Michigan Drivers, Your $400 Checks Are Coming

Michigan drivers have typically paid some of the highest auto insurance rates in the nation for years, but they're about to get a little payback. Drivers will soon get $400 for every insured vehicle they own, reports NPR. The money is part of an insurance overhaul in the state, and it will come out of the current $5 billion surplus held by the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association. As Car and Driver explains, the state has required drivers to pay for mandatory unlimited personal injury protection since the 1970s, and the money has built up over the years. In 2020, the state ditched the mandatory requirement for unlimited insurance, and now Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says drivers will get at least a small part of their money back.

"Michiganders have paid into the catastrophic care fund for decades, and I am pleased that the MCCA developed this plan so quickly after unanimously approving my request to return surplus funds to the pockets of Michiganders," says Whitmer, per the Detroit News. The state decided to cut the surplus from $5 billion to about $2 billion and to funnel the excess money back to drivers. It will first go back to insurance companies in March 2022, and they must pass it on to their customers within 60 days. (More Michigan stories.)