All of us want the lowest car insurance premiums with the best coverage. Shopping around for the best insurance policies will work to a very large extent, but short cuts such as registering outside the state will not work anymore. Now, there is a legislation to bring down this practice and this is more likely to be turned into a law. There would be tough penalties that would also include a 15-year jail term.
Sen. Diane J. Savino D-North Shore/Brooklyn who is the bill’s co-sponsor stated that the bill was given more teeth in order to discourage fraudsters to stop and think before committing a fraud by siphoning off money from their fellow Staten Island motorists. The bill was passed in the House 60-1 with one abstention in the month of June, and it now awaits approval in the next session of the Assembly.
Due to the fraud, honest drivers end up paying up instead of those who really should be paying.
During the last year alone, over 10,000 New Yorkers had misrepresented facts about where their vehicles were lodged or where they were driven. This had resulted in a loss of $23.8 million by way of insurance fraud, as per the Insurance Frauds Bureau. Pennsylvania and Florida were among the top two states that had been used by residents of New York to circumvent insurance prices that had averaged up to $1,171.97 which is the fourth highest throughout the country.
There was one particular case where there were at least 161 vehicles that were used in New York but were registered under a Pennsylvania address, stated Sen. Savino. There was one family in Brooklyn that had provided the address to Pennsylvania to avail auto insurance for around 14 vehicles.
James Molinaro, Borough President had stated that this kind of abuse was going on for a long time now and added that it was almost like him claiming that he was a 27-year-old, just to avail a life insurance policy.
Professor Jonathan Peters, who is an economist as well as a transportation expert at the College of Staten Island, stated that people were into all kinds of tricks. While some were legitimate, there were the others that were fraudulent, he stated about the out-of-state misrepresentations.
Sometimes, there are these ‘snowbirds’ from New York who spend the winter months in Florida. Technically speaking, the reason for choosing Florida is only because of the season, which was fine, he stated.
