May 6, 2019

PIANY legislative priority gets approval from Senate committee; ask your senator to co-sponsor this legislation

The Senate Committee on Insurance passed S.5126, sponsored by Sen. James Sanders Jr., D-10, and reported it to the Senate Calendar on April 29. This bill would repeal the section of Insurance Law relating to anti-arson applications, and is a PIANY legislative priority this year. In 2017, PIANY successfully worked to remove the anti-arson application requirements in Buffalo and Rochester, thus leaving New York City as the only municipality in the state that still requires completion of the application.

If passed, this bill would completely remove the requirement from state law. The need for the application was made irrelevant by legislation enacted in 1996, which requires insurers to file plans with the New York State Department of Financial Services regarding how they intend to detect, investigate and prevent fraudulent insurance activities. Ask your senator to co-sponsor this legislation and urge the Democratic leadership to put it on an active list for a full vote in the senate by sending him or her a letter through the PIAdvocacy campaign. Read more about the issue on the PIAdvocacy blog.