Answers · Michigan crash law
My Insurance Company Rescinded My Policy After the Crash. Can I Still Sue the Driver Who Hit Me?
Yes. Under a 2023 Michigan Supreme Court decision, your own insurer voiding your policy after the collision does not make you an uninsured driver on the day it happened, and it does not take away your claim against the at-fault driver.
This situation is more common than people realize. You are injured in a collision someone else caused. You file a claim with your own insurance company for medical benefits and lost wages. Instead of paying, the company investigates the application you filled out months or years earlier, decides something on it was wrong, and rescinds the policy, treating it as though it never existed.
Then the at-fault driver’s insurance company sends its own letter. Their position: because your policy was rescinded, you were an uninsured driver at the time of the collision, so Michigan law bars your claim against their insured.
That argument fails. The Michigan Supreme Court rejected it.
Rescission and cancellation are not the same thing
These get confused constantly, and the difference matters.
Cancellation ends a policy going forward. Michigan requires the insurer to mail at least 10 days’ written notice under MCL 500.3020(1)(b), and coverage ends on the date stated in a proper notice.
Rescission is a court-ordered remedy that treats the policy as void from the beginning, usually because the insurer claims the application contained a material misrepresentation: an undisclosed household driver, an address the vehicle was not actually garaged at, an unlisted claim history.
Rescission is the more aggressive move, and it is the one insurers use when they want to erase coverage retroactively after a claim comes in.
What the Supreme Court decided in Wilmore-Moody
In Wilmore-Moody v Zakir, 511 Mich 76 (2023), the plaintiff was injured in a collision. Her own insurer rescinded her policy after the accident based on misrepresentations in her application. The at-fault driver then argued that the rescission meant she had no insurance “at the time the injury occurred” under MCL 500.3135(2)(c), and that her claim against him was therefore barred.
The Michigan Supreme Court disagreed.
The Court held that the plaintiff did have the required insurance at the time the injury occurred, even though the policy was rescinded afterward. The Court reasoned that the at-fault driver was not a party to the insurance contract between the plaintiff and her insurer, and could not claim the benefit of contractual defenses belonging to someone else.
The Court’s own description of rescission is the clearest statement of the principle: it is a legal fiction available as a contractual remedy, but it does not alter reality or work as a time machine. Rescission does not create an alternate version of events in which the at-fault driver never caused the collision.
As the decision frames it, the insurer that rescinds is the only party that benefits from that legal fiction. The negligent driver does not get to borrow it.
What this means in practice
If your own policy was rescinded after your collision:
Your third-party claim against the at-fault driver survives. You are not treated as an uninsured driver for purposes of the MCL 500.3135(2)(c) bar. You may pursue noneconomic damages (pain, suffering, loss of the life you had before) assuming you meet Michigan’s injury threshold, along with excess economic losses.
If a court ever does uphold a rescission and you are treated as uninsured for other purposes, there is a separate question about what an uninsured plaintiff may still recover in Michigan, and the answer is more than most people are told.
Your first-party benefits are a separate fight. A valid rescission can end your claim for no-fault medical and wage benefits from your own carrier. That is a different battle, and losing it does not affect your case against the driver who hit you. The two claims stand independently.
Rescission is not something an insurer simply announces. It is an equitable remedy ordered by a court, not a decision a company makes unilaterally. Where innocent parties are involved, courts must balance the equities before allowing it. An insurer’s letter declaring a policy rescinded is a position, not a ruling.
Whether the rescission was proper is itself contestable. Insurers do not always have the evidence to support the misrepresentation they allege. The claimed error is sometimes trivial, sometimes not actually false, and sometimes something the insurer knew about and accepted premiums on for years.
The letter is not the last word
The pattern worth recognizing: a rescission letter arrives, and the injured person concludes the case is over.
It is not. The at-fault driver still caused the collision. That driver still carries liability insurance. And under Wilmore-Moody, the rescission of your policy does not hand that driver a defense.
If an adjuster or a defense attorney has told you your claim is barred because your policy was rescinded, they are stating a position that Michigan’s highest court has already addressed. That does not mean every such case is easy. It means the conclusion should not be accepted at face value.
And if a rescission is upheld and no coverage remains anywhere on the other side, there are still several places compensation can come from.
Michigan also has firm filing deadlines, including a one-year notice period for no-fault benefits under MCL 500.3145 and a separate limitations period for the claim against the at-fault driver. Time spent assuming a case is gone is time that cannot be recovered.
Talk to someone about your case
I am a Michigan and Ohio trial attorney handling auto negligence and no-fault cases, including claims where an insurer has rescinded coverage. If your policy was rescinded after a collision and you have been told you no longer have a case, it costs nothing to have that reviewed.
This article discusses Michigan law as of July 2026 and is general information, not legal advice. It does not create an attorney-client relationship. Rescission cases turn on the specific facts of the insurance application and the record in each case, and outcomes vary. Results in past cases do not guarantee a particular outcome in any other case. Attorney advertising. Gary Safir is a trial lawyer at Morgan & Morgan’s Detroit office.