I understand that up to $100,000 of your bank deposits are covered by FDIC if your bank fails. How are joint accounts counted in that total?
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. provides up to $100,000 of coverage for each owner of a joint account. So if you and your wife share an account at your bank, you have $200,000 worth of FDIC protection.
However, your joint-account coverage applies to all your jointly held accounts. That is, if you and your wife also share ownership of a CD and checking account at the same bank, your coverage would be applied to those balances too. Say, for example, you have $100,000 in a savings account, a $100,000 certificate of deposit and $20,000 in checking, for a total of $220,000 on deposit at the bank. Then, $20,000 of your money is uninsured.
FDIC limits are based on the type of account and type of ownership. Joint, individual and retirement accounts are covered separately. However, the same basic rules apply. Individuals receive $100,000 of coverage to protect all their deposit accounts (the total of their CDs, savings accounts and checking accounts), and up to $100,000 for retirement accounts.
An easy way to get more coverage is to move any unprotected funds into an account with a different ownership category or to another bank, where you'd start with a new set of limits.
For help figuring out how much FDIC coverage you have, plug your account balances into the FDIC's Electronic Deposit Insurance Estimator (EDIE), which can figure out your limits for you.
Keep in mind that FDIC doesn't cover non-deposit investment products -- such as stocks, mutual funds and annuities -- even if you buy them through at a bank. See Your Insured Deposit brochure at the FDIC's Web site for more details about what is and isn't covered.
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