Michigan Casualty Study Guide

No-fault is the whole story here, so organise it around what national material gets wrong. Those courses teach one PIP benefit — Michigan sells four levels across three statutes. They teach a minimum limit as a floor you build up from — Michigan’s 250/500 is also the default, and you build down. They teach that every answer sits in the Insurance Code — Michigan’s most-tested number sits in the workers’ compensation act. All of it was rebuilt by 2019 PA 21; anything half-remembered is probably pre-reform.

The PIP medical menu — three provisions, not one list of six

MCL 500.3107c(1)(a)–(d) sets four medical levels: $50,000, $250,000, $500,000 and no limit. The $50,000 level is the restricted one — available only where the named insured is enrolled in Medicaid and the spouse and every resident relative have qualified health coverage, Medicaid or PIP.

Now the two things that are not levels. The opt-out is a separate section — MCL 500.3107d(1) — open only to a “qualified person” with Medicare Parts A and B, and only if the spouse and resident relatives have qualified health coverage or PIP. The qualified-health-coverage exclusion is an overlay on the $250,000 level only (MCL 500.3109a(2)), with a 100% PIP premium reduction where the whole household is so covered.

Flatten those three provisions into one menu of six and you get the eligibility conditions wrong — which is what items test: every restricted option turns on the household, not the named insured alone. Absent a selection the unlimited level applies (3107c(4)), subject to a rebuttable presumption that the premium paid reflects the level chosen (3107c(3)).

What sits outside the medical cap — and what does not

Work loss (3107(1)(b)), replacement services (3107(1)(c)) and survivor’s loss (3108) sit outside the 3107c medical cap. Work loss runs 3 years, reduced 15% for the income-tax advantage, subject to an indexed maximum — $7,455 per 30-day period for 1 October 2026 to 30 September 2027. Replacement services are $20 per day, also 3 years.

Then the counter-intuitive one: funeral and burial expenses do NOT sit outside the cap. They are allowable expenses under 3107(1)(a)(ii) — inside the capped bucket — in a policy amount of not less than $1,750 or more than $5,000. Candidates group them with survivor’s loss because both follow a death; the statute does not.

The level chosen has one further consequence. The Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association reimburses 100% of the ultimate PIP loss above the attachment point in each loss occurrence (MCL 500.3104(2)) — but since 1 July 2020 it has no liability for a policy carrying a $50,000, $250,000 or $500,000 limit (3104(27)). It backstops unlimited-PIP policies only. Learn the mechanism, not the figure: the attachment point is anchored at $580,000 and steps biennially by the lesser of 6% or CPI (3104(2)(o)).

Residual liability — 250/500 is the minimum and the default

MCL 500.3009(1)(a)–(b), (8) requires not less than $250,000 per person and $500,000 per accident after 1 July 2020. An applicant may opt down on a form issued by the director, but not below $50,000 / $100,000 (3009(5)). Property damage liability is $10,000 (3009(1)(c)), unchanged by the 2019 reform.

This is where a stale guide shows itself fastest. Material presenting 50/100 as “the Michigan minimum” has the relationship exactly backwards: 50/100 is the floor of the opt-down, not the requirement.

The number that arrives by cross-reference

Attendant care in the injured person’s home is the best example in Michigan law of a rule that has to be followed across two acts. MCL 500.3157(10) caps it at the hourly limitation in section 315 of the worker’s disability compensation act. Follow that reference into MCL 418.315(1) and the number appears: 56 hours per week — a figure that never appears in the Insurance Code’s own text, though DIFS states it directly in its bulletins.

The two provisions do not even describe the same class of people. 3157(10) reaches anyone related to the injured person, domiciled in the household, or with a pre-injury business or social relationship; 418.315(1) names only spouse, sibling, child and parent. An insurer may contract to pay more (3157(11)), and a capped policy must be offered an excess-attendant-care rider (MCL 500.3107c(8)).

That reference bridges to workers’ compensation, where Michigan is a competitive market, not a monopolistic state fund. Coverage is required of a private employer regularly employing 1 or more employees for 35 hours or more per week for 13 weeks or longer, or 3 or more employees at one time regardless of hours (MCL 418.115). The threshold does not turn on full-time versus part-time — the second prong counts heads whatever the hours.