2019 Senate Bill 1 ↩

Senate Roll Call 60: Passed

To no longer mandate that auto insurance policies include unlimited personal injury protection (PIP) coverage. A customer could theoretically keep the unlimited PIP (if it remains available), or choose policies with $250,000 PIP limits. Individuals with other health insurance (including Medicare and Medicaid) could choose not to purchase any PIP coverage at all.<br> The Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association (MCCA) that covers the cost of unlimited PIP claims above specified amounts would be phased out by limiting its liabilities to claims covered by pre-existing policies sold before the bill goes into effect. This would reportedly reduce MCCA surcharges on individual insurance bills by $180, based on a $220 rate that goes into effect in July 2019.<br> Medical service providers and hospitals could not charge more for medical care given to crash victims than the amounts prescribed by the state’s workers compensation insurance law. Limits would also be applied to long term care costs including weekly “attendant care” hours provided by relatives.<br> The bill would also make trial lawyers liable for insurance company costs incurred defending against lawsuits based on claims for excessive or medically unnecessary crash victim treatments, or if the attorney improperly solicited a case (“ambulance chasing”). It would create a State Police automobile insurance fraud task force tasked with pursuing and prosecuting fraud cases.<br> A Democratic amendment was adopted that would restrict insurers from setting rates on the basis of two specific “non-driving factors,” gender and the zip code where the care is garaged.