Filing a car accident lawsuit in Michigan

Michigan runs on a no-fault system, and that changes almost everything about how a crash claim works here. Most of your medical bills and part of your lost wages get paid by your own insurer, regardless of who caused the wreck. Suing the other driver is a separate, narrower track, and state law puts specific bars in front of it before a court will hear a claim for pain and suffering. Knowing which track applies, and the deadline on each, is the difference between a paid claim and one that's gone for good.

Two clocks, and neither is generous

The headline deadline is three years. Under MCL 600.5805(2), you have three years from the date of the crash to file a lawsuit against an at-fault driver, whether the claim is for injury to your body or damage to your vehicle. Michigan doesn't split personal injury and property damage into separate limitation periods; the same subsection covers both.¹

The no-fault benefits from your own policy run on a much shorter clock, and people miss it constantly. MCL 500.3145 sets two separate deadlines for Personal Injury Protection (PIP) benefits. You have to give your insurer written notice of the injury within one year of the crash. And the "one-year-back rule" means that when you sue for unpaid benefits, you can only recover expenses incurred in the year before you filed. Wait too long and you don't lose just a year of benefits, you can forfeit the whole claim.²

PIP pays first, up to the level you picked

Since the 2020 no-fault reform, Michigan drivers choose how much PIP medical coverage they carry. MCL 500.3107c lets you select unlimited benefits, $500,000, or $250,000. A driver enrolled in Medicaid can drop to $50,000 if the rest of the household is covered, and someone on Medicare with qualifying health insurance can opt out of PIP medical entirely.³ The level you chose sets the ceiling on what your insurer pays for accident-related care, so it's worth knowing which box you checked before a hospital bill lands.

PIP also replaces lost wages, but with a cap that moves every October. For accidents in the period running October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026, work-loss benefits are limited to $7,201 per 30-day period, an amount the Department of Insurance and Financial Services adjusts annually under MCL 500.3107(1)(b).⁴ If you earn more than that ceiling covers, the gap is one of the things a third-party lawsuit exists to recover.

The threshold you have to clear to sue for pain and suffering

Here's where Michigan is strict. You can pursue the at-fault driver for non-economic damages (pain, suffering, loss of a normal life) only if your injury fits one of three categories in MCL 500.3135: death, permanent serious disfigurement, or a "serious impairment of body function."⁵ That last phrase is the one most cases turn on. The statute defines it as an objectively manifested impairment of an important body function that affects your general ability to lead a normal life. A sprained wrist that heals in a month usually won't clear it. A shattered ankle that keeps you off your feet for a year usually will.

Meet the threshold and the door opens to a full liability claim against the driver who hit you. Fall short and you're generally confined to your own PIP benefits plus a narrow slice of economic losses. This gate is the single biggest reason a Michigan crash claim either becomes a lawsuit or stays an insurance file.

Fault still counts, and 51% is the wall

Michigan uses modified comparative negligence. Under MCL 600.2959, if you're found more than 50% at fault for the crash, you're barred from recovering non-economic damages at all, and your economic damages are reduced by your share of fault.⁶ At 30% at fault you still collect, minus 30%. At 51% you collect nothing for pain and suffering. Insurers know this rule cold and will push to nudge your fault percentage over the line, which is why how the crash gets documented matters as much as how badly you were hurt.

What a lawsuit can, and can't, put back

Beyond pain and suffering, a third-party claim can recover the economic losses that outrun your no-fault benefits: work loss above the monthly PIP cap for the first three years and beyond, excess medical costs if you carried a limited PIP level, and out-of-pocket expenses your insurer won't cover.

What Michigan won't give you is a windfall meant to punish the other driver. The state doesn't recognize true punitive damages in ordinary civil suits. It allows only compensatory "exemplary" damages, which are still measured by the harm to you rather than by any intent to punish the defendant, a distinction the Michigan Supreme Court drew in Kewin v. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co.⁷ Even in a case with egregious conduct, the number is tied to your injury, not the wrongdoer's wallet.

Who you're suing, and the limits behind them

The money in a liability claim usually comes from the at-fault driver's bodily injury coverage. Since July 1, 2020, Michigan's default limits under MCL 500.3009 are $250,000 per person and $500,000 per accident, with $10,000 for property damage. A driver can opt down to $50,000/$100,000, but only after signing a specific disclosure choosing the lower limits; absent that signed form, the insurer owes the $250,000/$500,000 default.⁸ Those higher default limits matter because they set the realistic ceiling on what a serious-injury claim can collect from a single at-fault policy.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is a different story. Michigan doesn't require it. DIFS lists UM/UIM as coverage a consumer may add, not coverage the law mandates, so whether you have a cushion when the other driver is uninsured or underinsured depends on choices you made when you bought your own policy.

Evidence that decides Michigan cases

Proving fault often comes down to documentation, and a few Michigan-specific sources do heavy lifting. The official crash report is written by the responding officer on the UD-10 form and sold through the Michigan State Police Traffic Crash Purchasing System for $15 per copy.⁹ It captures the officer's diagram, citations, and preliminary fault findings. If you want yours, the Michigan crash report page walks through how to pull it.

Distracted driving is now easier to pin down, too. Michigan's hands-free law, MCL 257.602b as rewritten by 2023 PA 33 and effective June 30, 2023, bars a driver from holding or supporting a phone in the hand, arm, or shoulder, even while stopped at a light. It's a primary offense, meaning an officer can stop and ticket a driver for that alone.¹⁰ A citation under this statute is useful evidence of negligence when the other driver was on the phone.

When alcohol is involved, Michigan's dram shop act adds another possible defendant. Under MCL 436.1801, a crash victim can sue a bar or retailer that served a visibly intoxicated person or a minor whose drinking caused the injury. The rules are unforgiving: you must send written notice to the establishment within 120 days of retaining a lawyer, and the suit itself has a two-year deadline.¹¹ Miss either and the dram shop claim is extinguished.

Your car and your next step

A lawsuit is about your injuries, but your vehicle is its own claim. Even a well-repaired car is worth less on paper after a documented wreck, and Michigan drivers can pursue that gap; the Michigan diminished value page covers how that works. If your injuries clear the serious-impairment threshold, or you're not sure whether they do, that judgment call is where an experienced attorney earns their fee. You can start with the legal directory to find one who handles Michigan no-fault cases.

The deadlines are the part you can't undo. Three years to sue the driver, one year to notify your own insurer, 120 days for a dram shop notice. Calendar them the week you're able to.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Michigan Legislature, MCL 600.5805 (period of limitations, injuries to persons or property). https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-600-5805

2. Michigan Legislature, MCL 500.3145 (PIP notice and one-year-back rule). https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=MCL-500-3145

3. Michigan Legislature, MCL 500.3107c (PIP coverage level selection). https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-500-3107c

4. Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services, Bulletin 2025-18-INS (annual adjustment of the maximum work loss and survivors' loss benefit, effective Oct. 1, 2025). https://www.michigan.gov/difs/-/media/Project/Websites/difs/Bulletins/2025/Bulletin_2025-18-INS.pdf

5. Michigan Legislature, MCL 500.3135 (tort liability; serious impairment of body function threshold). https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-500-3135

6. Michigan Legislature, MCL 600.2959 (comparative fault; damages reduced or barred). https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-600-2959

7. Kewin v. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., 409 Mich. 401 (1980) (exemplary damages are compensatory, not punitive). https://law.justia.com/cases/michigan/supreme-court/1980/60756-3.html

8. Michigan Legislature, MCL 500.3009 (residual liability insurance limits). https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-500-3009

9. Michigan State Police, Traffic Crash Reporting Unit (UD-10 crash reports via TCPS, $15 per report). https://www.michigan.gov/msp/divisions/cjic/traffic-crash-reporting-unit

10. Michigan Legislature, MCL 257.602b (hands-free law, 2023 PA 33). https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-257-602b

11. Michigan Legislature, MCL 436.1801 (dram shop liability; 120-day notice and 2-year deadline). https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-436-1801