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The no-fault gap that catches riders, and where benefits actually come from.
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 Traffic Crash Facts, 2024 fact sheets.
Each phase protects the one after it. Get medical care fast, open the claim on time, build the record, then settle from strength.
Medical care first, the same day. Report to police if it was not reported at the scene. Say nothing recorded to the driver's insurer.
Photograph the bike, your gear, the intersection, and your injuries. Keep the helmet and gear unwashed and unrepaired. Get witness names before they scatter.
A motorcycle is not a "motor vehicle" under Michigan no-fault. When a car or truck is involved in your crash, PIP benefits flow from the involved vehicle's insurer, in a priority order set by statute. No car involved usually means no PIP, which is why the crash facts matter so much.
The most common serious motorcycle crash in Michigan: a driver turns left across your lane. Liability usually favors the rider, and insurers still argue speed and visibility. Physical evidence, witnesses, and reconstruction counter the bias.
PIP from the involved vehicle's insurer pays medical care and wage loss. The driver's liability coverage pays pain and suffering when your injuries cross Michigan's threshold, and rider injuries usually do. The totaled bike is its own property claim, handled alongside the injury.
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.
No. A motorcycle is not a "motor vehicle" under Michigan no-fault, so your bike policy alone does not carry PIP benefits. When a car or truck is involved in your crash, PIP flows from the involved vehicle's insurer in a priority order set by statute.
No car involved usually means no PIP, which is why the crash facts matter so much. The facts of your crash decide what applies, and that is exactly what a free first look confirms.
The most common serious motorcycle crash in Michigan is a driver turning left across your lane. Liability usually favors the rider, and insurers still argue speed and visibility. Physical evidence, witnesses, and reconstruction counter the bias.
Michigan does not count a motorcycle as a motor vehicle under the no-fault act, and courts keep testing what that means when a rider goes down. Seven decisions, newest first, on who pays, what counts as a car being involved, and when a rider can sue the driver. We update this section when a new ruling lands.
July 28, 2026
Michigan does not count a motorcycle as a motor vehicle under the no-fault act. That one line drives most rider claims. The most recent ruling here is from 2013, when the Court of Appeals tightened what counts as a car being involved in a crash where nothing touched the rider. Here is that decision and the six behind it, newest first.
Michigan Court of Appeals, decided July 23, 2013, 302 Mich App 392; 838 NW2d 910
A rider came down a dark, deserted side street at better than 100 miles an hour. Headlights appeared ahead of him. He grabbed the brakes, the bike fishtailed, and he dropped it on its side and hit the sidewalk. The car never touched him. The hospital that treated his injuries sued the motorcycle owner's insurer for personal protection benefits, won at trial, and lost on appeal.
The court confirmed that physical contact is not required. Then it drew the line that matters. A motor vehicle has to actively contribute to the crash, not simply be present. The rider's own perception of danger does not carry the claim. There has to be an actual, objective need to take evasive action. On these facts the court called the connection between the car and the injuries incidental, and it reversed the judgment.
If you went down avoiding a car that never hit you, this is the decision the insurer will reach for. It does not automatically end a claim. The court looked for proof of what the other vehicle actually did. Witnesses, video, the position of that car, and the marks on the road are what answer that question.
Michigan Supreme Court, decided July 31, 2010, 487 Mich 180; 795 NW2d 517
Personal protection benefits pay medical bills and wage loss no matter who caused the crash. Suing the at-fault driver for pain and suffering is a separate fight, and Michigan makes you clear a threshold first. The injury has to be a serious impairment of body function.
For six years, Kreiner v Fischer set that bar high and read requirements into the statute that the Legislature never put there. In McCormick the Supreme Court took the statute apart word by word, held that Kreiner was wrongly decided because it departed from the plain language of MCL 500.3135, and overruled it.
Riders feel this one. Motorcycle injuries run orthopedic and they run long. Under the old rule an insurer could argue that a rider who dragged himself back to work had no real case. McCormick is the test Michigan courts still apply to a third-party claim.
Michigan Supreme Court, 1995, 448 Mich 22; 528 NW2d 681
A motorcyclist does not collect no-fault benefits from just anyone. MCL 500.3114(5) sets an order of priority, and that whole ladder only opens when the accident shows evidence of the involvement of a motor vehicle. Turner is the case that defined what involvement means.
The court held that a vehicle must actively, as opposed to passively, contribute to the accident, and that it needs more than a random association with the accident scene. The court also held that fault is not part of that question. A car can be involved even when its driver did nothing wrong.
Turner drew one more line that helps riders. The involvement standard in the priority statute reaches further than the arising out of standard used for general no-fault liability. A vehicle can be involved in the accident even where the injury did not arise out of the use of that particular vehicle.
Michigan Court of Appeals, decided November 8, 1988, 172 Mich App 783; 432 NW2d 439
A car made a sudden and unexpected stop. That stop set off a chain reaction of emergency braking behind it. Two motorcyclists trying to avoid the stopped car collided with each other. Neither one ever touched it.
The court found the motor vehicle involved in the accident anyway. The sudden stop was activity, and that activity ran straight through to the collision.
Read this next to Detroit Medical Center and the pattern gets clear. The question is never whether metal touched metal. The question is whether the car did something that made the crash happen.
Michigan Court of Appeals, 1986, 151 Mich App 747; 391 NW2d 473
Here is the sentence that surprises almost every rider. Motorcycles are excluded from the definition of motor vehicles under the no-fault act. Michigan courts say it plainly, and Sanford is one of the decisions they cite for it.
That exclusion is not a technicality. It explains why a motorcycle policy does not carry the personal protection coverage a car policy carries. It explains why an injured rider looks to someone else's auto insurer for benefits. And it explains why a crash involving a bike and nothing else can leave a rider standing outside the no-fault system looking in.
Michigan Court of Appeals, 1982, 113 Mich App 131; 317 NW2d 318
A car veered over the center line and forced a motorcyclist off the road. There was no impact between them. The court held the motor vehicle was involved in the accident.
Bromley also gave later courts a phrase they still use. Injuries have to be more than tangentially related to the use of an automobile. That standard limits as much as it protects. A car that crosses into a rider's lane is involved. A car sitting quietly down the block is not.
Michigan Supreme Court, 1979, 407 Mich 175; 284 NW2d 463
Underhill is the background the newer rulings sit on. Insurers argued that because the Legislature left motorcycles out of the definition of motor vehicle, riders sat outside the system entirely.
The Supreme Court rejected that reading. A motorcyclist is not among those whom the Legislature has excluded from benefits. A motorcyclist injured in an accident that arises out of the ownership, operation, maintenance, or use of a motor vehicle is entitled to no-fault benefits.
The later cases on this page build on that holding. Amendments to the statute changed parts of the picture since, and courts have said so. A motorcycle is not a motor vehicle under the act. A rider is still inside the system when a motor vehicle is involved.
Three questions decide most motorcycle claims in this state. Was a motor vehicle involved, and what did it actually do. Which insurer sits first in line under the priority statute. And does the injury clear the threshold for a claim against the at-fault driver.
Those answers live in your police report, your policy, and the other driver's coverage. Nobody can give them to you from a web page. Call 844-ASK-AZZO (844-275-2996) and ask. Our intake team takes your information, gathers the basics of the crash, and routes your question to the right person at the firm. There is no pressure to do anything after that.
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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