Michigan PIP Law – ChooseGoldman

Michigan is one of many states that has adopted a no-fault law for auto insurance. This law requires all vehicles registered in the state of Michigan to carry insurance that meets certain requirements. An important amount of requirements for auto insurance in Michigan is the requirement that one have personal injury protection, or PIP benefits. These are essentially the benefits that cover your losses if you are injured in a motor vehicle accident. In many areas of the law, we look for fault when determining who should be responsible for paying for damages, but under the no fault law, we are instructed to look to our insurance first. There is a rigid hierarchy of where to look for coverage.

In many ways, the places to look are perhaps not the most obvious ones, so here is a list, in order.

• First, an injured party (even if only a passenger in a vehicle) must look to his or her own auto insurance.
• Second, an injured party will look to his or her spouse’s auto insurance (even if the spouse was not involved in the accident in any way).
• Third, the injured party will look to the insurance of any other relative that he or she is living with (brothers, sisters, parents, children, etc, even if those people were in no way involved in the accident).
• Fourth, the injured party will look to the insurance of the person who owns the vehicle he or she was riding in, or the person to whom that vehicle is registered (again, even if the owner/ registrant of that vehicle was not present).
• Fifth, the injured party will look to the insurance of the person operating the vehicle he or she was riding at the time of the accident.

Finally, if all of the higher priority sources do not have insurance, the injured party will look to Michigan’s Assigned Claims Facility, which is an entity established by the Michigan legislature to cover individuals who are injured in auto accidents, but who somehow are not otherwise covered.

Contributing to the complexity is the fact that even within these rules, there are exceptions, making an already confusing situation even more difficult for the untrained individual to navigate on their own. A skilled attorney can help make sure you are making your claim against the correct insurance company, and will have the expertise you need to make sure your claim is being paid out properly.

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