If you have been paying even scant attention to the news, you know about the housing mortgage crisis, the bank failures, the investment houses, banks and mortgage companies writing off billions of dollars.

A week ago Friday, officials closed the 10th commercial bank this year. It was a small bank in Georgia with $1.1 billion in assets.

The problem? Rising loan defaults. The FDIC now has 117 banks on its danger list that could fail. The probability of a large number of these banks actually failing is quite large.

As most depositors know, the basic insurance limit on U.S. bank deposits is $100,000 in a single bank. If you know the rules well, however, it is possible for a single person to extend that coverage to more than $500,000 at one bank. This can be done by utilizing multiple account ownership categories (private, commercial, business, investment) since the $100,000 insurance limit applies by account category and per account holder.

The FDIC has a failed banks list. Obviously this list is only the banks that have already failed. Just because your bank isn’t on the list doesn’t mean that it is not in danger. Be careful out there — it’s a rough political and economic climate with Big Government politicians ‘leading’ the way!

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the RLC.
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