Written by Tanya Terry
In a February 2024 blog post entitled “Is Cure Auto Insurance Good In Michigan?,” which was posted on the Michigan Auto Law website, Michigan Auto Law attorney Steven M. Gursten shared information intended to help consumers make informed decisions about their auto insurance. Much of the information included in the blog is sourced directly from data published on the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services website and from CURE Insurance’s own website.
Months after the blog was published, on November 13, 2024, Attorney Gursten was sued by CURE Auto Insurance.
Gursten recently talked to the Courier, and he explained, in his words, “how this all began.”
“Over the past year or year and a half, I would have lawyers coming into my office and telling me these horror stories about what CURE was doing and had been doing to their clients,” Gursten said. “That got me taking a closer look at CURE.”
According to Gursten, there were two things the attorneys at Michigan Auto Law were noticing.
“Number one, CURE was incredibly aggressive with their use of something called recissions,” said Gursten. “Recissions is a fancy legal term that basically means they were trying to cancel people’s insurance after they made a claim. The adjusters would be really looking aggressively at people’s applications for benefits and trying to find reasons to rescind the policy. So, basically, it would be considered as they never were injured to begin with. In Michigan, what that means is…not only will these people not get the medical care wage loss that they paid for when they purchased insurance. But, it also means, under Michigan Law, that they can’t even bill to negligent driver who hurt them.”
Gursten described another scenario he was noticing with his clients who had CURE Auto Insurance.
“Nothing was happening,” Gursten said. “These people would file a claim, they’d get a claim number, they’d get an adjuster assigned – and then nothing would happen. These people would call, they’d email, and they’d leave messages. They were basically not hearing back. They were basically getting ghosted. Then, a couple months would pass – three months, four months. Then, CURE would call them and say they want to set up an examination under oath, EUO for short. The adjustor would basically do a recorded EUO statement, asking a whole bunch of questions, and basically, again, try to look for reasons to rescind the policy.”
Gusten said this put many of those insured by CURE in a terrible bind in which they were not getting wage loss, hadn’t been able to buy groceries and hadn’t been able to pay mortgages or car payments.
“Doctors offices would stop seeing them because they wouldn’t hear from CURE. They couldn’t get medical care.”
Gusten then looked on the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services website. There he found that although CURE is very new in Michigan, having been here for only a few years, they were number three in complaints.
“Of those complaints, 76% of those had to do with claims handling. So, then I thought, this isn’t just happening to our clients.”
CURE was the 20th largest auto insurer in 2023.
“I wrote the blog in February because I wanted to share what I was seeing as an auto accident lawyer and as someone has been basically writing about insurance companies for over 10 years in Michigan.”
Gusten stated he is “happy” he was sued because now he will be able to conduct legal discovery that he would otherwise not be able to do.
“What really bothered me is I feel like CURE is deliberately targeting minority populations and people who don’t always have the financial means to be able to fight back or hire an attorney…People in Flint, or Detroit, or some of these other communities where CURE is really aggressively marketing themselves as a cost-saving insurance companies, they don’t really have those resources available to them.”
Gusten stated the horror stories he hears, including those from his own lawyers, are vastly different from the public image he feels CURE is spending money trying to craft.
Michigan Auto law is the largest Michigan law practice that specializes in auto accidents.
CURE Auto Insurance could not be reached for comment before publication of this article.
