The Road Accident Fund (RAF) is South Africa’s fault-based, publicly administered road injury compensation scheme, funded by a fuel levy. It is widely acknowledged as financially unsustainable, administratively inefficient, and inequitable in benefit allocation. This paper assesses the RAF against the Road Accident Fund Commission’s four criteria: reasonableness, affordability, equity, and sustainability; and compares it with two alternatives: the no-fault Road Accident Benefit Scheme (RABS) and compulsory third-party insurance (CTPI) provided by private insurers. Using actuarial, economic, legal, and institutional perspectives, the paper benchmarks the loss of income and medical benefits against South Africa’s broader social security systems and surveys over a dozen international compensation models.

It examines funding methods, including fuel levies, mandatory insurance, and hybrid arrangements, and evaluates each model’s distributional equity and its prospects for long-term financial sustainability. RAF performance is evaluated in light of governance failures between 2020 and 2025, cost escalation from inflated loss of income awards, and payment delays that significantly reduce the real value to victims. RABS offers structured, no-fault benefits with a greater emphasis on medical treatment and rehabilitation, which could be less costly than the RAF. However, constitutional concerns arise if common law rights to sue are removed without equivalent compensation. CTPI, by contrast, is fault-based but benefits from actuarial funding discipline, competitive cost control, and efficient claims management; however, compliance and uninsured vehicle risk remain challenges, necessitating residual state coverage. Actuarial estimates indicate that RAF benefit costs quadrupled in real terms between 2010 and 2020, primarily due to a decline in claims defence efficiency. The original RABS design could cap costs; CTPI could achieve significant savings through market efficiency. No single model fully meets all four criteria. Without prescribing a specific model, the paper concludes that a hybrid approach should be adopted for future accident compensation, combining the strengths and mitigating the weaknesses of the RAF, RABS, and CTPI systems, supported by sound governance reform and actuarial oversight to ensure long-term sustainability.