Who can dispute the effects of inflation over time? For example, on Sept. 3, 1990, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States was $1.24; today it is an average of $3.36, a rise of over 150 percent. In 1990, the cost to mail a letter by first class mail was 25 cents; today it is 46 cents, a rise of almost 100 percent. According to the Consumer Price Index, $60 and $850 in 1988 had the same purchasing power as $119.38 and $1,691.17, respectively, today. In 1988, the Insurance Department established a minimum and a maximum amount of statutory attorney fees in no-fault matters. Today, 25 years later, those numbers remain the same.
Insurance Law §5106(a) provides, inter alia, that a no-fault insurance “claimant shall also be entitled to recover his attorney’s reasonable fee, for services necessarily performed in connection with securing payment of the overdue claim, subject to limitations promulgated by the superintendent in regulations.” The relevant regulation, 11 NYCRR 65-4.6, provides that attorney fees are limited to 20 percent of the principal and interest recovered, subject to a minimum of $60 and a maximum of $850. Although other portions of the no-fault regulations have been amended several times over the past 25 years, the provisions for attorney fees have remained the same.
