Two separate actions, consolidated on appeal, present a common issue of interspousal immunity from actions in tort. Plain*367tiff and defendant in each case are wife and husband, respectively, the wife claiming damages for personal injuries resulting from the husband’s negligence in driving an automobile in which she was a passenger.1 Summary judgment was entered against each plaintiff because of the existing rule of interpousal immunity.2 Plaintiffs have appealed from these judgments.

Interspousal immunity is the last vestige of the judicially established rule of intrafamily immunity in actions for tort. Balts v. Balts, 273 Minn. 419, 142 N. W. (2d) 66, decided April 1,1966, abrogated the immunity of an unemancipated child from an action by his parent for personal injuries resulting from the child’s negligence in driving an automobile. The comprehensive opinion of Mr. Justice Otis, writing for the majority (273 Minn. 433, 142 N. W. [2d] 75), disavowed “intimating the abrogation of tort immunity in actions by a child against a parent or between husband and wife” and acknowledged that “ [t] hese are relationships which may well involve different and distinguishable policy considerations.”3 Nevertheless, Silesky v. Kelman, *368281 Minn. 431, 161 N. W. (2d) 631, decided September 27, 1968, likewise abrogated parental immunity in an action by an un-emancipated child for personal injuries resulting from his mother’s negligent operation of the family automobile because, as a majority of this court said (281 Minn. 438, 161 N. W. [2d] 635), “no shadow of difference in principle or policy has been shown to exist between the two situations.”

Interspousal immunity temporarily withstood change in two post-Balts cases. In Silesky v. Kelman, supra, this court refrained from deciding the right of action of the injured child’s father against the child’s negligent mother for special damages incurred because, as to that issue (281 Minn. 443,161 N. W. [2d] 638), there was no “full presentation in an adversary setting between litigants.” In Hovanetz v. Anderson, 276 Minn. 543, 148 N. W. (2d) 564, decided per curiam on February 10, 1967 — post-Balts but pre-Silesky — this court, in deference to legislative determination of the significant considerations of public policy, had declined to abrogate the immunity, but expressly reserved the issue for future consideration (276 Minn. 544, 148 N. W. [2d] 566):

“Without foreclosing a reexamination of the rule when an appropriate case compels us to do so, we believe the proper course is to suggest, as we have repeatedly implied, that the legislature consider the need and propriety of any change of the rule.”4

*369The legislature, although made aware of the problem through its own procedures for that purpose,5 did not consider this problem of family immunity in either a direct or comprehensive way.6 It acted rather indirectly by the enactment of two statutes regulating the issuance of automobile liability insurance policies. L. 1969, c. 474, adopting a bill introduced in the Senate, prohibited the writing of household-exclusion clauses in such policies.7 L. 1969, c. 713, a subsequent adoption of a Houser-intro-duced bill, authorized the inclusion of supplemental accident indemnity coverage for members of the insured’s household in automobile liability policies, subject, however, to the approval of the insured.8 Recovery under c. 474 has no monetary limit but *370is conditioned upon a finding of fault; conversely, c. 713 provides a minimum monetary limit and recovery is not conditioned on fault.

The failure of the legislature more completely to respond to the Hovanetz invitation, we think, does not so much indicate the legislature’s indifference to the issue as it does its preference *371that this court should itself resolve the issue. The legislature seemingly did evince interest in providing families with insured protection against the financial loss of death or injury to family passengers in the family automobile, a common loss-producing situation. The two enactments represent no more than a legislative hedge, however, against the only two alternatives of judicial action: If this court were to abrogate all family immunities in automobile cases, the automobile liability policy would be the means of providing such financial protection, or, if we were instead to retain any of the family immunities, the optional supplemental accidental coverages in the automobile liability policy would provide the protection. The legislature did not clearly resolve the basic question implicit in this insurance approach to automobile situations: Whether a social policy of protecting family members from loss is served best by the protection of liability insurance predicated upon proof of fault rather than by other forms of insurance payable without proof of fault. No consideration whatever was manifested, moreover, with respect to the full scope of intentional or unintentional torts that occur within a family relationship.

The conflicting social considerations in resolving the issue of intrafamily immunities were comprehensively examined in Balts v. Balts, 273 Minn. 419, 142 N. W. (2d) 66, and the decisions of other jurisdictions and the writings of commentators favoring abrogation of the rule were there collated. The favored rationale for abrogating any one of the family immunities, as adopted in Balts, is that the social gain of providing tangible financial protection for those whom an insured wrongdoer ordinarily has the most natural motive to protect transcends the more intangible social loss of impairing the integrity of the family relationship. Our prior decisions did not completely dismiss these latter considerations but discounted them in reliance upon the restraint of litigants and the resourcefulness of the judicial process.

The rationale and result of our most recent decisions as to parent-child immunity has ordained our decision to abrogate inter-*372spousal immunity. Interspousal immunity, it is true, has been more firmly rooted in the common law, both historically and ideologically, based upon the unique unity of a husband and wife within the marriage relationship. These differences do not so distinguish the relationships of husband-wife and parent-child as to warrant a drastically different rule of immunity, but the shared interests of marriage partners at least warrant precautionary conditions.9

Collusion in making spurious claims is an undeniable temptation where a member of the family is insured, and the capacity and inducement for such fraud is undoubtedly greater between husband and wife than between parent and child. The capacity is greater because both are adults. The inducement is greater because an award to one spouse is in effect an increase in the family funds in which both share equally. An award to a wronged spouse upon a genuine claim may actually inure to the benefit of the wrongdoing spouse. A wrongdoing spouse, for the sake of his wronged spouse, may “cooperate” with her and not with the defendant insurer as the insurance policy may contractually require. There is in the situation of domestic accord based on fraud an insidious impairment of future trust between these persons. Where there is no such accord, on the other hand, the twin evil is domestic discord arising from litigation in an actual adversary setting. The integrity of the marriage relationship is endangered under either alternative. A minimum challenge to judicial resourcefulness will be to act promptly and firmly at any appearance of frivolous or fraudulent interspousal claims.

There is an intimate sharing of contact within the marriage *373relationship, both intentional and unintentional, that is uniquely unlike the exposure among strangers. The risks of intentional contact in marriage are such that one spouse should not recover damages from the other without substantial evidence that the injurious contact was plainly excessive or a gross abuse of normal privilege. The risks of negligent conduct are likewise so usual that it would be an unusual case in which the trial court would not instruct the jury as to the injured spouse’s peculiar assumption of risk.

Whether the abrogation of interspousal immunity for tort achieves the right balance of social interests will be tested by experience. The extent to which the right of interspousal action should be more explicitly conditioned, if at all, must likewise await the experience of future litigation.

We hold that the absolute defense of interspousal immunity in actions for tort is abrogated10 prospectively, as to all causes of action arising after this date, and is abrogated as to the instant cases.

Reversed and remanded.

(dissenting).

Litigation by one spouse against another where recovery de*374pends on proof of fault has always been considered contrary to the public policy of the state. In my judgment, the rule forbidding such law suits is based on reasons as sound today as when the prohibition was first announced. The fact that a liability insurance company may be required to pay the bill once fault is proved does not change the situation, in my view.