bills are. We talked about the stressors on every day New Yorkers, and especially here on Long Island, where the average cost of a home here in Suffolk County is now over $700,000. People's bills are too high. We have to help people out, give them a lifeline.

So nothing will stop me from going after these fraudsters who endanger law-abiding New Yorkers and cheat them out of their money. So that's what I'm fighting for. I want to introduce someone now who has worked here, head of the company as for his family business now, right? Family business. And Mert is going to talk to us about what he and the family are seeing here in places like this.

We have hardworking people that are repairing vehicles all the time. And guess what? They know when something has been staged. They know when something doesn't seem right. And they also want to make sure that we're taking care of the law-abiding New Yorkers who are playing by the rules, and to set those aside and have consequences for those who are coming in here when they know something is not right.

So let me introduce Mert Duman, the owner of the Bestway Auto Collision store here in Deer Park and introduce him and also welcome his parents.

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