Do we like them?

Do we like RACV?

Member-owned motoring club in Melbourne: roadside assistance, insurance, resorts, car share and advocacy.

Our score: 6 out of 10. A member-owned club with no regulator action found in our searches and some community work. Our evidence is thin, so we'd back them with some caution.

RACV is the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria, a Melbourne motoring club set up in 1903. It runs roadside help, insurance, resorts and car share. It describes itself as a mutual with more than 2 million members, so it works differently from a shareholder-owned company.

On governance, one source says the board has 15 independent non-executive directors and one managing director/CEO. Ordinary club members vote for all of the non-executive seats, while roadside service members vote for only some of them.

Recent news, going by RACV's own newsroom headlines, includes a $2.5 million commitment to Yalari graduates, an AI 'Pothole Patrol' pilot, and research with the Royal Melbourne Hospital on e-scooter injuries. That is good work, but it comes from RACV's own releases.

We went looking for trouble. Our searches for RACV fines, ASIC or ACCC action and Federal Court cases turned up nothing against RACV. The penalties that came up were against RACQ in Queensland and against Allianz, which are different companies.

That adds up to a middling-to-good score of 6. The member-owned structure and the community work count in its favour. We couldn't confirm the current leadership, insurance underwriting or any wider track record, so we haven't gone higher.