General Motors ignition fault claims up to 4,180

General Motors Co's ignition switch compensation programme surged with claims, as it added over 1,100 submissions in the final week before the Saturday deadline, which brought the total number to 4,180 - including 455 death claims, detroitnews.com reported.

The final tally of claims might increase, as any claims postmarked by Saturday would be considered by the programme administered by compensation lawyer Kenneth Feinberg and his law firm.

Camille Biros, deputy administrator of the programme, said at a Detroit News interview on Sunday, claims for deaths linked to now-recalled GM cars with defective ignition switches increased by over 100 in the final week to 455, up from 338 a week earlier. Claims for the most severe injuries were up to 278, from 224 a week earlier, while claims for less severe injuries increased to 3,447, as against 2,508 a week earlier.

In a separate communication Biros said the fund had approved three additional claims, including one death, to 128 in total, including 51 deaths, eight serious injury claims and 69 less serious injuries.

The claims surge before the 31 January deadline meant the programme would spend until at least "very late spring" before it could rule on all the claims, Biros said.

According to Feinberg, it could take as long as six months from the time the programme received the final claim for serious injuries or deaths. Hundreds of the final claims had been submitted with little or no paperwork, which made it difficult to assess how many might be deemed valid.

According to Biros, who had worked with Feinberg on funds for the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the BP oil spill although most of the claims were filed electronically, some would trickle in in the coming days as they were postmarked by the 31 January deadline, journalgazette.net reported.

She said she could say there would likely be more death and injury claims granted. She added, until the newly submitted documents were sorted and reviewed, the estimation could not be made.

GM, which operated an Allen County truck assembly plant, was aware of faulty ignition switches on Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars for over a decade, but it did not recall them until 2014.

On 2.6 million of them worldwide, the switches could slip out of the ''on'' position, which caused the cars to stall, knocking out power steering and turning off the air bags.

The fund, as of Sunday had received 455 death claims and 3,447 for injuries.