Michigan No-Fault Law, section by section › MCL 500.3123
Exclusions from property protection insurance benefits.
In plain terms
PPI excludes damage to vehicles and their contents unless the vehicle was properly parked, damage to property owned by the policyholder's household when their vehicle was involved, damage from out-of-state accidents, and damage to utility lines caused by a failure to comply with MCL 247.186.
How this section works in practice
Four categories of property damage fall outside property protection insurance. Vehicles and their contents are excluded unless the vehicle was parked in a way that did not create an unreasonable risk of the damage, which is how a legally parked car struck by a moving vehicle can recover under PPI while a car in traffic cannot. Property owned by the policyholder's own household is excluded when a household member's vehicle was involved in the crash, so a driver who hits his own garage claims under his homeowner's or collision coverage, not PPI. Damage from accidents outside Michigan is excluded entirely. And damage to overhead utility lines is excluded when the line's owner failed to comply with the clearance requirements of MCL 247.186.
These exclusions match the design of the act: PPI is meant to compensate third parties for the physical damage a vehicle does, with everything else routed to collision coverage, the mini tort or an ordinary property insurance claim.
Text of MCL 500.3123
Sec. 3123.
(1) Damage to the following kinds of property is excluded from property protection insurance benefits:
(a) Vehicles and their contents, including trailers, operated or designed for operation upon a public highway by power other than muscular power, unless the vehicle is parked in a manner as not to cause unreasonable risk of the damage which occurred.
(b) Property owned by a person named in a property protection insurance policy, the person's spouse or a relative of either domiciled in the same household, if the person named, the person's spouse, or the relative was the owner, registrant, or operator of a vehicle involved in the motor vehicle accident out of which the property damage arose.
(2) Property protection insurance benefits are not payable for property damage arising from motor vehicle accidents occurring outside the state.
(3) Property protection insurance benefits are not payable for property damage to utility transmission lines, wires, or cables arising from the failure of a municipality, utility company, or cable television company to comply with the requirements of section 16 of Act No. 368 of the Public Acts of 1925, being section 247.186 of the Michigan Compiled Laws.
History: Add. 1972, Act 294, Eff. Mar. 30, 1973 ;-- Am. 1978, Act 65, Imd. Eff. Mar. 14, 1978
Source: MCL 500.3123 at legislature.mi.gov (official text). Text as published in the 2025 Michigan Compiled Laws; reviewed by Koussan Law on September 15, 2026.
Sections that refer to this one
- MCL 500.3121: Property Protection Insurance (PPI)
Practice pages
Important: This is not legal advice
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