New York City’s Zohran Mamdani moves to ease pressure on landlords with government-funded insurance scheme targeting soaring property costs
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is unveiling a plan to reduce insurance costs for apartment landlords, marking his first significant initiative to assist the city’s real estate owners after months of conflict with the industry.
His administration intends to use city dollars to issue new insurance policies that would reduce property owners’ insurance costs between 20% to 30%, said Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg.
While Mamdani still must get the funding approved through the City Council, he hopes to offer the policies next year to owners of rent-stabilized buildings or other affordable housing covering 20,000 homes. He wants to increase the number to 100,000 by 2030. Mamdani is expected to unveil the plan Thursday.
Insurance costs for rent-stabilized buildings have risen by 10.5% over the past year, the second largest increase behind fuel costs, according to the city’s Rent Guidelines Board.
“Insurance is one of the driving forces of increased costs that owners have been facing,” Bozorg said on a call with reporters Wednesday. “This is really about trying to control those costs.”
The new insurance program marks a meaningful pivot by Mamdani after a number of his proposals intended to make housing more affordable or balance the city’s budget brought an outcry from real estate interests.
Those included a rent freeze on one million rent-stabilized units and an across-the-board property-tax increase. More recently, Mamdani has pulled back from the pledge to raise property taxes, but tenants and landlords alike expect his rent-freeze to be approved by the Rent Guidelines Board in June.
Property owners have been among the mayor’s loudest opponents, especially smaller outfits that are already struggling to stay afloat. Now, property insurance looks to be a significant area of common ground.
Mamdani is still sorting out the details of how the program would be implemented, including what kinds of apartment buildings would qualify—and how much the program might ultimately cost. The city is hiring a “risk consultant” to build out the program’s design. It is also looking for a commercial insurance provider to actually operate the program.
By leaning on the city’s coffers, the insurance policies will be cheaper to issue because the government doesn’t have the same profit demands as private insurers, Bozorg said. And it will provide more options to buildings that might have more trouble securing an affordable insurance policy.
“Insurance companies are looking to drop families like me with small properties because they don’t find us to be worth having on the books,” said Jan Lee, whose two rent-stabilized apartment buildings with a total 28 units in Chinatown have been in his family for generations.
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