Michigan No-Fault Auto Insurance: PIP, Deadlines, and Penalties

Michigan no-fault auto insurance is a system where your own insurer pays your medical bills, a portion of your lost wages, and the cost of household help after a crash, no matter who caused it. Every vehicle owner in the state has to carry it. A policy is built from three required pieces: Personal Injury Protection (PIP), Property Protection Insurance, and residual bodily injury and property damage liability. Since 2019, you also have to choose how much PIP medical coverage you want, and that choice sets both your premium and your ceiling if you are badly hurt.

What PIP Pays After a Crash

Personal Injury Protection covers three things: medical care, lost income, and replacement services for the household work you can no longer do yourself.

On the medical side, PIP pays for “reasonable charges incurred for reasonably necessary products, services, and accommodations” tied to your treatment and recovery. That includes hospital stays, surgery, rehabilitation, prescriptions, and long-term nursing care when injuries call for it. If the accident is fatal, the policy must cover funeral and burial costs between $1,750 and $5,000.¹

Wage loss benefits replace 85 percent of what you would have earned had you not been hurt. The law reduces the figure by 15 percent because the benefits are not taxed, so the payment roughly matches your take-home pay. Payments can run for up to three years from the accident date and are subject to a monthly cap that adjusts each year. For accidents between October 2025 and September 2026, the cap is $7,201 per month.¹

Replacement services reimburse up to $20 per day for someone to handle chores you cannot do while recovering, like cleaning, yard work, or grocery runs. Like wage loss, this benefit lasts up to three years from the date of the accident.¹

Choosing Your PIP Medical Coverage Level

Michigan used to require every driver to carry unlimited lifetime medical coverage. Now you pick a tier, and that tier is the most your insurer will pay per person per accident for medical care.²

Unlimited: no cap on medical benefits, highest premium, lifetime coverage for catastrophic injuries.
$500,000 per person per accident: covers most serious injuries but can run short for traumatic brain or spinal cord injuries that need years of care.
$250,000 per person per accident: a mid-range option; a long hospital stay can approach the ceiling quickly.
$50,000 per person per accident: available only if the named insured is enrolled in Medicaid and every spouse or household relative has qualifying health coverage or their own Medicaid enrollment.³
Full opt-out: no PIP medical coverage at all; allowed only if the named insured has both Medicare Parts A and B and every other household member has qualifying health coverage or a separate auto policy with PIP medical benefits.⁴

If you do not actively make a selection when you buy or renew, you default to unlimited coverage and the matching premium.⁵ Your insurer records the choice on a state-prescribed form, and that selection stays in place until you change it at renewal.

Property Protection and Liability Coverage

Property Protection Insurance pays for damage your vehicle causes to someone else’s property inside Michigan, up to $1 million per accident. It covers the lesser of reasonable repair costs or replacement value minus depreciation.⁶ It applies to things that were not moving at impact, like buildings, fences, utility poles, and parked cars. It does not cover your own vehicle, and it does not cover any other vehicle that was in motion when you hit it.

Residual liability coverage handles the lawsuits no-fault does not block. If a crash causes death, permanent serious disfigurement, or serious impairment of body function, the injured person can step outside no-fault and sue for pain and suffering.⁷ The default limits are $250,000 per person and $500,000 per accident. You can opt down in writing to the statutory minimum of $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident, but anything above those limits becomes your personal problem.⁸ Without an active selection, the higher defaults apply.⁹

Policies also include at least $10,000 in property damage liability for out-of-state accidents, because Property Protection Insurance only works within Michigan.¹⁰ Cross into a tort state and you need traditional liability to pay for damage you cause.

Getting Your Own Car Repaired

Because no-fault generally takes away your right to sue the other driver, collision coverage on your own policy is the main way to get your car fixed. If you do not carry collision, or you want to recover a deductible, the mini-tort provision gives you a narrow second route: you can sue the at-fault driver for up to $3,000 in vehicle damage not covered by insurance.⁷

Mini-tort claims use comparative fault, so your recovery drops by your share of blame, and if you are more than 50 percent at fault you get nothing. These cases are filed in small claims court where possible. One catch is worth repeating: if your vehicle was uninsured at the time of the accident, you cannot recover mini-tort damages at all.⁷

Which Insurer Pays Your PIP Claim

When more than one policy could in theory cover an injury, Michigan law sets a strict order of priority so claims do not get bounced between insurers.¹¹

Your own auto policy first, whether you were driving, riding as a passenger, or walking.
If you have no policy of your own, the policy of a spouse or relative in your household.
If no private policy applies, the Michigan Assigned Claims Plan, which hands your claim to a private insurer. Assigned Claims benefits are capped at $250,000 in PIP medical for most claimants.¹²

Motorcyclists follow a different order when a motor vehicle is involved in the crash: the motor vehicle owner’s insurer, then the motor vehicle driver’s insurer, then the motorcyclist’s own or household auto policy, and finally the Assigned Claims Plan.¹¹ A motorcycle-only crash with no motor vehicle involved does not trigger PIP benefits at all, which is why many riders carry separate medical payments coverage on the bike.

Limits on Family-Provided Attendant Care

Seriously injured crash victims often need help around the clock with bathing, eating, and getting in and out of bed. If that in-home care comes from a relative, a household member, or someone with a pre-existing personal relationship, your insurer only has to pay for up to 56 hours per week. The cap does not apply to care in a facility or care provided by a nurse or home health aide from a commercial agency. An insurer can agree in a contract to pay for more hours, but that is a negotiation, not a right.¹³

For families caring for someone with a traumatic brain injury or similarly catastrophic condition, this is often the gap that hurts most. A relative providing 80 or 100 hours of care each week will be paid for 56 of them.

The One-Year Deadline to File

Missing the filing deadline is the fastest way to lose benefits you otherwise would have received. You have one year from the date of the accident to either file a lawsuit for PIP benefits or give the insurer written notice of your injury. If notice is timely or the insurer has already made a payment, you can sue within one year after the most recent qualifying expense was incurred, but you cannot recover for any loss that was incurred more than one year before the suit was filed.¹⁴

The clock pauses between the date you submit a specific claim and the date the insurer formally denies it, provided you pursue the claim with reasonable diligence.¹⁴ The practical takeaway: report the accident and your injuries to your insurer as soon as you can. Waiting months, even if you are still inside the one-year window, invites arguments that late notice prejudiced the investigation.

What Happens If You Drive Without Coverage

Operating an uninsured vehicle in Michigan is a misdemeanor. A conviction brings a fine between $200 and $500, up to one year in jail, or both. If an officer asks for proof of insurance and you cannot produce it, the law presumes you were uninsured on that date, and you have to rebut the presumption.¹⁵

The civil consequences bite harder. An uninsured driver injured in a crash cannot collect mini-tort damages for vehicle repair, even if the other driver was fully at fault.⁷ Uninsured drivers also face restrictions on bringing pain-and-suffering lawsuits and on collecting PIP benefits. One accident without coverage can cost many times what the skipped premiums would have.

1
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3107 – Expenses and Work Loss for Which Personal Protection Insurance Benefits Payable
2
Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services. Choosing PIP Medical Coverage
3
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3107c – Personal Protection Insurance Benefits Limits
4
Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services. Personal Injury Protection Medical Coverage Opt-Out Quick Facts
5
Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services. Michigan Selection of Personal Injury Protection Medical Coverage – Commercial/Business
6
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3121 – Liability for Accidental Damage to Tangible Property
7
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3135 – Tort Liability for Noneconomic Loss
8
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3009 – Automobile Liability or Motor Vehicle Liability Policy Limits
9
Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services. Choice of Bodily Injury Liability Coverage Limits
10
Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services. Quick Facts – Residual Liability Insurance
11
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3114 – Persons Entitled to Personal Protection Insurance Benefits
12
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3172 – Conditions to Obtaining Personal Protection Insurance Benefits Through Assigned Claims Plan
13
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3157 – Attendant Care Services
14
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3145 – Limitation of Actions
15
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3102 – Security for Payment of Benefits Required