Is compulsory third party motor insurance the panacea for the south african insurance industry

Abstract

Compulsory motor insurance schemes have gained prominence over the years as a policy prescription by governments in their quest to provide a safety net for the protection of consumers and insurers alike. By making as minimum, motor third party insurance compulsory, central government ensures that the burden of providing indemnity is removed from the fiscus and entrusted upon the insurance sector. This also proves to be mutually beneficial to the insurance companies as the risk pool is widened. Sadly South Africa does not have a fully-fledged motor third party compensation scheme but has a variant of such a scheme in the form of the Road Accident Fund. The limitations of this fund are that it only caters for motor third party liability for bodily injury or death and its limits of compensation are relatively low. In this article we demonstrate the need for policy makers in South Africa to reintroduce compulsory motor third party insurance in order to alleviate the burden of funding motor liability from the fiscus as well as to widen the risk pool of insurers.