(The Center Square) — New York trial lawyers spent a whopping $179 million last year on TV advertising pushing personal injury lawsuits, according to a report, which comes as Gov. Kathy Hochul moves to crack down on auto insurance fraud.
The analysis, released Monday by the American Tort Reform Association, highlighted what it called a “staggering surge” in spending on lawsuit ads last year and how the aggressive marketing campaigns are fueling a “fraudemic” of bogus claims that have driven up auto insurance premiums in the Empire State.
“New Yorkers are trapped in a rigged game where trial lawyers profit from fraud and taxpayers pick up the tab,” Lauren Sheets Jarrell, ATRA’s vice president and counsel for Civil Justice Policy, said in a statement.
The report’s authors said plaintiffs’ attorneys poured nearly $179 million into almost 1.2 million local legal service ads across New York’s media markets in 2025 — an 84% increase since 2023. A majority of those ads promoted personal injury attorneys, with nearly 300,000 ads related to accident lawyers, including motor vehicle and construction worksite accidents, they said.
Tom Stebbins, executive director of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, said “billboard” attorneys are aggressively advertising along highways, on TV, the radio, and digital platforms “to recruit plaintiffs and condition a litigious culture” that as led to rampant fraud by scammers and on the scrupulous personal injury attorneys.
“We’re all footing the bill for this flood of trial lawyer advertising,” he said. “With every unnecessary lawsuit and jackpot claim, it costs more to drive a car, deliver food, transport products, and operate public transit and emergency services.”
“They drum up an endless stream of litigation, hoping to transform every fender bender into a high-value case,” Stebbins added.
The report comes as business and advocacy groups are trying to drum up support for Hochul’s proposal to strengthen state regulations, ramp up investigations of alleged insurance fraud, and target physicians who provide bogus diagnoses for victims of staged crashes.
Hochul’s proposal, unveiled as part of her budget, calls for reviving the state Motor Vehicle Theft and Insurance Fraud Prevention Board and empowering it to investigate and prosecute insurance fraud. The plan also calls for legal action against New York drivers who illegally register their vehicles in other states, which critics say artificially decreases insurance coverage and raises costs.
The governor also plans to file legislation to allow prosecutors to seek criminal penalties against individuals responsible for organizing staged accidents, including physicians and other health care workers who sign off on phony medical reports that often result in “enormous” payouts.
Stebbins said Hochul’s anti-fraud and lawsuit reform proposals would “take direct aim at the trial lawyers’ business model and the laws that incentivize profiteering.”
“It’s time for the New York State Legislature to back her proposals and bring down costs for working families instead of blocking reforms so wealthy billboard lawyers can keep spending millions on obnoxious ads while working families struggle to make ends meet,” he said.
New Yorkers pay some of the highest car insurance rates in the nation – totaling just over $4,000 annually on average, nearly $1,500 above the national average, according to state and federal data. Government and industry groups say insurance rates are driven up by a combination of fraud, litigation, legal loopholes and enforcement gaps.
A poll released in February found 86% of New Yorkers back the governor’s proposed reforms to the state’s auto insurance system, while 75% of the more than 1,000 voters surveyed say auto insurance costs are a “financial burden” on their household. Support for the reforms is strong across partisan lines, according to the Beacon Research survey.
Overall, the state’s legal system is consistently ranked among the worst in the nation in the American Tort Reform Foundation’s annual “judicial hellholes” report over frivolous litigation in the court system.
