Steve Gursten, an insurance lawyer and head of Michigan Auto Law, was interviewed by Michigan Lawyers Weekly on a new Senate Bill that would cap Michigan No-Fault benefits at $50,000 and eliminate the Michigan Catastrophic Claims fund.
Gursten told Lawyers Weekly that SB 251, proposed by Sen. Virgil Smith of Detroit, would devastate auto accident victims and leave them lacking critical and quality medical care.
If there was proof that SB 251 would lower insurance, then the debate would be valid, but this legislation offers no guarantee of savings, he said:
“So we have to depend on the insurance companies to, on their own, decide to dramatically lower insurance premiums, and after [2004’s Kreiner v. Fischer decision on serious impairment] and third-party cases got slashed, the exact opposite happened. The payouts were reduced, case filings were reduced, and insurance rates still went up every year.”
Here’s the full Michigan Lawyers Weekly article: Attorneys don’t think shift in no-fault assures savings
