Most victims of GM’s faulty ignition switches are accepting compensation offers

By Canadian Underwriter, | August 17, 2015 | Last updated on October 30, 2024
1 min read

DETROIT – Most victims of General Motors’ faulty ignition switches have accepted compensation offers from the company.

In this April 1, 2014 file photo, Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., ranking member of the House Oversight and Investigations subcommittee, holds up a GM ignition switch while she questions General Motors CEO Mary Barra on Capitol Hill in Washington. Responding to complaints about “cheap-feeling” switches that required too much effort to turn, General Motors set about making new ones that would work more smoothly and give drivers the impression that they were better designed, a GM switch engineer testified in a lawsuit deposition in the spring of 2013. The switches, though, were too loose, touching off events that led to at least 13 deaths, more than 50 crashes and a raft of legal trouble for the Detroit automaker. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

GM’s compensation fund has finished processing all of the claims it received. It determined that the faulty switches caused 124 deaths and 273 injuries, and it has made compensation offers to those victims or their families.

Related: General Motors ignition switch deaths total 124 as compensation fund nears completion

So far, 308 of the 397 offers have been accepted. Five have been rejected. The fund is waiting for decisions on 84 offers.

Related: Auto safety agency admits flaws, begins reforms due to General Motors ignition switch case

Victims and their families are being offered at least $1 million each. General Motors has set aside $625 million to compensate them.

GM recalled 2.6 million Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars last year but acknowledged it knew about the ignition switch problems for more than a decade.

Canadian Underwriter

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