Motorcyclists in Grand Rapids during ArtPrize 2017. (Photo by John Rothwell)
Gerry Spomer, from Rapid River, has been riding motorcycles for around 60 years. Now, he said he hears riders are keeping their bikes in the garage. He said distracted car drivers have been increasingly scary for riders, but since the passage of insurance reform in 2019, motorcyclists have another reason to be apprehensive.
“A motorcyclist is better of if they’re hit by someone who is totally uninsured,” Spomer said.
That’s because, under the new law, a motorcyclist is first covered by the insurance held by a motor vehicle they get in an accident with, not their own insurance. And that personal injury insurance could now be capped as low as $50,000.
A motorcyclist would only get to use their own insurance coverage if they get in an accident with an uninsured motor vehicle, or one not involving another vehicle.
“Our medical benefits are capped by whatever the other driver has purchased for themselves,” Spomer said. “We’re buying benefits that we can’t use.”
Motorcycle riders are alone in this distinction. He said this has Michigan riders apprehensive and “kind of ticked off.”
“Motorcyclists up here, a lot of them are unaware of this,” Spomer said. “I’m sure the anger is going to build.”
Sen. Ed McBroom
The insurance reform was passed as Senate Bill 1 of 2019. Among its nine sponsors was Senator Ed McBroom. When it was introduced, the bill consisted of four pages. After emerging from the Senate Committee on Insurance and Banking about four months later, it grew to 80 pages. McBroom, who was not on the committee, said negotiations with other politicians, hospitals, and even the governor, meant the bill expanded rapidly.
“Many of us would have preferred a very simple, you know, take a hammer to the whole system and give people some choices,” McBroom said. “Maybe even take away the mandatory nature of the program.”
The bill was passed on the same day that it returned to the full Senate, with full Republican support, and most Democrats opposed it.
McBroom said the rush was likely in part due to the legislative session calendar (they were off the following week), and a desire to pass the bill while they had all the votes necessary.
“I wasn’t really privy to a lot of that,” McBroom said. “I was an early supporter, and I monitored the progress and didn’t see the bill progress to a point where I couldn’t support it anymore, and so I voted for it.”
In the House of Representatives, 12 amendments were proposed, and all but two failed. The amendments that failed would have limited the practice of red-lining or use of credit score as an insurance rating factor, expanded price reductions to more coverage than just personal injury, and more. You can read the proposed amendments in the official Senate and House Journals linked here, or the summaries written on MichiganVotes.org.
It was then passed, 94-15, with broad support from both parties.
Representative Kyra Bolden(D-Southfield) was one of the 15 dissenting votes and was also on the House committee that handled the bill.
Rep. Kyra Bolden offering a substitute to change some things in the auto insurance reform bill, including the prioritization of personal injury coverage for motorcycles, on May 9, 2019. (official photo)
Bolden is a licensed attorney, and before she was elected, she worked in the Third Circuit Court in Wayne County. No-fault insurance cases were 80% of the docket, she said.
“I got my hands quite dirty with all of the major issues that occurred within the law as it existed before SB1,” Bolden said.
She said the committee hearings focused on listening to attorneys and insurance companies, but not constituents. The committee was chaired by Rep. Jason Wentworth(R-District 97), who succeeded Rep. Lee Chatfield(R-District 107) as Speaker of the House.
“When it got to the floor, we didn’t get the language, both times, until a couple of hours before we were supposed to vote,” Bolden said. “I think it just deserved a little bit more --in my opinion-- attention to detail.”
She said the abbreviated timeline alone might have been enough for her to vote against the bill. The Speaker of the House, at the time former Rep. Chatfield, controls when votes happen, and on what bills.
When SB1 returned to the Senate for the House amendments to be confirmed, only four Senate Democrats opposed the bill. They were Senators Winnie Brinks(D-District 29), Jeff Irwin(D-District 18), Mallory McMorrow(D-District 13), and Jeremy Moss(D-District 11).
During the passage of the bill, many legislators made statements acknowledging that the bill was imperfect and that insurance reform would need more work. They urged votes in favor of the bill none-the-less because it would deliver much-desired rate relief.
Shortly after SB1 was passed, a multitude of other legislation to amend it was proposed, including bills in both the House and Senate to reverse the order of priority for motorcyclists’ personal injury coverage, so that their own choice of insurance would come into play first. Spomer said they were told the bills would come to a vote during the lame-duck session. It didn’t happen. None of the bills came to a vote.
“I feel betrayed by Senator McBroom, to be honest with you,” Spomer said.
Spomer campaigned for McBroom and other Republicans in 2018 and was trying to work with them on insurance reform concerns, too.
“Leadership kept telling us that they were going to work with us, and ABATE was going to be very instrumental,” Spomer said. “We found out that wasn’t the case.”
Vince Consiglio, President of ABATE (American Bikers Aiming Toward Education) of Michigan, thinks the bill was rushed and the politicians that voted for it didn’t really know the contents and the consequences.
Not only are a motorcyclist’s personal injury caps partially out of their control, but those same caps may also make them ineligible for the Michigan Catastrophic Coverage Fund, even though they’re required to pay into it. ABATE hasn’t been able to get a clear answer from anyone about when they’re eligible.
“There’s no logic to how it’s set up, and SB1 didn’t deal with any of that,” Consiglio said.
He doesn’t think there’s the political impetus to get the law changed again now. He said the lack of choice for motorcyclists was an intentional move to benefit insurance companies.
“Without a doubt, they basically wrote SB1,” Consiglio said.
Sen. Greg Markkanen on the House floor, May 9, 2019. (official photo)
Rep. Greg Markkanen doesn’t think the oversight was intentional.
“I just think, you know, there was just so much going on that things, I don’t want to say fall through the cracks, but it for some reason, just didn’t get covered,” Markkanen said.
ABATE has been looking for a new senator to sponsor the bill that would have fixed the prioritization issue for motorcyclists ever since the last bill expired. The previous sponsor, Sen. Peter Lucido, has left the Senate.
“There’s no movement by any senator to make a change,” Consiglio said. “Nobody likes to admit they’re wrong, and certainly politicians never do.”
McBroom said he thought safeguards around long-term rehabilitative care in the bill could have been improved, and that fee schedule adoption by hospitals could have been accelerated, too. He also would have liked people to have the choice to opt-out of insurance.
“But, you know, in the end, the critical aspects, I felt were doing whatever we could to reduce the cost to drivers,” McBroom said.
He said getting the savings promised hasn’t been simple, although they have been “very real”.
“It has been frustrating,” McBroom said. “I have been laboring, even, the last two months to get it straightened out with my carrier.”
He also said that Michigan still has the best coverage, by far, and that more savings are possible for Michigan ratepayers.
Bolden said her constituents still call her and say nothing has changed in the affordability of their auto insurance.
“I obviously can’t speak for, you know, other communities, overall rate reduction for the entire state of Michigan, but it has not been substantial in my community,” Bolden said.
She said she’s been having conversations with people, including the insurance companies, to get support for a new bill to fix some problems with SB1 of 2019.
“But the preference right now is to have the law go into full effect and see if and when there are problems,” Bolden said. “I think we need to fix things before they become issues because we can see that it’s going to be an issue.”
She said she hoped to introduce another bill to fix SB1 of 2019 before the end of spring. McBroom said he’s open to conversations on the bill, but might not be the best sponsor since he’s not on the committee. Markkanen said he would support a bill “if it came across my desk”.
Consiglio isn’t very optimistic, though.
“[The] insurance lobby has way more money than we do,” he said. “Everything’s in their favor.”