‘We’re paying quite well’ - RAF gives R8.9bn in just three months

The Road Accident Fund (RAF) has revealed that it paid out R8.9bn in claims in just three months of the first quarter of the 2026/27 financial year.

The payout relates to 80,665 claims settled with an average of R283,595 per claim.

We are 54% above where we used to be at the same time last year

—  RAF board secretary Mokete Daniel Penane

However, the improved payout performance is being accompanied by a growing claims workload, the fund said, because of having to deal with an influx of the RAF 1 forms following a court ruling in May.

Presenting the fund’s performance to parliament, RAF board secretary Mokete Daniel Penane said the first quarter had shown a significant improvement compared with the same period last year.

“For the quarter to date, we’re sitting at R8.9bn being paid versus performance of the prior year being R5.8bn, which shows that we’re paying quite well,” Penane said.

“We are 54% above where we used to be at the same time last year.”

The largest portion of the R8.9bn went towards loss of income, at about R4.8bn.

This was money paid to claimants who could no longer work because of injuries sustained in road accidents.

The fund also paid about R2bn in plaintiff legal costs and R1.1bn in general damages.

Penane said the fund had registered about 31,000 claims during the quarter, made about 16,000 offers and finalised about 17,000 claims.

“We have the journey starting with us onboarding a claimant, and that is where we do the pre-assessment ... [and] where we do the document lodgement date.

“We then go into merit assessment, where we determine whether [the] RAF has liability [or not],” he said.

The process then moves to investigation, medical assessment and adjudication before an offer is made.

But Penane warned that the RAF was facing another major challenge: the influx of claims because of the RAF 1 forms.

The RAF 1 form is the mandatory official application required to legally register a vehicle accident claim with the RAF. Following a landmark court judgment in May that declared the fund’s strict documentation rules unlawful, the RAF was ordered to accept previously rejected forms, giving affected claimants until 30 September to resubmit their claims before they permanently expire.

“We have received 62,000 [RAF 1] claims, 59,000 of which are 95% of the quantum,” he said.

The fund expects the number to rise sharply before the September cut-off date.

“We’re estimating that we will get about 159,000 claims by the time we get to September,” Penane said.

He said the RAF has made additional resources available to deal with the RAF 1 claims by introducing overtime and reorganising staff “to really prioritise what is putting a strain on the system”.

Penane said the RAF had also identified 1,007 default judgments and examined why they occurred.

The fund identified simultaneous intake processes, tight procedural deadlines and limited post-judgment follow-up as some of the contributing factors.

Penane said the problem was particularly concentrated in Gauteng, which accounted for about 90% of the default judgments.

The RAF has since introduced interventions aimed at detecting legal matters earlier and strengthening its response, Penane said.

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