FDIC Policy Changes

Way back when one of the best places to keep some assets was in a tried and true savings account held at a bank. Until the 2008 stock market implosion that was history. Now that history is beginning to repeat itself, keeping some cash in an insured bank account is something that everyone needs to have.

As part of the 2008 bailout package, the FDIC has increased the amount of insurance covering some accounts held at FDIC insured banks. The old amount of $100,000 per account owner per account and $250,000 on assets held in Individual Retirement Accounts. The bailout legislation recently passed has increased the insurable limit to $250,000 on all accounts. There are a few tricks that can actually increase the amount of coverage that you have -- for example, a standard savings account and a savings account held in an IRA are technically different account owners. A married couple could each have an individual account, each could have an IRA account, a buiness account and a joint account. This married could can now have $250,000 per account (7 accounts) insured within the same financial institution, this is considerably more than the $1,000,000 limit on the 7 accounts that the old rules protected.

There is a catch with this new rule. The catch is that these limits only exist for 2009. Keep this in mind when you are setting up your accounts -- if you are setting up CDs within these accounts, make sure that you can change your account setup prior to the end of 2009 to make sure that all is covered.