That’s my $.02.

HAVE YOU DISREGARDED MY QUESTION ?? CAN I STILL
EXPECT AN ANSWER FROM YOU ?? PLEASE ADVISE ME,
SO I DON’T WASTE ANYMORE OF MY TIME. THANK YOU.

“Am I worried about my money at Washington Mutual?
Not really. WaMu is much better financially than IndyMac was…”

One more proof that noone knows anything… The reallity is always different. BTW – your rules about FDIC limits are also not correct – they are more complex and you certainly cannot insure 600K. Check FDIC site…

The Personal Finance column in Business on Sunday erred in how it described insurance of individual and joint accounts. It said that each person’s interest in individual and joint accounts is added together to determine that individual’s insurance coverage. In fact, individual and joint accounts are insured separately. Therefore, you could have an individual account worth $100,000 and a joint interest in a $100,000 joint account and all of your deposits would be fully insured.

Why they didn’t fix the article online, I don’t know. I think it does a disservice to the public and harms their credibility.

http://www.fdic.gov/EDIE/

I always thought it was 600K until my wife explained to me it was not the case. It’s a little more complicated. FDIC site does not do a good job explaining this.

“Accounts set up under “individual” and “joint” ownership are added together to determine whether they exceed the FDIC’s $100,000 per person, per bank limit on deposit insurance. ”

http://articles.latimes.com/20.....i-perfin20
http://www.moneybluebook.com/i.....ank-fails/

To clarify. In your example, a married couple can be insured up to 400K at one bank. To be insured up to 600K, you need to open an joint account other than your spouse, like your relative or your kids. FDIC see joint account with husband and wife as 50/50. For example, you have a single account with 100K and a joint account with your wife 100K. FDIC see you with 150K, 50K would not insured.

You can’t beat that.

Then, you could also stop all the contortions and game-playing involved in dividing your cash position all over the place. A Treasury MMF is just as secure whether you’re saving $5,000, $500,000, or $50,000,000. It also pays a more reasonable rate of return than most bank accounts.

You mentioned the different ownership categories that are insured separately: individual accounts and joint accounts. The other common ownership category is “payable-on-death” (POD) accounts. These are accounts where you have assigned a qualifying payable-on-death beneficiary. These accounts are in their own separate “bucket” as far as FDIC goes, they are insured separately from other individual and joint accounts. POD accounts can also be called “totten trust” or “in trust for” (ITF) accounts. Different banks use different terminology, but it’s all the same thing.

These POD accounts are insured for $100,000 per owner for each beneficiary. That means, “husband POD wife” is insured for $100,000, “husband POD 2 children” is insured for $200,000, “husband and wife POD 3 children” is insured for $600,000 (each owner can put in $100,000 for each of the children).

You’re basically multiplying the number of owners by the number of beneficiaries. This is easy, except that people get tripped up on those accounts that have one owner and one beneficiary. No, this type of account is NOT insured for $200,000; it’s only insured for $100,000.

To qualify, the beneficiary must be the owner’s spouse, child, grandchild, parent or sibling. Adopted and step children and siblings qualify. But other people, including in-laws, do not qualify.

Someone above mentioned trusts. Keep in mind, revocable trusts are FDIC insured in the same category as POD accounts. Only irrevocable trusts are in a separate category.

The magic number $100,000 applies to all accounts, except IRAs. The coverage limit on self-directed IRAs was increased a couple of years ago to $250,000. That’s also a separate ownership category that’s insured as a separate “bucket” of money, apart from your other accounts.