Menin discusses insurance affordability crisis and new accountability office
Menin highlights rising insurance costs across NYC—small businesses paying 4-5x more, homeowners 26% more, auto insurance 42% above national average—and introduces legislation creating the nation's first Office of Insurance Affordability with claim adjusters to help consumers.
Another factor that is affecting New York is obviously the affordability crisis, and particularly one factor driving this crisis is rising insurance costs, costs that are some of the highest in the country.
So, for example, if you're a small business owner, you will be paying, on average, four to five times more on your liability insurance than if you were a small business in another state.
If you're a homeowner in New York City, on average, you're going to be paying 26% more than homeowners in other areas.
If health care costs, obviously the same thing.
If you drive a car in New York City, your insurance is 42% higher than the national average.
So with this bill that we are passing today, it creates the nation's first insurance accountability office to bring transparency around insurance costs, to drive the cost down.
We're also going to have claim adjusters that are on staff that are going to help New Yorkers navigate this maze and bureaucracy around rising insurance costs.
And I do want to just say that the city lost 8,000 businesses in the second quarter of 2025 alone.
So one of the rising costs for small businesses that we're hearing time and time again is high cost of insurance.
And so that is one of the many reasons that we are tackling this.
And this new office is going to engage insurers, stakeholders, and regulators to really address this.
Key issue that is affecting affordability in our city.