Detroit Mayor Duggan files no-fault auto insurance rate lawsuit against Michigan

No-Fault Auto Insurance - Law Books - Lawsuit

The popular local politician is looking to the courts in an attempt to lower skyrocketing premiums.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has sued the state of Michigan over no-fault auto insurance rates. The lawsuit is part of an ongoing strategy to try to reduce the premiums paid by drivers in his city and across the state.

The state has previously tried and failed to overhaul its extremely costly car insurance system.

At the moment, the Michigan no-fault auto insurance system is keeping rates higher for drivers in the state than anywhere else in the country. This has been the case for several consecutive years and the problem doesn’t appear to be going away. Last year, the Michigan Legislature attempted to overhaul the car insurance system, but it failed to come up with a solution that would generate adequate backing.

Duggan, who has been pushing for cheaper insurance rates for years, has now joined eight other drivers from across the state as plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state. The suit was filed last week in the a U.S. District Court in Detroit. The suit is seeking to declare the state’s no-fault car insurance law unconstitutional.

The lawsuit has the potential to declare the no-fault auto insurance system as unconstitutional.

The current no-fault insurance law has been in place since 1973. Since that time, it has been driving rates ever higher for motorists in the state. The lawsuit says that the law failed to produce “fair and equitable” car insurance rates in the state.

The suit is also seeking to provide Michigan with six months to come up with amendments to the current system that would reduce auto insurance rates. Furthermore, if the state is unable to meet that target – as it has been unable to do until this point – Duggan is seeking to have the current no-fault system declared “null and void.”

Should that happen, it would be replaced by the state’s previous auto insurance system, which was tort-based. This would mean that Michigan would operate on an auto insurance system closer to those of Indiana, Ohio, and thirty six No-Fault Auto Insurance - Law Books - Lawsuitother states where car insurance is considerably less expensive, said a Detroit Free Press report.

The Democratic Detroit mayor believes a tort system would half the rates currently in place under the no-fault auto insurance system.

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