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Your Rights To Full Personal Protection Benefits
(PIP Benefits)

In Michigan, a person injured in an auto accident must seek payment
from his or her own insurance company for medical treatment, wage
loss, property loss, replacement service expenses even if they were
not the “at-fault” driver. This is why Michigan’s law is called the No-
Fault Law. Benefits from one’s own insurance company are called
Personal Protection Insurance benefits (commonly referred to as PIP
benefits). Injured persons can receive additional benefits for pain and
suffering damages only if their injuries are serious enough to cause
death, permanent serious disfigurement, or serious impairment of a
body function. The majority of auto accident victims do not meet this
serious-injury-threshold. However, the PIP benefits to which an
injured person is entitled are quite extensive under Michigan law.
These include the following: hospital and physician care; physical,
occupational, and speech therapy; vocational rehabilitation; in-home
attendant and nursing care; domestic service expenses; work loss
expenses; necessary home remodeling and construction costs to cope
with an injury; and special vehicle and medical transportation
expenses. These benefits are guaranteed by law but are sometimes
difficult to recover from insurance companies.
Benefits for medical services needed by an injured person may also
be covered by his or her health insurance policy. To determine
whether your auto insurer or your medical insurance is primarily
responsible you need to look at your auto insurance policy and see
whether you have a coordinated policy or an uncoordinated policy. If
you have a coordinated auto insurance policy, then you auto insurance
pays only those benefits that are not provided by the health insurance
policy (i.e. your health insurer is primary and auto insurer is
secondary). It is best to have an uncoordinated policy and it does not
cost that much additional per payment to receive this added
protection. If an injured person does not have health insurance, then
the auto insurer is the primary and only insurance.