New Insurance Fraud Law Inspired By Staged Car Crash In NE Queens

BELLEROSE MANOR, QUEENS — An insurance fraud bill inspired by a staged car crash in Northeast Queens in 2003 has become law.

"Alice's law," named for Queens Village grandmother Alice Ross, makes it a felony to stage a car crash to get insurance money. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law on Thursday.

Ross died in a crash on Commonwealth Boulevard that was engineered by three men as part of an insurance fraud scheme, according to the Queens Courier. She was 71.

The new law calls for up to seven years' prison time for staging a crash that causes serious physical injury or death.

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Under New York's no-fault law, insurance companies must pay victims' crash-related expenses even if the victim was responsible. That makes staging crashes a common method of insurance fraud.

Assemblyman David Weprin, who represents a strip of Queens that includes Glen Oaks and Oakland Gardens, and State Sen. Anna Kaplan of Great Neck ferried the bill through the state legislature earlier this year after years of bureaucratic delays.

"The signing of this legislation closes loopholes in the insurance law, adds higher penalties for those who stage auto accidents, and rightfully honors the memory of Alice Ross," Weprin said in a statement.

Fraudulent insurance claims related to car crashes cost insurance companies and policyholders an estimated $1 billion a year, according to Weprin.