It's worth noting that Top Safety Pick isn't the highest designation available anymore. The new top mark, Top Safety Pick+, requires the same moderate overlap front, side, rollover, and rear crash tests, but adds the small overlap front crash test.
To score a Top Safety Pick, a vehicle must score a top rating of "good" in each of the four tests; for a Top Safety Pick+, a vehicle must score "good" in four of the five tests, an no worse than "acceptable" in the fifth.
Regardless of the Infiniti M's not-quite-best-score in the IIHS' crash testing, it's clearly a well-built, safe luxury sedan.
Unfortunately, the value of the Infiniti M having won an IIHS Top Safety Pick may be small to Infiniti--and to shoppers. Why? Because there won't be an Infiniti M in 2014.
Or at least that car we know as the Infiniti M won't be called by that name. Instead, it will be the Infiniti Q70, joining the 2014 Infiniti Q50 among the rest of the Q- and QX-named lineup.
Good luck explaining that to your mom the next time she asks for advice on buying a safe, well-priced, fun-to-drive luxury sedan.