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FDIC Insurance Higher on Retirement Accounts

Written by Nickel - 7 Comments

Here’s a bit of FDIC trivia for you… Most of us know that the FDIC insures deposit accounts up to $100k. But did you know that a year ago they increased coverage on certain retirement accounts held at FDIC-insured institutions to $250k? This higher insurance covers Roth IRAs, SEP-IRAs, SIMPLE IRAs, Keogh accounts, 457 accounts, and self-directed employer-sponsored “defined contribution plans” including 401(k) accounts.

Here’s the deal:

Under the FDIC’s new rules, which took effect on April 1, 2006, all of your deposits at the same insured bank that are in this broad category of retirement accounts are added together and the total is insured up to $250,000. Your retirement accounts also are separately insured from any other deposits you may have at the same institution.

However, it’s very important to keep in mind that FDIC insurance applies to deposits, not investments:

The FDIC protects checking accounts, savings accounts, CDs (special accounts you’d typically hold for anywhere from one month to five years) and other types of deposits. The FDIC does NOT insure the money you invest in products such as mutual funds, stocks, bonds, life insurance policies and annuities â€“ even if you purchased them from an FDIC-insured institution.

That being said, if your account qualifies and you bank or savings institution were to fail, the FDIC insurance would cover your losses (again, in deposit accounts only) dollar for dollar, including principal and accrued interest, up to the insurance limit.

Published on April 5th, 2007 - 7 Comments
Filed under: Banking, Retirement, Saving & Investing

About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!

7 Responses to “FDIC Insurance Higher on Retirement Accounts”

1
limeade Says:
April 5th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Good to know. I wish I had enough for $250,000 to be sitting around in cash, but I’d probably have it invested anyway.

-limeade
http://fiscalmusings.blogspot.com
2
KMC Says:
April 5th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
A friend asked me recently about FDIC insurance the other day, so I looked up some details. It’s important to note that the $100K or $250K is per depositor per bank. So if you have over that amount, you need to have it in another bank.
3
saving advice Says:
April 6th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Hmmm, I vaguely remember hearing something about this awhile back, but definitely didn’t stick with me. Hopefully it will with this reminder…
4
aggressive saver Says:
April 7th, 2007 at 9:03 am
yeah, 100k (or 250k) per depositor per bank means that if you have a joint account with your spouse, that translates to 200k (or 500k). if there are more names on the account, each is insured up to 100k (or 250k).

the fdic has a calculator on their site http://www2.fdic.gov/edie/ to help calculate how much your accounts are covered.

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