By Hank Russell
Personal injury attorneys are taking issue with Governor Kathy Hochul’s new auto insurance law that she says will drive down rates and crack down on bad actors. The attorneys argued that it will financially burden motorists and enrich the insurance companies.
On May 27, Hochul signed her auto insurance bill into law and included it in the 2027 budget. The legislation will cap damages for drivers engaging in criminal behavior at the time of the incident, to ensure drivers flouting the law — including uninsured motorists, drunk drivers, and drivers in the act of committing a felony — don’t walk away with a jackpot payday at the expense of everyone else.
In addition, the new law clarifies what actually constitutes a “serious injury” so that damages for pain and suffering or emotional distress are reserved for those who are able to objectively demonstrate that they have suffered a serious injury. It also ensures that, if a driver is found to be mostly at fault for causing an accident, they cannot sue their victims for outsized payments for damages. This change, Hochul said, will put New York in line with most other states.
The new law cracks down on insurance companies as well. Under the new law, insurance companies cannot exorbitantly raise rates by setting a legal threshold that prevents excess profits and returns savings to consumers. Additionally, they cannot increase rates without seeking express approval from the Department of Financial Services. It also precludes insurance companies from setting rates based on extraneous, personal factors like homeownership status, occupation, education level or zip code.
Hochul cited the state of Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation, which issued an analysis demonstrating how its 2023 tort reform package has resulted in a 5.6% decrease in the average auto insurance rates across the majority of its market. For example, in 2025, Florida’s largest carrier returned nearly $1 billion in excess profits to 2.7 million policyholders. Following the implementation of tort reform, Florida reversed its double-digit growth of auto insurance rates in 2023 into a 7.4% reduction in the average rates by 2025.
“Outdated laws, special interest loopholes and jackpot insurance payouts to bad actors have long forced New Yorkers to pay some of the highest car insurance rates in the nation,” Hochul said.
“These hard-fought reforms are a win for every New Yorker who depends on a car to go to work or drop their kids at school,” Hochul continued. “But it’s bigger than that — I’ve heard from farmers who say these reforms will lower the cost of getting their goods to market and from construction supply companies who say this will lower the cost of building. This is how we are delivering on the promise to tackle the affordability crisis head-on.”
But some local attorneys are unhappy about this new law. Kevin Fox of the Fox Law Firm PLLC in Riverhead called the legislation “a disaster for regular people,” while insurance companies enjoy “a massive payday.”
“Albany is selling out injured New Yorkers to pad the pockets of big insurance companies under the empty promise of ‘affordability,’” Fox said. “By dismantling our long-standing comparative negligence laws and limiting the definition of what constitutes a serious injury, the state is effectively shutting the courtroom doors on everyday people who suffer life-altering injuries on our roads.”
Ira Slavit of the Mineola-based firm Levine & Slavit, PLLC had a more blunt assessment of the law. “They’re screwing the public to help insurance companies make more money,” he said.
Fox said, in order for insurance companies to get out of paying, they will blame the person who was hit “for 51% of the crash. … If that doesn’t work, they will claim your injuries are not serious enough to compensate you for your pain, suffering and lost income. These new laws don’t stop ‘bad actors’, they stop legitimate victims from getting the medical care and justice they deserve.”