Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Highlights Major Budget Win on Lowering Auto Insurance Costs

Governor Kathy Hochul today highlighted her major budget win on lowering auto insurance costs in New York City.

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 see everybody. So happy to be here. We got something really important we're going to be doing today, but want to welcome all of you. Glad to be back in this wonderful part of the community at the Global Tire Shop, which is really an institution. People look, may drive by and wonder, what's the significance of this? But I'm told that it's really a place where many members of the Dominican community in particular gather here. They have friendships; they stop by and see how things are going. Miguel tells me he's been working here about 11 years, and the place has been here about 13 years, so this is a real institution.

You look at the team behind me, their job is to keep cars safe on the road. And whether it's fixing flat tires or even selling some gas, we'll get to the gas prices in a minute - it's not your fault. But, these are the hardworking men and women of our state that I think of when I go to Albany and enact policies that are better for everyday New Yorkers, just reducing the cost of living any way we possibly can.

So back in January, I laid out an ambitious agenda, and really the centerpiece was tackling this whole affordability crisis. And as we're wrapping up the budget process, which should be all finished tomorrow, my North Star was always, "How will this reduce costs for New Yorkers?" Whatever we did, and some of them were tough fights. But you take on an issue like the out-of-control costs of auto insurance in the State of New York. It has been that way for a while, and nobody would step up and take on the challenge of the institutional interests that were trying to protect the status quo, until I came along and said, "The status quo is not working for everyday New Yorkers, and something has to give." So what we did was we looked around the country, found what other states have done, found a model of changes and reforms in laws that could help us. And I'm thinking about people like Rosa Diaz. I met her just a few months ago. Rosa, come on over here. She was telling me about the pile of bills that come up every single month, and one of them is the auto insurance and how high that is. Tell them what your auto insurance rates were. They're high. [...] Yes. So she was telling me the concerns of just trying to get along in life, and when you have that bill that keeps going up higher and higher, you just think there's no end in sight.

When you know the fact that New York State has some of the highest auto insurance premium rates in America something has to happen. So I promised Rosa that I would not sign a budget until we had reforms that would result in lower costs for auto insurance, and today I'm making good on that promise. And I'm glad you could join me for this, Rosa, and at this place where people see a lot of these results of the staged crashes that are going on so flagrantly. I thank the media for really revealing what has been happening in some communities where there's a whole racket where you get lawyers, unscrupulous lawyers, who are finding individuals to play the victim, who literally cause a car accident or collision with an MTA bus or another vehicle or a delivery truck. And then they go to a doctor who's also part of this enterprise, this criminal enterprise, who will exaggerate the extent of the injuries. So we had to also talk about the serious injury elements of the laws and the liability. So what we're trying to do is find a whole concrete package of ways that we can help drive down costs. But Rosa is who I was thinking about when we got that done to some long days.

This corruption's been fostering, festering for a long time here. And no one would take it on. But you look at, I think about Rosa again and families like hers, it's the cost of groceries, it's the fact that this gas station was selling gas at $3 a gallon just in January. And now it's - what is that? $4.59 - it's cheaper than some areas, but this is a lot for this neighborhood. And these people don't deserve this. They didn't cause this. This is not their fault. And so I as Governor cannot control a war with Iran, I wish I could, because it's devastating communities like this, but what I can control is working with the legislature, finding a path forward and saying, "We are taking this issue on." So I believe that this is going to put real money back in people's pockets. There's been a study by the Citizens Budget Commission that says it should reduce costs by about 10 percent. What we're doing here, about 10 percent. That means if your bill is $2,000, it's now going to be $200 less. And for families that have multiple vehicles or think about delivery businesses who have enormous costs that they are associated with their business. That's all passed on to the consumer because of people committing fraud or because of our out of control liability laws.

It also adds the reforms of the insurance industry. I want insurance companies to also do their part in bringing down the costs. It's only fair. So no longer will insurance companies be able to set your rates based on your zip code, your job, or your educational ability. And they have been doing that for years, making it more expensive for people based on those metrics. We're also capping excess profits for insurance companies to rein this all in. So my view is when our reforms kick in, hard-working New Yorkers will be the beneficiaries, they'll have lower insurance bills, instead of the insurance executives taking home bigger profits.

As I mentioned, we looked at other states. When Florida implemented basically the same package that I was successful in getting through the Legislature, some insurance companies then slashed their premiums by 20 percent. Ordinarily, the costs are going up and up every single year. There's been an incredible escalation. Rosa knows. So not only stopping the escalation, but to then reduce it by five percent, then 10 percent, then 20 percent, that is real money back in people's pockets. And that is why I'm so excited about this. This is a win for every single New Yorker who relies on a car to get to work or drop the kids at school or the delivery companies that are passing on those costs. I've also heard from farmers when I was up in the North Country. This is going to help lower the cost of getting their products to market. Construction supply companies who say it'll lower the cost of building. This is what it looks like when you start tackling a problem that has been endemic and universal and start saying enough is enough.

So I did this on multiple fronts in the budget, not just on auto insurance: Reducing the cost of childcare for families - a huge drive. Okay, Rosa's with me on that one, too. So the cost of childcare, I've done a lot of events here in the city talking about opening up seats for three-year-olds and the two-year-old program that we just launched. I'm glad we could support the mayor's vision for that as well- we're doing it statewide. It's putting us on a historic path to universal childcare.

We also took on energy costs, establishing a ratepayer protection plan, and this year sending home a one-time, a billion dollars worth of checks to help offset utility bills for consumers. So I'll close with this. We got some other projects we have to work on today, we are heading off. But this budget, as we're in the final hours before the final votes are underway, I said this in January, a budget is a reflection of your priorities, a reflection of my priorities. And with this conclusion of a long process, I feel confident that New Yorkers from every corner of the state are going to be beneficiaries of the hard-fought fights that I thought were so essential to get us to this point. I want to make sure that New York is not just a place where families struggle to get by, barely making it. They should thrive here. They should see the promise of a better future, not just for themselves, but for their children. And I believe that this budget is an important part of getting that done.

So I want to thank everyone involved. I want to thank the leaders of the Legislature for their support. And I'll be getting together with everybody tomorrow. Thank you.