Division of State Police

Division of Criminal Justice Services

Insurance Department

Administration of the Motor Vehicle Law Enforcement Fee

Since 1992, a fee of one dollar has been imposed on all motor vehicles insured in New York State. The fee is collected from insurance companies by the Insurance Department. According to State law, the fees from certain types of vehicles are to be used to supplement the efforts of the Division of State Police in preventing automobile theft and insurance fraud, while the fees from other types of vehicles are to be used by the Division of Criminal Justice Services to develop demonstration projects for reducing the incidence of automobile theft and insurance fraud.

We examined the effectiveness of the anti-theft and anti-fraud activities funded by the fees and found that improvements were needed, as both the Division of State Police and the Division of Criminal Justice Services could demonstrate only limited success in their use of fee funds. We also found that both agencies could improve their accountability for their use of the funds. We also examined the practices used by the Insurance Department in collecting the fee and found that additional actions needed to be taken to provide assurance that all fee revenues were collected from each insurance company.

For a complete copy of Report 2003-S-19 click here.
For a copy of the 90-day response click here.