FDIC limits - Protecting Cash Deposits above $250k without Managing a Dozen Bank Accounts
If you’re sitting on a large cash balance, the FDIC limit can become annoying fast.
The usual advice is to spread the money across multiple banks so each account stays under the $250,000 insurance limit. That works, but managing a bunch of logins, statements, tax forms, and rate changes gets old quickly.
CDARS and ICS are programs that lets one bank spread your money across multiple FDIC-insured banks for you, so you can stay under the insurance limits without opening a bunch of separate accounts yourself. Here's the difference:
- Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service (CDARS) is for CDs. It spreads your money across multiple banks in FDIC-insured chunks while you work through one bank.
- Insured Cash Sweep (ICS), is for more liquid cash. It does something similar, but with deposit accounts like money market or savings accounts.
So instead of opening accounts at five or ten banks yourself, your bank handles the placement behind the scenes, and you still get one relationship, one statement, and FDIC coverage across the network. Today, over 60% of U.S. banks participate in the CDARS/ICS program. So odds are, you know one.
IntraFi (www.intrafi.com ) acts as the central network manager that automatically splits and routes large deposits into sub-$250,000 increments across more than partner banks to secure full FDIC insurance for depositors through a single account.
Looking for a participating Bank? Go here: https://www.intrafi.com/bank-locator (they also do a map if it knows your location, usually defaulting to it)