Legislative · State · NY

New York bill would require disclosure of slavery-era insurance policies and state contractors' historical ties to slavery

Why this rating

If fully effective, this bill would create a documentary record of insurance policies covering enslaved people and of state contractors' financial ties to slavery-era profits — the kind of institutional accountability data that has historically supported reparations research and claims specific to descendants of enslaved people (freedmen lineage), not Black Americans generally. It does not create direct payments or benefits, so it is scored as a meaningful but non-major positive mechanism (+1) rather than a major direct benefit. On force, the bill has only been referred to committee twice (March 2025, then re-referred January 2026) with no hearing, markup, or vote recorded, so it has realized essentially no effect yet (0.10).

Summary

S05979, introduced in the New York Senate by Sen. James Sanders Jr., would enact the "New York slavery era business and state procurement disclosure act." The bill requires insurers to report insurance policies issued during the slavery era to slaveholders that provided coverage for damage to or death of enslaved people. It also requires contractors seeking to enter into or renew procurement contracts with New York state agencies to disclose slavery-era financing, investments, and profits derived from slavery.

The bill was referred to the Senate Insurance Committee on March 4, 2025, and was re-referred to the same committee on January 7, 2026, at the start of the new session. No hearing, markup, or floor vote has occurred.

This is a disclosure/documentation measure modeled on similar slavery-era transparency laws in other states; it does not itself create payments, damages, or a reparations fund, but compels institutional disclosure of historical financial ties to chattel slavery.

Sources

• Enacts the "New York slavery era business and state procurement disclosure act"; requires insurers to report insurance policies issued to slaveholders during the slavery era that provided coverage for damage to or death to such slaveholders' slaves; requires contractors seeking to enter into or renew procurement contracts with state agencies to report slavery era financing, investments and profits of slavery. — bill text · primary · legiscan

Rated under the published impact rubric. Direction records what a measure would do if fully effective; force records how far it has actually travelled. Neither is inferred — both trace to the sources above. Think something here is wrong? Tell us and we will log the correction.

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