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Council hearing spotlights proposal for city Office of Insurance Accountability amid questions about state overlap
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Summary
The City Council committee heard testimony supporting a proposed Office of Insurance Accountability to track pricing, publish reports, and assist consumers, while DCWP warned the bill must be written to avoid duplicating state regulator authority and requested staffing/fiscal clarifications.
Speaker Mena opened the hearing by describing a wave of insurance price shocks for New Yorkers — citing homeowners premiums that have risen by more than $1,000 since 2020 and examples of individual policies jumping hundreds of percent — and said those trends motivated a bill to create a city Office of Insurance Accountability.
The proposal would require the city to publish an annual study of insurance costs, provide consumer education on insurance products, track legal actions alleging deceptive or unfair insurer practices and create a consumer-assistance unit led by an insurance accountability advocate.
The bill’s sponsor framed the measure as a transparency and consumer-empowerment tool similar to the city’s health care accountability office. “New Yorkers literally have no idea why their insurance rates are going up,” the sponsor said, urging the committee to give consumers the data and advocacy they do not currently receive.
Sam Levine, commissioner of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), told the committee that DCWP supports the intent of the bill but raised concerns about potential duplication with the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS). “DFS supervise[s] the industry. They license the industry. They have the ability to sue the industry,” Levine said, arguing that DFS has the legal authority to address many rate and licensing issues.
Levine added that DCWP receives insurance-related complaints and can mediate many consumer problems, but that the agency lacks regulatory authority over rate setting and certain enforcement actions. He outlined a middle path — using city-level aggregation of complaints and neighborhood-level studies to surface patterns and then escalating those findings to DFS for regulatory action. “I don’t want DCWP, an agency with very limited authority over the industry, to stand between consumers and getting the relief they need,” Levine said.
Council members pushed back that the absence of an insurance advocate at the state level and the opacity of insurer pricing justify a city-level office. “It’s price transparency that I’m focused on with this new office,” the sponsor said, pointing to the health care office’s success in producing data that helped lower costs and enabled new city health plans.
Stakeholders at the public testimony panel generally welcomed the intent. Linda Baron of the Staten Island Chamber urged including brokers in consultations and ensuring the office complements — rather than duplicates — state work. Commercial broker Lauren Aquino cautioned that commercial insurance is highly individualized and warned against oversimplified public guidance. Anthony Pena of the National Supermarket Association said rising liability premiums threaten small grocery operators and called transparency and a consumer voice essential to preserving neighborhood food access.
The administration acknowledged the potential benefits but requested clearer statutory language and resources. DCWP provided a fiscal estimate proposing 19 new budget lines to operationalize an insurance unit and detailed options for how the city could aggregate data by ZIP code or council district to pressure regulators.
The committee did not vote on the legislation at the hearing. Members asked for follow-up work on fiscal impact, implementation mechanics (including intake and escalation pathways to DFS), and stakeholder input to refine the bill’s language ahead of later legislative steps.
