OAI: News of Fee Increase Highlights Peculiarities of Mich. Auto Insurance Market

    RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA, March 29, 2011 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Last week, the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Associations (MCCA) announced it would be instituting a slight fee increase that will be passed on to policyholders in the state.

Car insurance providers currently are required to pay the MCCA $143.09 per insured vehicle, which gets incorporated into the premiums of even the cheapest auto insurance companies in the state. That amount will be raised 1.3 percent starting in July. The fee revenue goes into an MCCA-administered fund that exists as a result of the unorthodox structure of Michigan's no-fault system.

Unlike the personal injury protection (PIP) coverage offered in the 11 other no-fault states, there is no upper limit at which a Michigan PIP policy will stop covering a policyholder's medical bills resulting from an accident. According to a report from the state's consumer advocate, the state's PIP "provides health care coverage for life, and up to $4,589 a month for lost wages, for a maximum of three years."

Source: http://1.usa.gov/hFwj5f

Because insurers are required to cover so much, hundreds of claims get filed every year that each costs upwards of $400,000. In 1978, the MCCA was established to help coverage providers shoulder this burden. It does this by reimbursing insurers for claims payments that individually exceed the $480,000 level (although this will be changed to $500,000 in July).

For 2010-2011, the MCCA forecast that there will be 1,200 catastrophic accidents. For 2011-2012, it is forecasting 850.

Pete Kuhnmuench, the executive director of the Insurance Institute of Michigan, told Online Auto Insurance News the fact that the fee size remains relatively stable while the number of expected claims is declining reflects an anticipated rise in the cost of claims.

To learn more about getting the lowest rates in any state, readers can go to http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com/cheap/companies/ where visitors will find informative resource pages as well as a free-to-use quote-comparison generator that can assist consumers in finding the best price for a policy.

Website: http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com/

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