B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Partnership Between State Police and Department of Financial Services to Crack Down on Insurance Fraud

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the New York State Police and Department of Financial Services will partner to crack down on insurance fraud by hosting a specialized training to further strengthen the skills of its investigators, and local law enforcement professionals across the state so they can better detect, investigate, and prosecute financial crimes, including auto insurance fraud. This partnership builds on the Governor's commitment to tackling insurance fraud and the high cost of auto insurance. The new program, developed in partnership with the New York State Department of Financial Services and prosecutors, will provide training to 250 members of law enforcement, including State Police investigators and uniformed troopers, as well as representatives from law enforcement agencies throughout New York State.

B-ROLL of the Governor touring the International Auto Show can be found on YouTube and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format.

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:

 Good afternoon, everyone. Really happy to be at the nation's largest auto show, 126 years, and at the Javits Center since the 1980s. It's a great place for people to come, but also to showcase the incredible industry behind these vehicles - the manufacturers, the new engines. I looked at some engines that were made up in Buffalo, not far from my hometown, made probably by my neighbors. But also, to talk about the dealers and the influence that they have and the 68,000 people they employ, so I was happy to take a little break from the action in Albany and slip down here today for this special occasion.

I want to acknowledge our Superintendent of Police, Steven James, who's here - you'll be understanding why he's here in a moment. Acting Superintendent of Financial Services, Kaitlin Asrow; Christian Jackstadt, the Executive Deputy Commissioner of the DMV; Mark Schienberg, the President of the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association - we just took the great tour a few minutes ago - and Joyce Leveston, the CEO of the Javits Center. So, we've got the whole gang here.

But I want to talk about a couple of issues that I think are particularly important to the people who either own vehicles or are looking to buy vehicles. And I had a chance to see a lot of innovation, new ideas, electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, which really are the wave of the future, given the challenges we're facing globally with the high cost of gasoline going up exponentially, up a dollar just in the last month because of geopolitical challenges, which are always going to be unpredictable. So we're here to promote our electric vehicle campaign as well, and talk about the charging stations we're unfolding across the state, but what we also want to talk about is the fact that New Yorkers are paying the highest car insurance in the nation - over $4,000, about $1,500 more than many of our neighbors - and there's many reasons, but here I want to talk about one of the drivers of this: fraud. We're talking about really sophisticated criminal enterprises, networks of corrupt drivers, lawyers, medical providers who are staging elaborate crashes in order to have jackpot payouts.

And what happens to those costs? They get passed down to the motorists, the people walking through these doors. Last year alone, the Department of Financial Services received over 44,000, in one year, 44,000 complaints of reports of suspected auto fraud, auto insurance fraud. 85 percent of them are because of no fault insurance. So today we're taking that on. That's not sustainable. That's just wrong on so many levels, and I, as the Governor, cannot turn a blind eye to what is unfolding before our very eyes and having a huge impact on people's pocketbooks. That's why I've taken on this fight.

Today, I'm pleased to announce a new partnership between DFS and the State Police and local law enforcement agencies across the entire state to strengthen how we detect and investigate insurance fraud. I believe we can do a much better job. We'll equip our agencies with better tools, better training, stronger coordination, and go after these schemes, these criminal enterprises, before they result in higher costs for our residents. And as part of that, the State Police will hold a symposium and literally train over 250 state troopers and investigators from across the state. All this will result, I believe, in building stronger cases, leading to more arrests and shutting this down.

Also, in my next Budget, this Budget we're working on right now, I have a series of reforms, and I want to go after the ringleaders. I want to increase penalties, lower the thresholds for what counts as criminal fraud, so prosecutors don't have an impossible bar to hurdle in order to make a case.

As we're cracking down on these fraudulent claims, we're also cracking down on loopholes in the law that let people who are mostly at fault, who are breaking the law, get away with large payouts at everyone else's expense. We're retooling the state's fraud prevention and infrastructure so we don't have agencies working in silos. I want coordination. We've seen this in all areas of law enforcement, when we have any kind of challenge where it's retail theft or deescalation - we had an auto theft a few years ago - we worked together in a coordinated way, and the results have been borne out in a very positive way.

Also, for the first time, we're requiring insurers to offer discount programs for drivers who use dashcams. Let me explain why that makes a difference. Just recently for example, a driver on the beltway had a dashcam rolling when another driver intentionally slammed on the brakes to cause an accident. That footage is the reason they were able to catch that fraudster. We want to reward that kind of vigilance and put the brakes on scams before they happen. And just as important, when all these reforms will bring costs down, I want to make sure the savings go back to New Yorkers. Otherwise, there's no reason to do this. The savings must go back to New Yorkers. All this is toward making New York more affordable, so here we are today to celebrate our efforts here, reducing fraud, dealing with tort reform, which is very important to do this. But also, making sure that we're keeping our communities safe from crime, safe from these criminals and safe from literally being robbed - what I call highway robbery is all these scams related to car insurance, and it has to stop, and it's going to stop this year with our efforts, unfolding right now in the Budget.

Contact the Governor's Press Office