Dad has no claim to $12M payout

Sorry, G.F., no $12 million insurance payout for your family.

Last week, I had a letter in this column from a father who was worried that his daughter was being cheated out of a car accident settlement. For some reason, he was under the impression that there had been a settlement for $12 million.

He asked me to look into it and I did. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the answer he wanted.

I can’t use any names here, but these seem to be the details.

About four years ago, his adult daughter’s car was hit by a vehicle driven by a guy who might have been texting. She was badly injured and filed an insurance claim.

She ended up getting a settlement of $300,000 from USAA Insurance, the other driver’s company. The daughter may also have gotten some money from her own insurer, because she might have had an under-insured supplemental policy — but that part is unclear.

Somehow, the father got the impression that a lot more money was involved and he was understandably worried for the daughter.

Last week, USAA worked with me to assure G.F. that his daughter got what she was entitled to. He was disappointed that there wasn’t a $12 million settlement, but he seemed relieved that he at least knew what was going on.

In last week’s column, I called the whole thing “fishy.” Why? For one thing, the dad was under the impression that the other driver was insured for $10 million, which would be a wildly excessive amount of insurance coverage.

So what do we learn from this? One, ask around if you think someone is getting screwed. Maybe there’s a simple answer.