LANSING, MI — Michigan’s Republican-led Senate on Thursday passed legislation that changes the state’s auto insurance law after making several last-minute adjustments. The final vote on Senate Bill 248 was 21-17.
The changes come after the Senate Insurance Committee swiftly substituted and adopted a version of the bill on Wednesday despite complaints from Democrats, who said they had not even had enough time to read the new language.
Michigan has no-fault auto insurance. Every driver is required to buy auto insurance, and when an accident results in serious injury, lifetime medical expenses over $530,000 are covered by the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association, which reimburses the person’s auto insurer for those costs. To provide that, the MCCA currently assesses a fee of $186 per vehicle.
Lawmakers have considered changes no-fault law for the past several years, including last session, when former House Speaker Jase Bolger made a high-profile push.
The substitute bill approved Thursday, along with several amendments that were adopted, changed the legislation substantially from what legislators considered in committee Wednesday. Perhaps most notably, instead of tying reimbursement rates for medical care to worker’s compensation rates, the new legislation ties rates to an average among commercial carriers.
Amendments offered by GOP senators also subjected the Fraud Authority the legislation creates to the Freedom of Information Act, eliminated a proposed co-pay on attendant care and created a system for patients to be approved for more than 24 hours of attendant care a day, making multiple caregivers possible.
Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, said this legislation was a long time in the making and gave credit to the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Joe Hune, R-Hamburg.
“Reforming auto no-fault has been a personal goal of mine as well as Sen. Hune and other members of our caucus for a long time,” Meekhof said.
He said the legislation preserved the “most important” part of the no-fault system, lifetime medical benefits. It didn’t move fast, he said, because the underlying issues had been discussed for a long time.
One aim of the legislation is to bring down the cost of car insurance in Michigan, which legislators say is the highest in the nation.
Neither Meekhof nor Hune could put a number on what the average consumer could expect to save on car insurance as a result of this legislation.
“I don’t have a number. It’s been a moving target,” Hune said.
Asked if consumers could expect to see significant savings, Meekhof said consumers at home would be comforted by the bill’s creation of the fraud authority.
