The Michigan private share insurance bill package got its first House Insurance Committee hearing on Wednesday, May 13. HB 5779 through HB 5783 would authorize private primary share insurance for state-chartered Michigan credit unions. Kurt Loose, senior vice president and chief operations officer of American Share Insurance, testified alongside Kieran Marion, executive vice president of the Michigan Credit Union League. Representatives Mike Harris (District 52) and Brenda Carter (District 53) testified in support of the package; each is the primary sponsor of one of the five bills. The bills are amendments to the Michigan Credit Union Act, 2003 PA 215. Committee minutes identify the testimony.
If the package becomes law, Michigan would be the 11th state to authorize the option. For market context, CU Wire Data tracks Michigan credit unions by assets, members and branch footprint.
What the Michigan private share insurance bills actually do
The package was introduced on April 14, 2026 and is tie-barred - all five bills move together or none of them do. Each amends a different section of the Michigan Credit Union Act, and each has a different primary sponsor:
- HB 5779 (Section 301, MCL 490.301) - Rep. Mike Harris (R-52). Allows domestic credit unions to commit to insurance from a qualified private insurance organization in certain filings.
- HB 5780 (Section 373) - Rep. Mike McFall (D-14). Covers conversions to a qualified private insurance organization.
- HB 5781 (Section 501) - Rep. Bill Schuette (R-95). Covers foreign (out-of-state) credit unions operating in Michigan that wish to obtain private insurance.
- HB 5782 (Section 387) - Rep. Sarah Lightner (R-45). Allows domestic credit unions to obtain private insurance generally.
- HB 5783 (Section 207) - Rep. Brenda Carter (D-53). Authorizes communications with a qualified private insurance organization.
The package is structurally complete. It covers original chartering, conversion, foreign operations, ongoing operations, and communications. The drafting reads like it was written to leave no procedural hole through which a state-chartered credit union could be denied the option if the underlying policy passes. The May 13 hearing was the first formal committee action after introduction.
What private share insurance actually is
American Share Insurance is the sole provider of private primary share insurance for U.S. credit unions. It was founded in Ohio in 1974, is licensed by the Ohio Department of Insurance, and is dual-regulated by the Ohio Departments of Insurance and Commerce. Per ASI's own published figures, it currently covers more than 1.25 million members and more than $19 billion in shares; Michigan House testimony described ASI as serving credit unions in 10 states, including Ohio, Illinois and Indiana.
Two structural differences from the NCUSIF matter, and Michigan boards will need to understand both before any conversion conversation.
Coverage is per account, not per member. NCUSIF coverage generally runs up to $250,000 per member-owner, per ownership category, at each federally insured credit union. ASI covers $250,000 per account, with no cap on the number of accounts a member may hold. The practical effect: a high-balance member can carry materially more insurance coverage at an ASI-insured credit union than at an NCUSIF-insured one. This is the line ASI's marketing leads with, and on the math, it is accurate.
The backstop is not the full faith and credit of the United States. The NCUSIF is, in NCUA's own language, "backed by the full faith and credit of the United States." ASI is not. ASI is backed by its own reserves, its reinsurance arrangements, and the assessment power it holds over the credit unions in its insurance pool. ASI publicly states that no member has ever lost money in an ASI-insured credit union. That record is meaningful. It is not the same instrument as a Treasury guarantee, and the difference is the question a board has to answer.
Members of a credit union converting from federal to private insurance also receive specific disclosures under federal law that the institution is not federally insured. NCUA conversion guidance describes the member-notice framework. Advertising, account-opening documents, periodic statements and member acknowledgments change accordingly. The disclosure is the price of the choice.
The institutional argument that already exists
The private share insurance question has been institutionally contested for as long as ASI has existed. Skeptics point to the absence of a federal backstop in a tail-risk event and to depositor confusion in a market that mixes federal and private insurance. Proponents point to ASI's five-decade operating record and the per-account coverage structure. Both positions have substance. Neither is the conversation the Michigan committee is having today. The committee question is narrower: does a Michigan state-chartered credit union get to make the choice, or not?
Why this is a dual-chartering question, not a marketing question
Michigan operates a dual-chartering system. A credit union can hold a federal charter (regulated by the NCUA, NCUSIF-insured by mandate) or a state charter (regulated by the Michigan Office of Credit Unions inside DIFS, currently NCUSIF-insured by Michigan law). The five-bill package would loosen the second mandate. A state-chartered Michigan credit union would, for the first time, have a real insurance choice.
That choice compounds. NCUSIF assessments are tied to NCUA budget and equity-ratio decisions. The 2009 cycle is the canonical example: federally insured credit unions across the country absorbed premium and stabilization costs that flowed from corporate credit union losses they had no operating role in. A state-chartered Michigan credit union with private share insurance would not have absorbed those particular assessments. It would have been subject to ASI's own assessment mechanics instead - a different exposure, not no exposure.
Coverage structure also flows back into deposit competition. State-chartered Michigan credit unions competing for high-balance members against ASI-insured peers in nearby states - including Ohio, Indiana and Illinois - have been doing so without parity on coverage structure. The bill closes that asymmetry inside Michigan.
What state-chartered Michigan credit unions should be asking now
The bills are at the committee stage. The MCUL is for them, ASI is for them, multiple legislators carried the introductions and the testimony. The political path is real but not finished. A state-chartered Michigan credit union board has the time to do the actual analysis before this becomes an active operational decision.
Three questions to put on the agenda.
What does the per-account versus per-member coverage difference mean for your specific share book? Pull the actual distribution of member balances and category counts. For a community credit union with mostly modest balances, the per-account structure changes very little. For a SEG credit union with concentrated high-balance professional members - physicians, faculty, engineers - the math is meaningfully different.
What is your historical NCUSIF assessment exposure? Pull the line for 2009 through 2011, plus any subsequent stabilization charges. That is the cost side of the federal-insurance bargain. ASI's equivalent assessment history over the same period is the comparator. The comparison is data, not opinion.
What does conversion actually cost? HB 5780 covers the conversion path, but the operational cost - disclosure rework, member communications, regulatory filings, signage, contractual changes with vendors - is real. The bill creates the option. It does not free the option.
Michigan would not be the first state to authorize private primary share insurance. It would be the first state to do so in a payments and deposit-insurance environment that includes the GENIUS Act, state-led credit union regulatory experimentation, and a corporate-credit-union stabilization picture that has long since settled. The choice this bill creates is not the same choice the existing ten states made when they made it.
That is the Michigan private share insurance conversation that just started in Lansing.