The FDIC deposit insurance limits were raised this month. The new magic number is $250,000. Generally speaking, under the new rules an individual person has coverage for $250,000 per institution. A joint account has coverage of $250,000 per person. So with two people on a joint account there could be coverage up to $500,000 per insured bank.
If you have your account titled in the name of your living trust you can take advantage of substantial coverage. For example, if a husband and wife have a living trust with two kids as the beneficiaries, the account could be covered up to $1,000,000 per institution.
IRAs and other retirement accounts are covered for $250,000 per owner. Corporations, partnerships and other entities are covered for $250,000 per entity.
Don’t rely on this post to clarify your personal situation, especially if you have more than $250,000 in any one institution. See The FDIC Guide to Insuring Your Deposits for more details. Better yet, the FDIC has a great tool called EDIE the Estimatorto estimate your deposit insurance coverage. It can handle every possble scenario, including all different types of trust account situations. We encourage everybody to try this at least once. (It’s not just for individuals; businesses can estimate their coverage, too.)
Remember that coverage is calculated per depositor per insured bank. It is not per account. So if you have multiple accounts at a bank, you need to take that into account. That is why EDIE the Estimator is such a great tool, because it keeps track of everything.
A special note: These rules are set to expire at the end of 2009 and revert back to the $100,000 base coverage. We expect more permanent rules before that time with coverage greater than $100,000.
Thanks for the info. I checked out the Edie tool and found it very useful !