(MONEY Magazine) – Consider this nightmarish scenario: you sink a large sum in a supposedly safe CD, only to lose a hefty chunk of your money when the issuer goes broke. That is what is happening now to an estimated 586 investors, who stand to lose some $32 million on CDs issued by Columbia Savings & Loan, a Beverly Hills thrift that failed last September. Lured in the late 1980s by yields as high as 9.25%, these investors had tried to circumvent the limit on federal deposit insurance ($100,000 per customer per bank) by holding Columbia CDs in trusts or by scattering them in multiple brokerage accounts. The Resolution Trust Corporation, which learned of these investors from a computer search of bank and brokerage data, now says it will not pay back any amount above $100,000. The lesson? Says Kathy Halpin, head of claims and settlement at the RTC in Costa Mesa, Calif.: ''Never exceed the $100,000 limit.''