Three savings accounts at one bank, $250,000 in each. Half a million dollars of that is uninsured.
The headline figure of $250,000 is widely known and it is not the part that decides the answer. The coverage is $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, per ownership category, and each of those three phrases does real work.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation sets out the basics on its deposit insurance pages.
Per depositor
The limit attaches to a person, not to an account. Three separate savings accounts in your sole name at one bank are added together and insured to $250,000 in total across all three.
This surprises people who have deliberately split a balance across accounts at the same institution believing it multiplied their protection. Within a single category, it does not.
Per insured bank
Coverage is per institution, so balances at genuinely separate banks are insured separately.
The qualifier worth checking is that some banks operate several consumer brands on one charter. Two different names and two different websites can still be one insured institution, in which case the balances combine for insurance purposes. The FDIC publishes a lookup for exactly this question, and it is worth using, because the branding will not tell you.
Per ownership category
This is the part that changes the answer most, and the part usually left out.
Different categories of account at the same bank are insured separately, so one person at one bank can be covered well above $250,000. The main categories include:
- Single accounts, held by one person with no beneficiary
- Joint accounts, held by two or more people with equal rights
- Certain retirement accounts, including IRAs
- Revocable trust accounts, where coverage depends on the beneficiaries
A couple with a joint account and two single accounts at one bank are using three different category positions, and the coverage is calculated separately for each, so the coverage is larger than one $250,000 bucket.
The rules on trust accounts in particular are more detailed than a summary can responsibly compress, and they have been revised. This is a place to check your own situation against the FDIC directly rather than against any calculator, including ours.
What this means for the calculators here
Our CD and money market pages name the $250,000 limit because a balance projected past it is worth flagging. What they deliberately do not do is tell you how your particular holdings fall across categories. That depends on account titling, beneficiaries and the legal structure of the accounts, none of which a calculator can see and all of which change the answer.
The figure a calculator can give you honestly is the projected balance. Whether that balance is insured is a question about your account structure.
What counts as a deposit
One distinction that catches people out: FDIC insurance covers deposits. Savings, checking, certificates of deposit and bank money market deposit accounts are deposits.
A money market mutual fund is not. Nor are stocks, bonds, annuities or crypto, even when they are bought through a bank. The similarity between the names “money market deposit account” and “money market fund” does a lot of damage here, and the two are different products with different protections.
If the limit changes
$250,000 has been the standard maximum since it was made permanent at that level in 2010. It is set by statute, so it moves only if Congress acts, which is why this site treats it as stable and keeps it off the annual review list.
If you are reading this years after it was written, the FDIC page linked above is the authority, and it is the one to trust over this one.
Questions
- Is the limit 250,000 dollars per person or per account?
- Neither, exactly. It is per depositor, per insured bank, per ownership category. Opening three single accounts at the same bank does not give you three times the coverage, because they fall in the same category and are added together. Different categories at the same bank are insured separately.
- Does having accounts at two banks double my coverage?
- Yes, provided they are genuinely separate insured institutions. Two brands owned by the same bank charter count as one bank for this purpose, which is worth checking when the names differ.
- Are CDs and money market accounts insured the same way?
- Deposit products at an insured bank are covered on the same basis, so certificates of deposit, savings, checking and bank money market deposit accounts all count toward the same category limits. A money market mutual fund is an investment product, not a deposit, and is not FDIC insured even when sold by a bank.
- What happens to the interest if a bank fails?
- Insurance covers principal plus interest accrued up to the date of failure, within the limit. Amounts above the limit become a claim against the receivership rather than an insured deposit, and recovery there is neither guaranteed nor quick.