Opinion ID: 1658184
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: the question of stacking

Text: In Deyarmond and Nicholson, the claimants are attempting to enlarge their residual liability coverage by stacking  obtaining coverage from more than one potentially applicable policy for the same accident. The insurers are attempting to employ the owned-vehicle exclusion as an antistacking clause, to prevent the aggregation of coverage. Decisions regarding the validity of antistacking clauses in this state have varied as automobile insurance law has changed. In Horr v DAIIE, 379 Mich 562; 153 NW2d 655 (1967), this Court enforced an other insurance clause preventing stacking of two policies of uninsured motorist coverage. In Blakeslee v Farm Bureau Mutual Ins Co, 388 Mich 464; 201 NW2d 786 (1972), and Boettner v State Farm Mutual Ins Co, 388 Mich 482; 201 NW2d 795 (1972), this Court invalidated other-insurance clauses and owned-vehicle exclusions as antistacking devices for uninsured motorist coverage. These latter decisions were based on MCL 500.3010; MSA 24.13010, which required that uninsured motorist coverage be offered to all insureds covered for liability. That statute was effective January 1, 1966, and was not at issue in Horr. In 1973, the no-fault statute was enacted and § 3010 was repealed. Subsequently, in Bradley v Mid-Century Ins Co, 409 Mich 1, 48; 294 NW2d 141 (1980), this Court stated that other-insurance clauses in uninsured motorist coverage are enforceable and benefits under such policies may not be stacked. In reaching that conclusion, the Bradley Court stated that prevention of stacking of such coverage does not defeat an insured's reasonable expectations. Id. at 57-59. Assuming that antistacking clauses are similarly valid with regard to residual liability coverage, we note that the insurers in the cases we consider today do not claim that their policies contain other-insurance clauses, but instead rely on the owned-vehicle exclusion to prevent stacking in cases in which an insured is driving an automobile owned by a resident relative. [10] Having held that the owned-vehicle exclusion employed in those policies is fatally ambiguous and invalid under the Michigan case law for construing insurance exclusions, we perceive no rationale which would lead us to conclude that the exclusion should nonetheless be held to be enforceable to the extent that it prevents stacking. Whether or not, before reading the policy, a policy-holder had a reasonable expectation of the ability to stack coverage, upon reading the policies at issue in these cases, coverage would be expected. [11]