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Michigan lets you collect up to $3,000 from the driver who hit your car. Here is who pays, what counts, and how to file it yourself.
Most people go through this once, without a map. The numbers below are the official count, not our estimate. The rest of this guide is the map.
Source: Michigan no-fault act, MCL 500.3135, and the Michigan courts' small claims guide.
Each phase protects the one after it. Get medical care fast, open the claim on time, build the record, then settle from strength.
Photograph the card, the plate, the driver's license, and both cars from all sides. Get the police report number before you leave. The mini tort claim is paid by the other driver's insurer, so the card is the claim.
Any body shop will write one. The insurer will want the estimates, the photos, and the police report. If your own collision coverage is paying the repair, get the deductible amount in writing from your insurer. That is your mini tort number.
Call the claims line, say it is a Michigan mini tort claim, and ask where to send the paperwork. Send the police report, photos, estimates, your declarations page showing your deductible, and a one-paragraph letter with the amount. Keep a copy of everything.
Insurers pay these claims slowly because nobody pushes. A follow-up letter with the original date and the claim number usually moves it. If the adjuster disputes fault, ask what the dispute is based on and answer it with the report and photos.
Small claims court in the district where the crash happened or where the driver lives. The filing fee is under $100, there are no lawyers, and the judge or magistrate hears it in one sitting. Bring the same packet. Name the driver, not the insurer.
Every injury claim in Michigan runs on clocks that start the day you are hurt. The forms are simple and the deadlines are unforgiving.
Time from the crash to each cutoff. Every case has facts that can shift these, which is exactly what a free first look confirms.
No formula survives contact with a real case, but the drivers are knowable. Economic damages are receipts and math. Pain and suffering is argued, not calculated, and multiplier rules of thumb are internet folklore.
Reported contributing factors, statewide. The other driver's behavior is often the heart of the fault argument.
Source: Michigan State Police 2024 year-end crash data.
A claim against the at-fault driver for damage to your vehicle, capped at $3,000, limited to what your own insurance did not cover. MCL 500.3135(3)(e). It exists because Michigan's no-fault law otherwise sends vehicle damage to your own collision coverage.
Up to $3,000, and only the amount your own insurance did not pay. A $500 deductible is a $500 claim. If you had no collision coverage, the claim is the repair cost up to $3,000. The cap has been $3,000 since July 2, 2020.
The at-fault driver's insurer, through limited property damage coverage that most Michigan policies carry. If the at-fault driver is uninsured or did not buy that coverage, the driver owes it personally.
Yes, as long as the other driver was more than 50 percent at fault. The amount is reduced by your share. If you were more than 50 percent at fault, you collect nothing. MCL 500.3135(4)(a).
No. Vehicle damage from a crash is limited to the mini tort cap. In Diallo v LaRochelle, the Court of Appeals rejected a claim for the full value of a totaled truck and the income lost without it.
Damage to a properly parked vehicle is covered by the at-fault driver's property protection insurance with no $3,000 cap. MCL 500.3123. The car has to have been parked in a way that did not create an unreasonable risk.
The deductible, yes, that is the usual claim. A rental car is not vehicle damage and is not covered by the mini tort.
File in small claims court. Michigan small claims handles cases up to $7,000 with no lawyers. Name the driver, bring the police report, photos, estimates, and your deductible proof.
Three years from the crash. MCL 600.5805. Insurers handle it faster when the claim is sent within the first month, while the report and estimates are current.
The claim is against the other driver's policy, not yours. Michigan's rating law requires surcharges for crashes where you were substantially at fault. MCL 500.2111. A crash that was the other driver's fault is not one of those.
Not for the mini tort by itself. If someone was hurt in the same crash, call a lawyer, because the injury claim runs on different rules and the mini tort is handled alongside it.
Two decisions set the limits: the mini tort is the only route to the at-fault driver for vehicle damage, and fault over 50 percent ends the claim before it starts. Newest first. We update this section if a new ruling changes it.
November 1, 2026
Michigan Court of Appeals, published September 12, 2025, Docket No. 372120
A man crossed US-12 in Detroit on foot to reach his parallel-parked car. As a city bus passed, he opened his driver's door into the traffic lane and the bus struck it. The bus had cameras on several angles, and both sides agreed the video showed the whole event. He sued the city. The city answered with a mini tort counterclaim for the damage to the bus.
The Court of Appeals held the video left nothing for a jury. The man was more at fault than the bus driver, so his injury claim failed under MCL 500.3135(2)(b), the same more-than-50-percent rule the mini tort uses. The trial court should have dismissed it.
Fault is decided on the evidence, and video decides it fast. The other driver can bring a mini tort claim against you, too.
Michigan Court of Appeals, published May 5, 2015, 310 Mich App 411
A driver going north in the southbound lane of US-131, with a blood alcohol level of 0.20 and morphine in his blood, hit a man's truck head on. The truck was a total loss. The man leased trucks for a living and lost that income while the truck was gone. The wrong-way driver's insurer, State Farm, paid the mini tort amount and nothing more.
The man sued for the full value of the truck and the lost income under a different section of the no-fault act. The Court of Appeals held that section does not cover vehicle damage from a crash. The mini tort is the claim, and the cap is the cap.
A drunk driver, a wrong-way crash, and a totaled truck still come out to the mini tort maximum. Everything above it is your own collision coverage.
These decisions describe how courts read the statute in the cases in front of them. They do not tell you how your own claim will come out, because your facts control that. If someone was hurt in the crash, call Azzo Law at 844-ASK-AZZO (844-275-2996).
Lauren Sitto Azzo, lead attorney at Azzo Law, PLLC, is responsible for the content of this page. This section is general information about Michigan court decisions and not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
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