Road Accident Fund loss of income claims for non-serious injury: A local and international comparison

The Road Accident Fund (RAF) is a component of South Africa’s social security landscape. If one claimant is paid more than they are entitled to receive, this represents wasteful expenditure of South African taxpayer money. Over the decades, a litany of issues has beset the RAF, including fraud, corruption, collusion and administrative inefficiencies. These issues are in the context of a very high rate of accidents on South African roads. This paper examines a subset of loss of income claims, namely those for non-serious injury. It is shown that, by local and international standards, loss of income compensation for non-serious injury within the RAF framework is excessive. One policy option, that involves excluding loss of income claims for non-serious injuries entirely, would save the RAF an estimated R3 billion a year in claim payments in 2023.