In the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank failure, the message from credit unions everywhere was that their members’ money was safe with them. The reason they can say this with such confidence is thanks to the National Credit Union Association, an independent federal agency that automatically insures deposits at all federally insured credit unions. This insurance will protect up to $250,000 of your money in most accounts.

For most people, this means they will never have to worry about losing the money in their credit union accounts. If you have over $250,000 in your account, though, you might not be feeling as secure. However, there are two pieces of good news: you’re doing very well financially, and there are steps you can take to make sure all your money is insured by the NCUA

How to insure money over $250,000 in your bank account

Open a Joint Account

If you’re in a long-term relationship, you should consider opening a joint savings account with your partner. Since joint accounts are a different ownership category than single accounts, the NCUA will insure the money you have in them in addition to the funds in your single account.

Even better, since joint accounts are usually owned by two people, they’re insured for up to $500,000 instead of just $250,000. This makes them an idea place to store funds for both you and your partner, such as for your long term financial goals.

Open a joint account at First Alliance today.

Put Money in an IRA

If one of your personal financial goals is saving for retirement, why not open an individual retirement account (IRA)? The NCUA will also insure this account for up to $250,000. Even better, you’ll more than likely also get tax benefits on the money you put in either an IRA or a Roth IRA.   

Create a Trust Account

Another good option for storing excess money is a trust account. The NCUA will insure trust accounts up to $250,000 in addition to other types of ownership accounts, but even better, it will also insure a trust account for an additional $250,000 per beneficiary of the trust. In other words, if you create a trust with five beneficiaries, the NCUA will insure it for up to $1,250,000.                                                                                                               

Invest Your Money

If you have over $250,000 in your checking and savings accounts, you might want to think about investing some of it. While investing is riskier than just keeping money in your savings account, it can also grow your money much faster than a savings account could.

There are many ways to invest your money, including:

• Mutual funds
• Index funds
• Individual stocks
• Government bonds
• Real estate

There are so many ways to invest your money that it’s impossible to cover them all in one blog post, let alone recommend an investment opportunity that would work for everyone reading. The best advice we can give is to do your own research. You may even want to talk with a financial advisor and get some direction from them.

Open Accounts at Additional Credit Unions

If none of the other options work for you, you might want to consider opening up an additional account at another credit union. Since NCUA share insurance covers up to $250,000 per person, per ownership category, per institution, you can open an account at an additional credit union and deposit your excess funds there.

As long as the credit union is federally insured, those funds are insured as well, which means you’ve automatically doubled how much of your money is insured. You might also potentially be able to take advantage of your multiple bank accounts to boost your personal finances and even make reaching financial goals easier.

Keep Your Money Safe with First Alliance Credit Union

If you have more than $250,000 in your bank account, you might be worried how you can keep it all insured if the credit union fails. Fortunately, you have options. You can put part of your funds in another credit union, get another type of ownership account, like a joint account or an IRA, or even put your money in a safe investment.

You can rest easy when you have your money in First Alliance Credit Union. We are federally insured, which means all our members’ funds are covered by NCUA’s share insurance. If you want to make sure that all your money is covered by NCUA share insurance, you can use the free NCUA share insurance calculator figure out whether your funds are protected and even figure out what you need to do to ensure all your money is safe. 

Questions about your share insurance coverage? Let's talk.