Auto Insurance Company Forced to Pay for Home Renovations

Many people in the State of Michigan do not realize that their automobile No Fault benefits include home modifications made necessary by their auto accident injuries.  Attorney, Jeff Cook, of the Automobile No Fault litigation firm, Erlich, Rosen, Bartnick & Cook recently settled a home modification claim on behalf of one of his injured clients eleven years after her car crash.

Automobile No Fault benefits extend to any insured driver involved in  an automobile accident in Michigan regardless of fault.  In this case it was a one car accident where a rutted and partially water covered gravel roadway caused the Plaintiff to lose control and strike a road side tree. This one car accident caused her severe injuries which continue to plague her to this day.  As she has grown older her injuries have caused her extreme difficulties in performing daily tasks, especially stair climbing in her old three level farm house.

Plaintiff’s doctor performed a functional capacity test and determined that she was no longer physically capable of carrying anything up and down stairs as a result of her ongoing injuries from her car accident eleven years earlier. This posed a significant problem as her laundry room was located in the basement requiring the traversing of steep stairs up and down from the first floor. Her doctor therefore ordered that she needed home modifications to move the laundry room to the first floor.

Under Michigan law an injured car accident victim is entitled to No Fault benefits for their entire lifetime so long as the benefits claimed are reasonable and necessary and related to injuries sustained in the car accident. This includes any home modifications found to be necessary by a physician and includes making homes wheelchair accessible throughout the home, bathroom modifications for wheelchair accessible showers and baths, installing transfer lifts in bedrooms, and in this case moving the laundry room to an accessible floor.

Plaintiff’s No Fault Auto insurance carrier at first refused to pay for the modifications but after brief resistance did eventually pay over $30,000 for the modifications which included constructing a laundry room out of a first floor bedroom, installing new plumbing and electrical for the laundry room, and adding a new septic tank and field necessitated by the modification.

The resolution of this claim was only through the date of the settlement agreement and does not include any waiver of future claims. Michigan No Fault benefits are lifetime in duration and in many cases an injury from an accident will degenerate over time which can require continuing home modifications to cope with any ongoing and worsening physical limitations related to the original car accident.