When shopping for Michigan auto insurance, it’s important to make sure you’re buying the right product to protect you. Scroll down to learn about what coverages are involved when it comes to auto insurance in Michigan, or call us today for a personalized quote.

Collision

Collision provides coverage when you collide with another vehicle or object including curbs, posts, trees, pot holes and upset or rolling the vehicle. This is also an optional coverage but is required if you have a lease or a loan on the vehicle. Collision in Michigan comes in three forms and it is important to understand all three when purchasing this coverage for your car and dictates how the deductible and coverage applies

Comprehensive Coverage

This is an optional coverage but required if you have a lease or loan on the vehicle. If Comprehensive is purchased and there were a loss, the repairs would be taken care of by the insurance company minus your deductible you chose to buy. If there is a total i.e. fire or theft, the vehicle would be settled on an ACV Actual Cash Value basis which is Replacement Cost minus depreciation minus your deductible or in more simple terms you can go to your local newspaper and see what others with a similar vehicle and miles is selling theirs for minus your deductible equals the settlement.

Comprehensive coverage protects your vehicle for most everything except collision or upset of the vehicle. These include some of the more common types of losses such as:

• Fire
• Theft
• Vandalism
• Falling Objects
• Glass
• Hitting an animal
• Certain natural disasters, I.e. Hail Flood, Tornado

Personal Injury Protection

Personal Injury Protection will pay for all reasonable medical expenses and up to three years of wages subject to a maximum of 85% of your income with a maximum monthly cap of $5452 indexed yearly around each October 1st. It also provides for mileage for the trips to and from a doctors office, replacement services which is a person who steps in and replaces you to perform the services you would have performed had you not been injured i.e. cleaning, cooking, grass cutting etc. however there is a cap of $20 per day.

This is the where Michigan stands above and beyond all other states on its auto coverage. The medical benefits afforded by PIP Personal Injury Protection under the Michigan No Fault coverage is “LIFETIME”. Yes lifetime! This is why we have the highest auto premiums in the country. The second most generous state when it comes to medical benefits is the state of New York with $50,000, a mere pittance when we talk about severe injuries.

Uninsured Motorist

Uninsured Motorist gives you protection against those who are not carrying the mandated Michigan no-fault coverages. In fact, it’s reported that approximately 20% of Michigan drivers are driving without insurance.

How does Uninsured Motorist work? An easy way to remember this is to treat it as a mirror to Liability. As a reminder, we buy liability limits to protect us from an accident we caused and
seriously hurt someone else. Uninsured Motorist protects you when someone seriously hurts you and doesn’t carry the state-mandated liability coverage. Since you know that there isn’t an auto insurance policy for you to engage, you can try to go after any assets that person might have. If you find that nothing is there then you go to your policy and have your insurance policy step in.

As described above we know that PIP will take care of medical bills for your lifetime if necessary and wages are taken care of for three years, so what are we suing our own carrier for?

• 1.) Noneconomic loss- we’ll call this the pain and suffering that we have endured. This will include emotional distress, scarring and disfigurement mental anguish, etc. This carries the same requirements as a liability claim satisfying the definition of threshold Injury where there must be at least one of the following:
  • a) serious impairment of bodily function
  • b) permanent serious disfigurement
  • c) death.
• 2.) Excess economic loss- This is where you try to figure out how much income you will lose after the three years are over and you have exhausted your wage loss benefits.

Underinsured Motorist

This is very similar to Uninsured Motorist with one exception Underinsured Motorist protects you from the driver who has terrible liability limits. As an example, the other person who is at fault in an accident with you and seriously hurts you but is complying with the mandated Michigan No Fault law by purchasing insurance.The only problem is that person made a poor decision to purchase a policy with low liability limits. If the other person carried the minimum limits of 20,000/40,000/10,000 (see Liability above for reference)and you’re not going to be able to work ever again, Serious impairment of bodily functions, permanent serious disfigurement. Where does the other money come from? Underinsured Motorist! Your insurance company will get a check for 20,000 if you were the only one injured or 40,000 if another family members were injured in the vehicle with you and your underinsured motorist coverage steps in to take care of you.

Mini-Tort

Michigan mini-tort law allows victims the opportunity to recover up to $1000 from an at fault driver that caused damage to your car. If you have $1000 standard deductible it will reimburse you. If you have no collision as in the limited collision scenario or no collision at all then you could recover up to $1000 for your damage vehicle but no more.

MCCA

This is the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association which is a fund set up to take care the unlimited lifetime coverage for auto accidents. There is a charge on your personal auto policy applied to each vehicle that is insured in Michigan labeled MCCA and the annual charge this year is $170 effective 07-01-2017. This premium changes each July 1 and is based on the needs of the funds that are necessary to take care of the current injuries and services. You can go to www.michigancatastrophic.com to learn more.

Depending on the auto insurance carrier you choose, you may gain access to additional coverages free of charge, or find them as optional extras for a nominal fee.

• Towing & labor
• Rental car reimbursement
• Glass deductible waiver
• New car replacement
• Newer car replacement
• OEM Parts
• Lease gap coverage
• Pet injury protection
• Waiver of deductible
• Child passenger restraint system coverages
• Mechanical parts replacement
• Accident Forgiveness

No one wants to pay more for their insurance than they have to. Here’s a few ways to possible save a few dollars on your Michigan auto insurance policy.

• Multi-policy discount
• Multi-car discount
• Safe driver discount
• Homeowner discount
• No lapses in coverage
• Pay your policy in full
• Automatic bill pay
• Good student discount
• Minor driver discount