Road Accident Fund costs you thousands of rands each year

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Mongezi Mtati

If you've ever been in a car accident you've probably heard of the Road Accident Fund. In theory, the Road Accident Fund sounds like a great idea, but in practice this fund is costing you thousands of Rands per year. But how?

©Dmitry Kalinovsky via 123RF

What is the Road Accident Fund?

Let's start with the basics. The Road Accident Fund (the RAF) is a government organisation that pays money to people that have been injured (or the families of those that have died) in car accidents. Anybody is entitled to make a claim to the Road Accident Fund, except those that were the sole cause of the accident. This means that if only one driver was involved in the car accident (such as driving off a bridge), or if one driver is considered to be 100% responsible for the accident (i.e. the accident was entirely that driver's fault), then no claim may be made by that driver. Other than that though, the Road Accident Fund is open to anyone, South Africans or tourists.

The Road Accident Fund claims can be made to cover health care or funeral costs, or to compensate for being unable to do your job, though you cannot claim for the costs of damage done to your vehicle. And with so many crashes on South African roads, it should be no surprise that the Road Accident Fund payouts are rising. In fact, according to the RAF Annual Report for 2015, last year the Road Accident Fund paid out a whopping R28 billion. But just where is all this money coming from?

Continue reading the full article on carinfo.co.za.