Expanding coastal market assistance in New York

Assembly Member Ken Blankenbush was first elected to the Assembly in 2010 representing a North Country district that spans from the Adirondacks in St. Lawrence County to Fort Drum to Oneida Lake. He began his career at Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. and started his own insurance firm in Watertown. Blankenbush sits on the Assembly Insurance Committee and has led hearings on the property and casualty insurance market. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are your top priorities in terms of insurance-related legislation in Albany?

Going into this year, the thing that I’m always concerned about is obtaining adequate insurance coverage at affordable rates for our consumers, especially businesses. For numerous types of insurance, such as workers’ compensation, it’s difficult to do business in New York state sometimes. I believe, as with the Assembly minority conference, that business owners should not be forced to overpay for insurance coverage.

The other thing I hope is we have to take a look at our homeowners insurance coverage. It’s becoming very difficult to obtain in many states. You take a look at Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, we want to ensure that New Yorkers have affordable choices for homeowners insurance. The concern about costs and affordability for businesses and consumers is very important to me.

I owned an insurance agency, I don’t anymore, I sold it. When you look at the business policies that you have to pay, including workers’ comp, disabilities benefits, unemployment insurance and all the costs you need for basic insurance, it gets very difficult for small businesses to afford to stay here. We should be helping our business owners and not forced to overpay for insurance. Sometimes mandated coverage is not the way to go.

What were the most significant bills to come through the Insurance Committee this past year? Any pending before the governor at the moment? Which ones are you monitoring, if any? Any concerns?

She has already vetoed a few of them, my understanding is. I believe there were 18 bills passed by the Insurance Committee this last session and the governor has signed some bills that amend the insurance law so that only married New Yorkers will be forced to do supplemental spousal liability coverage. It used to be that everybody had to have that on their automobile policy even if you were single. This amended it so that only married people would enroll on it. The frustrating thing is that I believe this coverage should be an opt in, not an opt out, so that if I wanted to have an insurance policy, it’s still going to be an opt out, but the amendment takes a big step in the right direction. It only considers married people, not single people. But if it’s still an opt out, I’d be against that. I don’t think that’s the way to go.

There has been bipartisan support for the Grieving Families Act. Do you expect the governor to finally sign the bill or veto it again this year? If vetoed, do you expect it to come up again in the next legislative session? What do you make of the governor’s argument that this will raise insurance premiums?

The Grieving Families Act, there was a split in the vote even in my conference, there were 22 members against it. I voted for it. I think she will offer further amendments to the legislation. I think she’ll veto it.

It’s my understanding the governor has suggested some amending legislation to restrict lawsuits to the death of children under the age of 18. I think that will be a good compromise, it will be a good step in the right direction.

Are there any notable bills or topics you expect to come through your committee next session? New issues coming up? Ongoing issues you continue to address?

There’s a bill, the coastal market assistance program, A9821. I don’t believe it came through the committee. What it’s doing is expanding within one mile of shoreline, which includes Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, Niagara and the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River (border) my district and I border Lake Ontario. I don’t know where that’s going to stand. It will assist New Yorkers near those bodies of water to obtain homeowners assistance. I think that’s something that comes out this year. It’s the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario on my side (that) have been very calm lately, but a few years ago, there was an issue. There was high rising water that took out a lot of decks and docks in Clayton and the Alex Bay area.

And with the rising cost of health insurance, there was an issue with pharmacy benefit managers. The Department of Financial Services has been looking into that. This is an old bill, we supported it, it passed unanimously, but it was vetoed. We tried to control the cost of pharmacy bills. I don’t know when that is going to come back again. The bill number was A1396. That was introduced in 2021, so are we going to come back and deal with that again. I don’t know whether the governor will allow that to go through. It’s a national trend going on with other states.

The one other bill of concern that we have is the American Transit Insurance Co., involving New York City cabs and Ubers, which really isn’t in my area. I think the taxi industry in New York is really under pressure now because the American Transit Insurance Co. is insolvent. Some claim this issue was years in the making, and they overpaid company executives. We expect the Insurance Committee may attempt to address this issue. I still think that’s a major concern for New York and also a concern for DFS. Also I believe David Weprin is sponsoring bills addressing insurance fraud.

Another concern I have during this last session is AI in underwriting. Here’s my problem with it. If in fact we are going to allow AI to dictate underwriting, I have a concern we’re going to eliminate the human element from underwriting. I’ve been in the business for years and when I see an underwriter, underwriting a piece of business and I don’t agree with it, I had the chance to talk with an underwriter and get clarification of what he or she is reading. I felt if there was a chance in the underwriter’s position, it helped me and it helped the client. But if you’re going to put in AI to do this underwriting, how much of this human element is going to be removed from insurance underwriting? DFS Superintendent Adrienne Harris has adopted the guideline for preventing discrimination, but my concern is we cannot take out the human element in underwriting.

Do states take the lead on insurance regulation, or is it addressed more on the federal level? How often do you interact with federal policymakers on insurance issues?

I’m a member of the committee of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators,

basically the national meeting with all the legislators for all the states talking about legislation across the U.S. in different states, to get more conformed across state lines. I’ve always been a states’ rights issue guy. I think our department has better control over our insurance. New York has historically been tough with insurance companies. I think that the department is concerned about keeping insurance companies in line with being solvent and doing the right thing. There have been times I’ve considered overregulation but I’m still a states’ rights guy.

Democrats state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assembly Member Phara Souffrant Forrest introduced legislation to ban insurers from backing new fossil fuel projects and force them to phase out their support for existing ones. What’s your opinion on the measure?

I’m going to be opposed to any limits opposing restrictions on New York businesses from the state Legislature simply to combat climate change. And that’s what this looks like. I believe our minority conference has taken a formal position on those bills. This is fairly new legislation that did not come out of committee. That legislation concerns me and I’m probably not going to be supporting that.