General Motors (GM) has recently received an additional 104 injury claims for its compensation fund, including nine cases of reported deaths. Each of these personal injury claims involved certain GM vehicles that were recalled due to an ignition switch defect present in their mechanical makeup. The recall was announced in early 2014 and a settlement fund was subsequently setup to compensate the victims or families of victims who were injured or killed in a defective GM vehicle.

Unfortunately, GM has reportedly only paid a fraction of the current number of claims submitted to the company. To date, GM representatives have only approved 42 fatalities and 58 injury claims, when the actual number of ignition switch injury claims is in the hundreds.

Other than these approved claims, the company has yet to approve any new defective ignition switch claims for death or injury. Over the course of just one week in December, the official number of death claims rose from 251 to 260, and the total number of serious injury claims also increased from 156 to 172 .

GM representatives recently declared that 306 of these ignition switch claims were ineligible, which includes 46 death claims. According to recent GM ignition switch news reports and press releases, 692 claims are still under review, and 764 personal injury and death claims were reportedly submitted without documentation.

As of now, GM has made offers of compensation to 65 of these recent claims, with 41 of them being accepted into the compensation fund. Reportedly, no approved claimant has rejected the offers or changed their minds of entering GM’s compensation program.

General Motors had set up this ignition switch fund to compensate consumers who were either injured or killed due to the ignition defects in certain GM vehicle models, such as Chevrolet Cobalts and Saturn Ions. Experts describe the complication begins when the ignition slot suddenly switches to the off position due to the attached weight of the key chains or other objects. Essentially, this defect caused vehicles to suddenly shut off and consequently disable a car’s safety features. During vehicular accidents involving cars with the GM ignition switch defect, the airbags in some cases did not deploy upon impact, failing to save lives or prevent injuries.

GM’s compensation fund is designed to provide relief for approximately 2.59 million consumers who were reportedly injured as a direct result of the ignition defect. The company estimates that it will spend as much as $400 million on the compensation fund, but representatives state that the number could easily rise to $600 million.

Overview of GM Recall

According to report by The Wall Street Journal, GM had allegedly known about the ignition switch defect since 2001. Released GM documents allegedly described the deliberate actions the company took to conceal this information, and additionally demonstrate the negligent decisions the General Motors made with regard to the defective ignition switch. Currently, regulators are investigating GM for failing to mention the complication sooner, and for using faulty parts when building the ignition switches.

Recently, General Motors agreed to extend the ignition defect claim deadline by 30 days, ending on Jan. 31, 2015, a month later than originally planned. Approximately 850,000 letters  have been sent by GM to potential claimants, notifying them of this ignition switch fund update.

In addition to paying consumers directly for injuries and deaths linked to the ignition switch defect, General Motors was also mandated to address serious fines handed down by government regulating groups. In May 2014, GM had paid a record-setting amount of $35 million to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, settling fines regarding the delayed announcement of the GM ignition switch recall. The company also agreed to three years of monitoring by the NHTSA.

The delayed recall led to several investigations by the Justice Department, Congress, 48 state attorneys general, the Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. and Canadian regulators. According to the Center for Auto Safety, the ignition defect has been linked to as many as 300 deaths.