The 1-year deadline for PIP no-fault benefits
Michigan's no-fault system applies to almost every crash on a Michigan road, including collisions with commercial trucks. Under MCL 500.3145(1), a person seeking Personal Injury Protection benefits — medical care, wage loss, replacement services, and attendant care — must give written notice of injury to the no-fault insurer within 1 year of the crash. Notice must include the name and address of the injured person and the time, place, and nature of the injury.
Separately, if the insurer refuses to pay a specific PIP benefit, a lawsuit for that benefit must be filed within 1 year after that specific loss was incurred. Every month of unpaid bills has its own private clock.
The one-year-back rule
Even when a PIP claim is filed on time, MCL 500.3145(2) caps recovery at losses incurred in the 1 year immediately before the lawsuit is filed. In serious truck-crash cases where treatment lasts years, this rule quietly eats hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits if the case is not filed promptly.
The 3-year deadline to sue the trucking company
To recover pain and suffering, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life, and excess wage loss and medical costs above the no-fault cap, you must sue the driver, the motor carrier, and any other at-fault party directly. Under MCL 600.5805(2), that lawsuit must be filed within 3 years of the date of the crash.
Third-party truck cases are governed by Michigan's serious impairment of body function threshold under MCL 500.3135. The 3-year clock runs whether or not your injuries have finished healing. It does not stop while trucking-company adjusters negotiate, while doctors evaluate, or while you wait to see how bad things really are.
The unofficial "evidence clock" — days, not years
Truck cases have a preservation deadline that is nowhere in a statute, but is every bit as fatal to a claim if missed:
- Event data recorder ("black box"). Engine control modules typically overwrite key crash data on a rolling window unless downloaded and preserved.
- Electronic logging device (ELD) records. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (49 C.F.R. § 395.22) require carriers to keep ELD hours-of-service records for only 6 months.
- Dashcam and traffic-camera footage. In-cab dashcams often overwrite in 7–30 days. Intersection cameras can be gone in as little as 72 hours.
- Driver qualification files and drug/alcohol tests. Post-crash tests must be administered within 32 hours under 49 C.F.R. § 382.303. If a lawyer isn't already in the case, they can quietly disappear.
A truck accident lawyer sends a spoliation-preservation letter to the motor carrier, its insurer, and any relevant third parties within hours of being retained. That letter is the only thing standing between your case and a trucking company's routine document-destruction schedule.
Special situations
Not every Michigan truck crash runs on the standard 1-year / 3-year timeline:
Minors and legally incapacitated persons
MCL 600.5851 tolls (pauses) the 3-year bodily injury statute for minors and adults who are legally incapacitated at the time of the crash. The 1-year no-fault deadlines are not tolled the same way — do not assume a minor's PIP claim is safe.
Wrongful death
A Michigan wrongful death case arising from a truck crash must generally be filed within 3 years of the death under MCL 600.5852 and the Wrongful Death Act. PIP survivor's loss benefits for a spouse or dependents still run on the 1-year no-fault schedule.
Michigan Assigned Claims Plan
If no PIP policy applies — as often happens with pedestrians hit by a commercial truck — you must apply to the Michigan Assigned Claims Plan within 1 year of the crash under MCL 500.3172. There are no extensions.
Government-owned or municipal trucks
A crash caused by a city, county, or state-owned truck — including DPW dump trucks, school buses, and MDOT plows — triggers the Governmental Tort Liability Act's 120-day notice requirement under MCL 691.1404. Miss that notice and the case is over before the 3-year clock ever mattered.
Cargo, hazmat, and out-of-state carriers
Interstate carriers doing business in Michigan are also subject to federal jurisdiction rules and, in hazmat cases, additional federal claim-notification requirements. Michigan's 3-year statute still applies, but the strategic filing decisions get more complicated fast.
Why acting immediately matters
Deadlines aside, waiting to open a truck-crash case costs you money in ways the statute never mentions:
- Trucking-company "rapid response" teams beat you to the scene. Major carriers dispatch investigators and defense counsel within hours to build the defense case before you even leave the hospital.
- The one-year-back rule keeps eating your PIP. In truck cases with catastrophic injuries, every month of attendant-care and wage loss you can't recover is often five figures.
- Insurance adjusters use delay against you. Any gap between the crash and treatment is turned into "the injury must not be from the crash."
- You lose settlement leverage. Trucking insurers know a case near its statute deadline has fewer options — and they price offers accordingly.
Not sure if your truck accident deadline has passed?
Call Jay Trucks & Associates. We'll pull the crash date, the priority no-fault policy, and the trucking company's insurance layers, and tell you exactly which clocks are still running — free of charge and with zero obligation.