Hi everyone,

I had quite a few questions lately regarding the FDIC insurance limitations. Let me try to give a brief summary on how the insurance currently works.

The increased limit from $100,000 to $250,000 is temporary and will expire on December 31st, 2009.I guess there is always a chance that it might be renewed.
The limits are on a per type of account basis. The types of accounts are individual, joint, IRA’s and certain other retirement accounts as well as the beneficiary of trust accounts.
These limitations are per bank, so looking at the scenarios below you can repeat this at every bank that provides FDIC insurance coverage.
Let’s look at each of them:

Individual: The insurance covers the individual up to the limit of $250,000, no matter if the person has one or multiple accounts. If the person has multiple account, the deposits in the different accounts will be added together and are insured up to the limit.
Joint Accounts: With a joint account, both owners each get the $250,000 in coverage for a total coverage of $500,000. If a couple has multiple joint accounts at the same bank, the amounts are added together just like with the individual account.
IRA’s: The same rules apply as with individual accounts.
Trust Account: The beneficiary get the same coverage as described under the individual accounts.
If you are married, you could have $500,000 in a joint account, each $250,000 in an individual and IRA and some money in a trust account all with the same bank and be FDIC insured. This means that you could have well over $1,500,000 in a single bank and be all covered. Then you could repeat that at different banks many times over. There are a few other minor FDIC requirements.

The FDIC does not insure money invested in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, life insurance policies, annuities, or municipal securities, even if purchased at an insured bank.