IndyMac Lesson: Check for FDIC Insurance

Are your bank deposits insured?

If your account is under the $100,000 FDIC insurance limit, even headlines like the failure of IndyMac Bank, one of the largest bank failures in history, shouldn't make you lose any sleep. But if your deposits are above the $100,000-per-person insured limit, this latest bank failure should be a wake-up call.

America has $6.881 trillion dollars in deposit institutions, but only $4.241 trillion of those deposits are insured, according to the latest FDIC year-end statement. That leaves a staggering gap of more than $2.6 trillion sitting in uninsured bank accounts.

In the IndyMac takeover, it has been estimated that around $1 billion of deposits in the bank were uninsured, impacting 10,000 depositors. ...