Court refuses Farm Bureau's attempt to enforce one-year limitation on uninsured motorist claims

Janet Kaye Ogg was severely injured in a motor vehicle accident with a driver who carried only minimal insurance.  Ogg was insured with Farm Bureau and had purchased Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage (UM and UIM coverages).  In 2005, the Michigan Insurance Bureau issued an order prohibiting limitations on UM and UIM coverage that are shorter than the three year statute of limitations for suing the at-fault driver.  It allowed existing shorter limitations to remain valid in renewals however, so long as the UM and UIM endorsements were not revised. 

The Court held that Farm Bureau's unreasonably short limitation was unenforceable because in the interim it had revised the UM and UIM endorsements, thereby excluding them from the regulatory exception and requiring them to comply with the three-year limitation period.  Farm Bureau was required to pay the $94,000.00 that had been awarded to Ms. Ogg.