GM ignition-switch victim fund approves 80 death claims

The General Motors ignition-switch victim fund has continued to approve more claims, bringing the unofficial death count up to 80.
The latest status report adds an additional 16 deaths from early last month, while injury-claim approvals have risen to 148 (PDF).

The fund, administered by attorney Kenneth Feinberg, has been implemented with a lower standard of proof than GM used for its own official death count of 13. The numbers appear to vindicate a statistical analysis that estimated a true toll of at least 74 victims, based on the relatively high number of deaths in GM’s affected vehicles compared to segment peers.

The program stopped accepting new submissions at the end of January, however more than 1,200 filings are still under review. Approximately 22 percent of the processed death claims have been approved, and 91 are currently awaiting a final decision.

The company has not updated its cost estimate for the program, which was initially expected to require $400-600 million.