You’ve seen the headlines:
Report: “Michigan has highest car insurance costs in nation”
“See”, the insurance company propaganda machine says, “because of the no-fault insurance system in Michigan, we have the highest auto insurance premiums for drivers in the country.”
Except that isn’t true.
Michigan doesn’t have the highest auto insurance rates in the United States. Michigan isn’t even in the top 10 when it comes to the most expensive auto insurance rates in the United States today.
This was recently acknowledged by Insurance Institute of Michigan Executive Director, Pete Kuhnmuench, who agreed that Michigan is 11th in the country.
Michigan’s No Fault System is also better than the insurance that exists in almost all other states.
Looking at the cost of auto insurance in Michigan but ignoring the benefits and protections misses the point: of the top 10 states with the highest auto insurance rates: 70% don’t have a no-fault system.
The majority of the most expensive auto insurance states are tort-liability states. That means a driver who has suffered serious injury in an auto accident must sue the at-fault driver for all of his or her economic and medical losses, as well as pain and suffering. In states with very low minimum bodily injury insurance policy limits, it is taxpayers who end up footing the bill. But in states like Michigan, a seriously injured auto accident victim can recover necessary medical treatment for life from a catastrophic injury. Other states don’t come close to offering Michigan’s level of protection when it comes to compensating people injured in auto accidents.
So before you jump on the insurance company propaganda machine and “blame no-fault insurance for high insurance rates” band wagon, consider the facts. The overwhelming majority of the most expensive auto insurance states don’t even employ a no-fault system, and of those that do, none come close to offering Michigan’s level of protection.
When they said in the movie Spinal Tap that “this one is better…It goes to 11” maybe they were on to something.
