Many of my newer staff as well as probably clients would simply have no idea of how one used to deal with the Road Accident Fund. In about 1998, they introduced a “defend everything policy” where, even if your client had a minor injury, as a passenger in a car that was struck from behind, they would defend the case, run to court on the merits, run up their own legal costs before eventually settling at the quantum stage.

As part of the Johannesburg Attorneys Association I wrote to the Road Accident Fund advising them that this was only going to increase their legal costs and requesting a meeting with the then CEO, Jacob Modise. My request was ignored and I guess, to stop one or two default judgments that may have been granted against them, they went from settling matters, which was typically the case with almost all the small matters, and certainly almost all cases under R100 000,00 which was the vast majority of cases, to defending everything. That led to them paying more money to their own attorneys, in fact considerably more money, and more money to plaintiff attorneys and while they always complain about legal costs, it is the Road Accident Fund itself that single-handedly doubled or trebled the legal costs by doing this.

There were so many other options open to them, for example, putting a team of experienced handlers in a position to make reasonable tenders, etc on an urgent basis and to stop the costs running up that way – something they still have not done to this day, while they continue to complain to Parliament about legal costs. My honest opinion is if I was in charge of the Road Accident Fund, I would empower trained professionals to make those offers quickly and robustly each and every day, and one would literally save millions a day, let alone a month. You could actually pay advocates R200 000,00 a month to make 8 or 10 offers a day, and still save millions – but that topic is for another day.

My recollection of those days when we used to call the claims handlers to try and get offers out of them and trying to avoid the litigation route is not so bad – I could certainly have a much smaller staff complement than I have now, because one did not need the huge staff numbers that are involved in litigation and one also got to speak to the claims handlers. The work that they did seems to me, and I am sure the Road Accident Fund will have a different opinion, to have simply been outsourced by them at great expense to their own attorneys now. I learned very quickly not to phone on Monday mornings, or on Friday afternoons when you are always greeted by responses such as, “Mr De Broglio, why do you always phone on a Friday afternoon – it’s almost the weekend” or within 30 minutes of lunch because you would be told, “Mr De Broglio, why do you always call just before lunch?” My wife remembers calling claims handlers for offers and speaking to somebody whose voice she would know, asking to speak to him only to have him saying, “Oh, I am sorry, Mr [so and so] is not in today”!