Michigan Motorcyclists Remain at Risk Under Auto No-Fault Insurance

Motorcyclists remain at extreme risk under Michigan’s no-fault insurance scheme.  Michigan law mandates that a motorcyclist involved in a crash with a car must first seek payment of medical bills (and wage loss) from the insurer of the involved motor vehicle.  MCL 500.3114(5)(a).  The Michigan Court of Appeals has just recently affirmed, once again, that a motorcyclist remains bound to whatever level of no-fault insurance coverage for medical bills was selected for the involved vehicle, which now can be as low as $50,000.00.  See Meemic Ins Co v Auto-Owners Ins Co, Unpublished Per Curiam Opinion, dated April 21, 2026 (Docket No. 374229).  With medical costs constantly soaring these days, exhausting $50,000.00 in medical coverage can easily occur the same day of the accident, when involving serious injuries.

As a backdrop, prior to 2019, when a motorcyclist was involved in a crash with a motor vehicle, the injured motorcyclist had unlimited access to medical care coverage--for life--from the auto insurer of the involved motor vehicle.  In June of 2019, however, Governor Whitmer signed into law sweeping changes to the Michigan no-fault act, one of which allowed auto no-fault insureds to purchase reduced levels of insurance coverage for medical care.  Now, while the new change in the law may seem reasonable at first blush, when examined as a whole, however, its effect was to gut medical coverage for thousands of Michigan motorists and, most importantly, motorcyclists who get hit and seriously injured by a car.  The impact of this dramatic change completely exposed motorcyclists to the extreme risk of many of their medical bills not being paid, even when the crash was not their fault. Final thought: when signing the new law into effect, we Michiganders were promised reduced auto insurance premium costs; ask yourself: has your auto insurance premium gone down?  The only thing that has gone down is your available medical coverage, which only benefits the auto insurance industry.

Authored by L. Page Graves