Titan Insurance Company v. American Country Insurance
Titan Insurance Company v. American Country Insurance
Opinion of the Court
reported below: 312 Mich App 291.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent from this Court’s order denying leave to appeal. I would instead grant leave to appeal to address whether the Legislature, when it enacted the no-fault act, MCL 500.3101 et seq., intended to undermine in these circumstances a fundamental principle of insurance law that “[i]t is impossible to hold an insurance company liable for a risk it did not assume.” Auto-Owners Ins Co v Churchman, 440 Mich 560, 567 (1992).
In each of these consolidated cases, a company owned several vehicles and was in the business of transporting passengers. In each case, an individual who lacked no-fault insurance was injured in an accident while occupying one of the vehicles. Although the companies had failed to insure the vehicles involved in the accidents, American Country Insurance Company insured one or more other vehicles in each company’s fleet. The Court of Appeals ruled in both cases that American Country was liable to pay no-fault benefits despite not having contracted to insure the vehicles involved in the accidents, concluding that under MCL 500.3114(4)(a), “because American Country insured other vehicles owned by [the companies], it is responsible for the claims in these cases.” Titan Ins Co v American Country Ins Co, 312 Mich App 291, 302 (2015) (emphasis added).
MCL 500.3114(4) provides, in relevant part, that
[e]xeept as provided in subsections (1) to (3), a person suffering accidental bodily injury arising from a motor vehicle accident while an occupant of a motor vehicle shall claim personal protection insurance benefits from insurers in the following order of priority:
(a) The insurer of the owner or registrant of the vehicle occupied.
In my judgment, the Court of Appeals almost certainly erred by concluding that American Country was the “insurer of the owner or registrant” merely because it insured another vehicle owned by each of the companies. It is quite likely that the companies had additional insurers for concerns such as fire, theft, flood, healthcare, and workers’ compensation, and the Court of Appeals’ interpretation fails to address the threshold question of which of each company’s insurers, if any, constitutes the true “insurer of the owner or registrant” for purposes of MCL 500.3114(4)(a).
MCL 500.3113(b)
Furthermore, insurance entails “a contract between two parties, in which one party (the insurer) agrees to assume the risk of another party (the insured) in exchange for consideration, with the insurer distributing the accepted risk across a group of persons similarly situated with respect to the risk insured.” Auto Club Group Ins Co v Marzonie, 447 Mich 624, 646 (1994) (Griffin, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (emphasis added).
Put simply, I discern little basis for imposing responsibility on American Country to pay no-fault benefits when American Country, as with every other insurer of the business, had no contractual responsibility—and received no premiums—with respect to the specific vehicles involved in the accidents. Neither the no-fault act nor principles of insurance or contract law suggest such a result. Yet as a consequence of the Court of Appeals’ published opinion, insurers like American Country will now be responsible for risks extending far beyond what they may have assumed when agreeing to provide insurance. Such a consequence, in my estimation, will likely compel insurers to disproportionally increase premiums on individuals and
MCL 500.3113 provides that
[a] person is not entitled to be paid personal protection insurance benefits for accidental bodily injury if at the time of the accident any of the following circumstances existed:
* * *
(b) The person was the owner or registrant of a motor vehicle or motorcycle involved in the accident with respect to which the security required by [MCL 500.3101 or MCL 500.3103] was not in effect.
MCL 500.3173 provides that “[a] person who because of a limitation or exclusion in [MCL 500.3105 to MCL 500.3116] is disqualified from receiving personal protection insurance benefits under a policy otherwise applying to his accidental bodily injury is also disqualified from receiving benefits under the assigned claims plan.”
MCL 500.3101(1) provides, in relevant part, that “[t]he owner or registrant of a motor vehicle required to be registered in this state shall maintain security for payment of benefits under personal protection insurance, property protection insurance, and residual liability insurance.”
MCL 500.3102(1) provides that
[a] nonresident owner or registrant of a motor vehicle or motorcycle not registered in this state shall not operate or permit the motor vehicle or motorcycle to be operated in this state for an aggregate of more than 30 days in any calendar year unless he or she continuously maintains security for the payment of benefits pursuant to this chapter.
The Court later adopted the analysis of Justice Griffin’s Marzonie plurality opinion in Frankenmuth Mut Ins Co v Masters, 460 Mich 105, 115 (1999).
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.