Michigan No-Fault State: PIP Coverage, Claims, and Lawsuits

Michigan no-fault insurance means your own auto policy pays your medical bills and lost wages after a crash no matter who caused it. You file with your own insurer, benefits begin as costs accrue, and lawsuits between drivers are limited to a narrow set of serious cases. The system is built around Personal Injury Protection (PIP), and a 2019 reform gave you real choices about how much PIP medical coverage to carry.

What Your Own Policy Pays After a Crash

PIP is the core of the system. It covers three main categories of loss, plus attendant care and survivor’s benefits when the injuries call for them.

Medical Expenses

PIP pays for reasonably necessary medical care tied to your injuries, including hospital stays, surgeries, rehabilitation, prescriptions, and medical equipment.¹ How much your policy covers depends on the PIP level you chose when you bought it. A 2021 fee schedule ties provider reimbursement to Medicare rates for the area where care is given. That has stretched benefits for routine care, but some providers no longer treat auto-injury patients because the rates run below what they used to charge.

Wage Loss

If injuries keep you from working, PIP replaces 85% of your gross income for up to three years.¹ The 15% reduction reflects the fact that PIP wage benefits are not federally taxed. For accidents between October 1, 2025 and September 30, 2026, monthly benefits are capped at $7,201. The cap adjusts each year with the cost of living.

Replacement Services

When injuries prevent you from handling routine household tasks like cooking, cleaning, or yard work, PIP pays up to $20 a day to hire someone to do them.¹ That daily figure has not changed since the statute was written. Benefits run up to three years, and you’ll need to document what you paid for what.

Attendant Care

For seriously injured people who need hands-on personal care at home, PIP covers attendant care provided by nurses, home health aides, or family members. Since July 2021, family-provided attendant care is capped at 56 hours per week. That cap does not apply to care from a licensed commercial agency.

Survivor’s Loss

If someone dies in a crash, their dependents can claim survivor’s loss benefits for up to three years, replacing the income, insurance premiums, and pension contributions the deceased would have provided. The same $7,201 monthly ceiling and $20 daily replacement-services limit apply. A claim must be filed within one year of the accident.

Choosing Your PIP Medical Coverage Level

Before the 2019 reform every Michigan driver carried unlimited PIP medical. Now there are six tiers to pick from when you buy or renew:²

Unlimited PIP medical, which is the default if you don’t actively choose.
$500,000 per person per accident, available to any driver.
$250,000 per person per accident, available to any driver.
$250,000 with exclusions, available if you carry health insurance covering auto injuries with an individual deductible under $6,579; you can exclude yourself, qualifying household members, or both.
$50,000 per person per accident, available only if you’re enrolled in Medicaid and every household member has Medicaid, other health coverage, or their own auto policy with PIP.
A full opt-out of PIP medical, available only if you have Medicare Parts A and B and every household member has their own auto policy or health coverage for accident injuries.

Lower caps mean lower premiums. They also mean you pay every dollar above the cap yourself if the injuries are catastrophic. A brain or spinal cord injury can generate millions in lifetime care. The Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services details each option and its eligibility rules.³

Which Insurer You File With

The priority rules decide which company pays your PIP benefits. Guessing wrong can stall or sink your claim.

The default rule is simple: file with your own auto insurer. Your policy covers you, your spouse, and relatives living in your household.⁴ A few situations shift responsibility elsewhere:

If you’re hurt as a passenger in a commercially operating bus, taxi, or rideshare vehicle, you claim from that vehicle’s insurer.
If you’re driving a car owned or registered to your employer, the employer’s auto insurer pays.
Motorcyclists follow a separate priority chain that starts with the insurer of the motor vehicle involved.
If you aren’t covered under any auto policy, you file through the Michigan Assigned Claims Plan, which assigns an insurer to your case.⁴

Pedestrians and cyclists struck by a car also qualify for PIP. They file under their own auto policy if they have one, then a spouse’s or household relative’s, with the Assigned Claims Plan as backstop.

Damage to Cars and Other Property

Property Protection Insurance (PPI) covers damage your vehicle causes to other people’s property inside Michigan, up to $1 million per accident.⁵ That includes fences, buildings, guardrails, and vehicles that were properly parked when hit. PPI does not cover damage to other moving vehicles or to your own car.

Damage to another moving vehicle is handled by Michigan’s mini-tort provision. If you cause that damage, the other driver can sue you for up to $3,000 of the portion not covered by their own collision or other insurance.⁶ Most auto policies include mini-tort coverage, but confirm yours does. For damage to your own vehicle, you need separate collision coverage.

Liability Coverage for Serious At-Fault Crashes

Bodily injury (BI) and property damage (PD) liability coverage protects you when you’re at fault in a crash causing serious injury or death, or when a crash happens outside Michigan where no-fault rules don’t apply. The default minimums are $250,000 per person and $500,000 per accident for bodily injury, plus $10,000 for property damage in another state.⁷

You can opt for lower limits of $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident, but that creates real exposure.⁷ If a jury awards damages above your policy limits, you pay the difference out of pocket. DIFS lists the available BI/PD combinations.⁸

When You Can Still Sue for Pain and Suffering

No-fault generally blocks drivers from suing each other for non-economic damages like pain, suffering, and lost quality of life. To bring that kind of claim, you must show the crash caused death, permanent serious disfigurement, or a serious impairment of an important body function.⁶

The serious-impairment test has three parts. The impairment must be objectively observable by someone other than you, not just a subjective pain complaint. It must affect an important body function. And it must influence your ability to live your normal life, measured by comparing what you could do before the crash with what you can do after. There is no minimum duration; even a temporary impairment qualifies if it’s severe enough to meaningfully change how you live.⁶

Two other rules trip people up. Damages are reduced by your percentage of fault, and you recover nothing if you were more than 50% responsible. And if you were driving without the coverage required by law at the time of the crash, you cannot bring a tort claim at all.⁶ That second rule catches drivers whose coverage lapsed even briefly before the accident.

Deadlines That Can Wipe Out a Claim

Two separate deadlines apply to PIP, and mixing them up costs money.

The first is the filing deadline. Within one year of the crash you must either give your insurer written notice of the injury, or the insurer must have already made at least one PIP payment. If neither happens, the right to file is gone.⁹ Once notice is in or a payment has been made, you can file suit anytime within one year after the most recent covered expense or wage loss.

The second is the one-year-back rule. Even when your claim is timely, you cannot recover benefits for losses incurred more than one year before you actually file the lawsuit.⁹ Wait 18 months to sue over an unpaid bill and the first six months of that expense is unrecoverable.

For injured minors, Michigan courts have held that the one-year filing deadline is tolled until the child turns 18. The one-year-back rule is not tolled. Property damage claims carry a flat one-year deadline with no extension.

How to File a PIP Claim

Identify the correct insurer first, using the priority rules above. Most people file with their own auto insurer, but a passenger in an employer or commercial vehicle usually files elsewhere.

The core document is the Application for Bodily Injury Benefits, sometimes called Form NF-1. Get it from the insurer directly or from its website. The form asks for the date, time, and location of the crash, a description of your injuries, your employment history, and your employer’s contact information for verifying wage loss. Attach a copy of the police report and any early medical records.

Submit the completed form to the insurer’s claims department. Many insurers accept electronic uploads, but sending it by certified mail with a return receipt creates a paper trail proving when you filed. That date matters because of the one-year notice requirement and the one-year-back rule.

After receiving your application, the insurer assigns a claim number and an adjuster. Each benefit must be paid within 30 days of reasonable proof of the expense and its amount. If the insurer misses that window, overdue benefits accrue simple interest at 12% per year.¹⁰ That interest is your leverage when a claim gets slow-walked.

Coordinated Versus Uncoordinated PIP

When you buy PIP, your insurer may offer a choice between coordinated and uncoordinated medical coverage. With uncoordinated (primary) PIP, your auto insurer pays accident-related medical bills first, and your health insurer has no role unless PIP is exhausted. With coordinated (excess) PIP, your health insurance pays first and PIP covers what’s left.

Coordinated coverage lowers auto premiums because the insurer expects to pay less. It also means your health plan’s deductibles, copays, and network rules apply to accident-related care. If your health plan has a high deductible or a narrow network, coordinated coverage can leave you paying more out of pocket than an uncoordinated policy would have. The right pick depends on how strong your health plan is and how much the coordination actually shaves off the premium.

1
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3107 – Expenses and Work Loss for Which Personal Protection Insurance Benefits Payable
2
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3107c – Coverage Levels for Personal Protection Insurance Benefits
3
Department of Insurance and Financial Services. Choosing PIP Medical Coverage
4
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3114 – Persons Entitled to Personal Protection Insurance Benefits
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Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3121 – Liability for Accidental Damage to Tangible Property
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Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3135 – Tort Liability for Noneconomic Loss
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Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3009 – Automobile Liability or Motor Vehicle Liability Policy Limits
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Department of Insurance and Financial Services. Choosing Bodily Injury Coverage
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Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3145 – Limitation of Actions for Recovery of Personal or Property Protection Insurance Benefits
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Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 500.3142 – Personal Protection Insurance Benefits Payable as Loss Accrues