The New York Senate has passed a number of measures meant tocorral auto insurance fraud in the Empire State.

The state Senate then threw in a quick dig at the Assembly.

"The Senate has been passing bills to combat auto insurancefraud for more than a decade yet the Assembly has not acted on them[and] the problem has only grown worse," says Senate RepublicanConference Leader Dean G. Skelos, in a statement.

One of the bills (S 3547) makes it a crime to stage a motorvehicle accident with intent to commit insurance fraud. A suspectwould face harsher penalties if the act results in serious injuryor death.

S 3033 makes "runners" illegal. Runners are people who steeraccident victims to crooked medical treatment facilities that billinsurers for unnecessary treatments.

The last of the trio of anti-fraud bills from the Senate, S1959A, all insurers to cancel policies taken out by fraudsters—manyof whom pay with bad checks or stolen credit cards right before astaged accident, says lawmakers in the Senate.

"New York is awash in a tsunami of insurance fraud," says JohnA. Corlett, Legislative Committee Chairman for AAA New York, in astatement. "It is very encouraging to see the Senate take action onan issue that impacts so New York State residents."